August 2017

Another fun time filled with busyness.

What has happened?

We are official members of the Rural Fire Service now! Still got some training to do before we are allowed to fight fires, but its happening.

We have also been active with the WIRES aimal rescuing. – Cute pictures will follow. There have been a bunch of challenges coming up around the 12 month anniversary of me getting up here. Health has been a problem for me. I have been seeing a new doctor who feels that there may be some kind of issue with my CNS that is causing all my complaints, so we are following a new line of investiations to see if that can help. Trying to stay active and get stuff done while dealing with consistent pain is challenging. We broke the water tank moving it up the hill, so we have some water issues at the moment, and have to get a new tank, Iwill detail those mistakes with pictures later on. Vipassana has been amazing, its been helping me enjoy life without letting negativity in. I have been realising more and more how every time I sit down to meditate, the thoughts are entirely different, the challenges are completely different, its like I am a different person in every moment, but the actual me, the observer behind the experience is the same, which is making a clearer understanding of how everything is impermanent and illusory and what that means, how the priorities Ichoose should change. Its a hard thing to describe, but it is really beautiful. Anyhow, now I am off to Vipassana for 30 days. Ill update after then.

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My first rescue that didn’t end in euthenasia! A very cute young echidna.

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He fell in an old topless below ground rainwater tank.

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Lovely.

And hes in the shade safe to leave when he wishes.

So this resuce was unsuccessful. A Squirrel Glider that got caught on a barbed wire fence.

Really awful injuries from barbed wire. This one had torn the flying edge of its petaggium (skin flap between legs for gliding.) Apparently holes can heal but if the flying edge tears it will never heal and poor fellow will never fly again. The barb wire is really awful to remove. Skin pinches between the coils between the barbs and the barbs puncture, and they struggle to get off which just makes it all worse.

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This is a little baby paddemelon, made it into care after mum was hit by a motorcycle.

Cute paws.

This is ajoey wallaby.

What a face.

Much older joeys, these guys are in ‘high school’ where they get to roam around and eat the grass in a large enclosure.

Im not sure who is enjoying the bottle more.

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Obligatory after bottle cuddles. For digestion.

So alert!

This poor fellow shares a pouch with his best friend, who has pooped all over him. Pooping in the pouch is the height of bad manners.

No poop on this one.

And this is what happens when you poop the pouch.

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This girl was a successful release, you can see shes got a joey of her own. She was ill and had to be kept in care longer than would be ideal and as a result she is a little too familiar with humans, and is hopeful for a bottle of her own.

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This is a St Andrews Cross Orb Weaver that lives next to our water heater. This was a little experiment that showed me that leeches can unstick themselves from spider web.

Poor spider used a lot of web trying to catch the leech so Igave her a mealworm to rejuvinate with. I was also trying to get some photos of her orange spinarettes.

Those spinarettes retract when she’s not using them.

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Nailed the focus! Happy with that shot.

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Beautiful spider.

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Yellow tailed black cockatoo. These guys apparently are the harbingers of rain. They love to rip apart tree branches looking for grubs.

They look like they are playful and love doing what they do. They are also really big!

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Brown huntsman from our house.

We love our spider friends and protectors.

This is a sad echidna with dermatitis. We took him to the animal hospital at Currumbin for treatment.

Thisis a big pile of cactus recovering from living in the rainforest.

My line of cactus gets ever longer.

We cleared the area back at the bananas. Looks so much nicer, and we uncovered massive hollow logs and pretty ferns. Planted some dragon fruit by the stump back there.

I was shown a good lantana clearing technique where you lift the mass so you can rip out the roots and just keep rolling it into a big mulchy pile that will stop my soil washing down the hill. Hopefully.

You can see the massive red cedar log that someone cut down and left to rot. Im hoping to grow Monstera Deliciosa all over it. (Fruit salad tree)

Theres also a couple of banana suckers we planted, and you can’t see them but theres a few kinds of passionfruit planted back there too.

This whole area was lantana over my head, now its all rolled up over the back of that log.

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Looking down the embankment behind the dragonfruit. There’s a seasonal creek down there and lots of treeferns. Future explores down there!

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Upslope from the bananas I cleared (you can see the lantana pile)

I planted flowering natives, we have a little native bee hive nearby, so hopefully I can cultivate this area into a native flowering food area for the animals to enjoy. We have a trail several meter above this area so we would be able to observe them all without intruding.

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Jess found this log in a hole.

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July 2017

A long time between posts, I havent been very focused on the internet lately, sorry about that!

So much has happened. Went to Victoria for The Town festival and to visit everybody which was wonderful. On the drive back we visited a couple of cactus farms – Cactus Country in strathmearton and Lester Myers in Gilgandra.
Had a lot of trouble uploading photos, finally managed to do it . They can be found here: 
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-3duh9mEWSYeU1mVmhqdE5SZlk
Many beautiful cactus.

This one is my favorite though!

