A good weekend

It's been a hard weekend at Wirra Birra, but a very satisfying one.

Saturday started off with a long run into Stirling and back with J and Z, stopping off at the Organic Market for coffee, as a small celebration of Z's birthday. Everyone seemed to be in fine form, despite the niggling injuries that we're all dealing with at present, and the 15km or so of running went past effortlessly.

Then it was off into the bush for a few hours of bushcare work with Bearded Dave. Wirra Birra has been infested with Pinus radiata in the past (and to a certain extent still is), so Saturday was about cleaning up a few of the larger trees that had been ringbarked years prior, and had tumbled into the creek. A few happy hours were spent on the chainsaw, chopping the logs into manageable bits, then piling up ready to burn.

Some purists might argue that the wood should remain where it falls, but the tangled pile of limbs in the creek, seemed more likely to harbour weeds, than to assist in regeneration. Pulling the logs out though did reveal a number of seedling eucalypts and acrotriche underneath, so I reckon the effort was well spent.

Saturday night was the annual trip to Coromandel Primary School for the Quiz Night, and once again our well-seasoned team stole the major prize. Highlight of the night was realising that "23 P of C in the BH", is short for "23 pairs of chromosomes in the human body" - can't believe no-one else got that one.

And Sunday was the bonfire. With the help of our friends The Maddens from Lockleys, a pleasant day was spent in feeding most of a large, dead pine tree into the bonfire. A bonus was taking a short walk in the nearby bush, and coming across a patch of Red Beak orchid (Pyrorchis nigracans). These guys weren't in flower, and probably won't be until such time as a fire goes through the place, so all there was to see was their unprepossessing leaves. But it's good to know that they're out there.

Meantime, by my count, there are another seven large pines in various stages of dying, along the same short stretch of creek. So this won't be our last big burnoff by a long way.

Getting into Hot Water

Wirra Birra recently went solar - which is to say we purchased a 1kW photovoltaic system, and installed 350 lites of Solar Hot Water heating. Thanks to the generous rebate at the time (one of the very few good things John Howard ever did), this was surprisingly affordable.

It works a treat. And from July 1, we'll enjoy the added benefits of the new photo-voltaic feed-in tariff - one of the very few good things that Mike Rann has ever done.

Wirra Birra also has a small, separate Bed and Breakfast facility (that we'll get around to renovating and starting up some time), but the hot water unit in it needs replacing. No big deal you might think, particularly as we have a spare, left over from installing the solar system.

But we reckoned without the new SA Government regulations on high efficiency heaters.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm 100% on board with what the intent of these rules are, which is to phase out electric hot water heaters, they're being a major contributor to greenhouse emissions. But just check out the details of the scheme, and how a bunch of public servants have started with a great idea, and turned it into a Heath Robinson-like tangle of rules and exceptions that just about requires a PhD to understand. It's just dopey.

I have no idea how the average plumber is going to wade their way through this mumbo jumbo either, short of hiring Rumpole of the Bailey to interpret it for them.

And how's this for really dopey - the regulations only apply to customers connected to SA Water! This is an initiative aimed at saving power, right? So presumably this means that customers not connected to SA Water don't generate greenhouse gases? It's just bizarre.

As it turns out we're exempt (I think), which means we can recycle the old hot water unit, and re-use the other one, getting probably another 20 years or so useful life. We hardly ever switch it on, so the I'm not too fussed about generating a little more greenhouse gas, particularly with all the other good things we're doing around the place.

It makes sense - the government scheme doesn't.

Everybody needs good neighbours

People live in our part of the Hills for a variety of reasons. A few (a very few) still make their living off of the land. Most come here now for the open space, and the semi-rural lifestyle - while mostly retaining their jobs in the city. Largely, there's an appreciation that what we have in our area is pretty special, and worth preserving.

But every now and then you come across someone, as I did the other day, and wonder just what they're doing living here. A few days ago I bumped into a near neighbour that I'd not met before. I was roaming around doing a bit of bushcare, and pulling up the odd woody weed or two, so when I saw him out with his gardening gear on the roadside, I assumed he was doing the same.

Not so!