Ok so I have done another Vipassana retreat, it was really challenging and brought up a lot of the old depressive feelings that I havent felt and had forgotten about so long ago. It sucked just as much as it always did, however was a good reminder of why I am doing vipassana and that I have a lot of old stuff to work through. I feel like it is really helping me and teaching me a lot about myself so I’ve decided to commit to doing at least 30 days of vipassana retreat coming up in August. Been keeping up with 2 hours a day of practice which is great. Now that I am getting into the rhythm of it, The practice is getting easier and I can feel my mind getting calmer and stronger.

I have been trying to focus on improving my mind and body. (more so than usual) I dont want my lethargy and lack of motivation and physical discomfort to be permanent. I have been to see a highly unorthodox doctor who is qualified in many alternative therapies also (osteopathy, naturopathy and other things) It was pretty strange and I dont know if it actually helped me, but i the three weeks since I saw him Ihave definitely felt an improvement in my energy, motivation and mood. (might be 50 days of meditating every day taking effect), also it might have something to do with that it has finally stopped raining! We have been super busy over the last few days burning off and gathering all the garbage left by the previous owners into two big heaps. So much crap. There was so much ruined and rotting wood that our bonfire has been burning for 48 hours so far! Lots of lantana has been cleared and native plants have been taking their place.

I dont have any photos prepared for this entry, I just wanted to get a post up, but I will upload some new photos of how much nicer ther place looks now.
We are now onto version 2.0 of our dream house plan. Again I will try to upload some pictures of it on the next update 🙂

Ok theres so much has happened and planning but I cant remember any of it to write.

 

March

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Another interesting month.

Rain. So much rain! I dont know the exact figures, but its rained here every day for two weeks or so, the tail of cyclone Debbie really dumped on the area. At one stage we got more than 400ml in 24 hours, some places got 800ml in 24 hours! All the valleys funneled the water right into Lismore, which flooded the hardest it has done since 1974. 11.55m the river rose! Lismore is smashed all the shops were ruined. But I am amazed how quick they clean up.

My property seems to have come through pretty much unscathed. Got a bit of mould to deal with and one or two roof leaks, but did pretty well all considered.

I feel like this month has bee up and down for me motivationally, rain is a good excuse not to do anything, but I really felt flat a lot of the time.

I have decided to try using coffee to see if I can stimulate more motivation and energy.

I tried my first cup of coffee for about 10 years. Woah. Sweats, tremors, compulsive eating, jaw clenching. Strong stuff. I will continue the experiment.

While Jess has been away working, I have been chopping down problem trees, moving rubbish about, plotting and planning the future, and trying to make the place look nice. I have no photos of my progress for some reason, but lots of photos of other things. Ive been pretty disappointed with the amount of work I got done, but the rain really got in the way so Im not beating myself up about it.

I had to chop a couple of trees down as they were starting to lean dangerously towards my generator shed.

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One of my lophs is growing a flower out its side. Weird.

My first Brug flower on the new bush. Happy.

The local creek swollen. Apparently it topped the bridge I was standing on for this picture at peak.

This hole happened overnight. The whole road is chewed up from the water, some spots much worse than this and crisscossing the road. Dont know why this is the one I decided to photo but there it is.

Old mate kookaburra.

Some photos of landslip devastation. This one was over 5 metres deep. A safe distance from my property, but it does make me a little anxious knowing this slope was well treed and it still went down. Fortunately my block seems to drain well.

My new temporary waterfall

Ihave quite a few waterfalls at the moment actually.

So this is the dam above capacity. Some slips on the wall but still holidng. Its going to need some work once the waters recede.

The little picnic area and swimming entrance completely underwater.

The spillway spilling

A tree that fell down, old and rotten. fortunately the bit that fell missed my favorite fungi Ihave found so far. Ido believe this is Gandermus.. but i Could be wrong. It is rather large.

This is a water dragon I rescued. He was not in a good way and had to be euthanased. Im still going to call it rescuing even if they die.

This naughty little baby wanted in the house via the washing line. Ihad to discourage him with the umbrella.

He was very persistant.

It has rained every day for two weeks. We are all a little bored of being stuck inside so much.

More cool house spiders

New friend on a aloe I was gifted.

March 2017

Another busy productive interesting month.

What has happened? Well rat dog went back to melbourne and left us a parting gift of a flea infestation in the bedroom. They are difficult to get rid of. We vacated the house and slept in Jess’s van. Daily vacuuming and Neem spray didnt quite do the trick so we had to resort to commercial carpet spray, that sorted the buggers out.