On politely enquiring, it emerged that he was digging up a mature grass tree (Xanthorrhoea semiplana) to put into a pot for around his house. Briefly speechless, I reminded him that this was all very illegal, to which he had two simplistic arguments

1. it was his land, so he could do what he liked (it wasn't, it was roadside reserve)
2. there were plenty of them anyway, so digging up one wouldn't matter (it does)
   

Then he proceeded to dig it up.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that such ignorant types still exist, but to find them in our little bit of paradise was a bit depressing. As hard as I work around here to keep the existing bush in good condition, morons like this are out there actively undoing it all.

But two wrongs don't make a right, and we'll keep on fighting the good fight. Catching up with our more like-minded neighbours for drinks the other night reminded me that we're not fighting this battle alone. Another of the neighbouring properties has just had their Heritage Agreement approved, so that's another hectare or two protected in perpetuity, and in the care of two people I know that will love and care for the bush.

In the main, we really are blessed with some great neighbours, which just adds to the pleasure of living here. But, while diversity is meant to be a good thing, frankly I think we could do without of the moron and his shovel.

My little babies

In my copious spare time, one of my projects is to re-establish a population of Mt Lofty Speedwell (Derwentia derwentiana ssp homalodonta) into the gully that runs through our property.

Mt Lofty Speedwell isn't common - in fact it's damn rare. It's recently been nominated as Critically Endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Some estimates put the total number of plants left in the wild at between two and three hundred.

So we're fortunate indeed to have a small handful of this very rare plant, still growing on our property. And with help from others, we're preparing sites along our gully to reintroduce plants, and propagating new plants from seed and cuttings.

The cuttings that I took last summer still look miserable, but not dead, and I have great hopes for them reviving in Spring. But the great highlight of the past couple of weeks has been that my seeds have germinated. Using some very simple materials, and with the help of the magic of home-made "smoke water" I seem to have successfully germinated around 30 seedlings which, (putting this in context) equates to around 10% of the known population of the plant!

I'm a very proud dad, and will post some photos of my little babies later on, when there's a bit more to see.

Meantime, for the curious,below is what a mature Derwentia looks like in flower. This is one of my own photos, taken on the property. Many would mistake this unspectacular plant for a weed, and not give it a second thought.

Winter Solstice (well almost)

According to the learned astronomical gentleman on ABC Radio yesterday was the winter solstice, which seems to have confused our neighbours here in downtown Ironbank, who had our Solstice party down for today. The erudite chappie on the radio maintained that the solstice was in fact at 9:31am on the 21st, which seems to largely invalidate my red wine drinking exploits this evening.

But never mind. The weekend did turn out rather well. We had another 4mm of rain, which isn't much for this time of year, but any bit at the moment is welcome.

Some of the passionate conversations we had this evening with a few of the neighbours about the gradual urbanisation of our little slice of paradise (and related issues in the wider world) need a bit of reflection in the coming days. Always nice though to spend time with like minded people.

We also traveled down to Second Valley for a rogaine which I competed in with the Princess Irulan. Both of us were delighted that we finished first in the highly competitive family category, after a hard day of walking in the muddy forest, dodging showers and eating chocolate. A short stay in the very relaxing Boathaven Beachhouse in Second Valley with our Good Friends From Dulwich also recharged the batteries a little, and reminded us that we need to get out more.

In between all this, I did manage to dash out and relocate the orchids that I stumbled across on the 20th. With the Princess Irulan I managed to make a GPS reading of the site, and take the following photos, which make the case pretty strongly for these being Mosquito Orchids (not that these are particularly rare or anything, just exciting to a novice like me who is finding them for the first time)





























These two photos (which turn out to be pretty nice in the end) are the best of about thirty. Taking close ups with a "point an click" camera is hit and miss, and I'm thinking that a nice new digital SLR with monster-macro lens would be An Ideal Birthday Gift.

Mosquito Orchids

Managed to squeeze in an hour of bushcare work on the property en route to the office this a.m. Caught up with Jan from the TFL Bushcare team who was on site as part of their regular fortnightly visits, and wandered through the scrub at the top of the property.

We came across a couple of sparse patches of English Broom which we dispatched with much vigour, but the find of the day was a clump of orchids, about 2m across, containing several hundred plants, with several in flower.

Not having a camera handy (apart from the useless thing on the phone) we marked the site to return to on the weekend, when I can take some decent photos. My guess is that I've found a clump of Mosquito orchids (Acianthus exsertus).

Photos to come next post.