The main thing I wanted to share this post was about health. Its hard to  put into words what I want to share but Ill try.
I have definitely been feeling different since passing the hundred or so gallstones, not sure what normal feels like anymore so I have been trying to take it fairly easy and being much more conscious of what I put into my body. It feels like I have purged a whole bunch of negativity and awfulness that has been lingering inside me since long ago in darker times, but at the same time I didn’t seem to feel any better, kind of confused and listless. Anyhow we had a little mushroom ceremony at home one night, I don’t usually have much to do with them, but it felt like the right thing to do. I asked them to help me with my body cleansing efforts and to help me move forward with my health consciousness and plans for the future.
Things got really interesting. I got really hot, uncomfortable and itchy. Really itchy. It felt like there were tiny fleas nibbiling all through my hair, beard, armpits and groin. Awful. Then sickness, stomach pains, dry retching, burping, phlegm and general awful. Then I was pretty much incapacitated, face down spreadeagled on the floor flopping around like a fish out of water. I still had a smile on my face, but boy it was hard work. Then we started talking.. In the next few hours I had so many realisations. I realised I am still suffering from depression. Which shocked me. I am generally very happy these days and loving my life, but I realise there is a struggle underlying my otherwise happy existence, the struggle to care. 
I think it is residual damage from having spent maybe a decade teetering through suicidal depression and chronic neck injuries In the pain and misery I think my biggest goal was usually ‘I just want to do nothing, without any pain’ and now that the pain is gone and I am happy, those habits are still there, ignore what my body feels and do nothing. I had just written it of as laziness in the past or filed it all under ‘normal’ and forgotten about it. Now I realise there is some serious issues going on there. Because I spent so much time ignoring the pain and my physical sensations, its hard to know what are healthy sensations in my body and what might be illness abormality or sickness.
Because I spent so much time wanting to do nothing and just feel ok, my motivation seems to be compromised. It is very difficult to want to do anything, so that is what I have spent the majority of my time doing for … years. Sure I still acheive things, but it has been a constant struggle to get things rolling, it has affected almost every aspect of my life, wanting to take care of my health has been difficult, even listening to music! For the longest time I would still put music on, but wouldnt have the motivation to actually listen to it. So now I am finding that I dont even know the words or meanings of most of the music that is most important to me! I wouldn’t care enough to notice how substances affected me, sugar, caffiene, chocolate, wouldnt sense a  thing until Id had way too much.
Taking care of my plants, my life and planning for the future has all happened, but it has all been compromised, just doing enough to get by or scrape through and then returning back to doing nothing.
I sensed that on this wild funghi journey that these issues I were discovering was not just laziness as I had previously seen it, but more like emotional/psychological trauma and an imbalance of brain chemistry, which they mushrooms were working hard to fix. (Thus me flopping around on the floor gurgling and contorting rediscovering my life from another perspective)
There is so much shame and disappointment tied into these realisations. That I have not been fully present for my friends and family, that I have not given my all to my relationships, that I have not cared for my beloved plants the way I could have. That I don’t even know how to keep my most valuable possesions ordered and tidy because I forgot how to care about them! I feel like my memory has become really flakey because I stopped caring enough to remember… names… where I put things… what I want to do today.. everything.
All this left me a bit despondant afterwards. I though I was past depression and forgot that there would be lots of big things I still needed to work out.. meditation and yoga practices suffered for a bit there but Im getting back on track again now.

I wish I could say that realising all this changed it, however things are still a struggle… but it is a little easier. I can sense some changes in my brain. I am more aware of the cloud of apathy approaching and I can avoid it more easily. I have been eating fresh brahmi every day to try and stimulate better memory retention, I have just generally being trying to care about things more. For example caring about where a cup goes when I am finished with it. Tidy environment certainly helps my brain space.
I have ordered a bunch of turkey tail, cordyceps, reishi, medicinal mushrooms to try and introduce into my diet, and see how they affect my general productivity and well being. Trying to become more aware of my body. observing how I feel throughout the day and trying to notice/care about how food or exercise or anything makes me body feel or react.

Im really grateful to have a loving caring Jess for a partner who does care and is patient and wants to help me through my cobwebs and bullshit to become the me I know I can be. Words cant express how fortunate Iam to have that support.

 I have been getting lots of information come to me about diet and nutrition and trying to put it ito practice, eating heaps of fibre and nuts and seeds. Im still researching my nutritional tactics and maybe Ill write about them more later.

So I really felt like I wanted to share my mental health revelations and  see if others can relate to what I am talking about. If anybody has had similar experiences Iwould love to hear any thoughts or strategies people have or use.

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We completed our WIRES training. (native wildlife rescue and care) It was really good! They are very organised, the information was really good, they gave us everything we need to get started.
I was really impressed with the training, the brought along bird corpses that had been euthanised from rescues where they would not survive, so we got to examine everything from spoonbills falcons cockatoos kookaburras right down to tiny little finches and wrens. Actually getting hands on and feeling the injuries and the body mechanics makes me feel much more confident about handling live birds.
I was also really impressed that they have established a good rapport with all the local vets, so volunteers dont have to pay for rescues that need examination.

The very next day after completing our course, we had our first rescue. Neighbours found a sick Kookaburra that wasnt flying away, so we took her into to an experienced carer. Unfortunately she was too sick to recover by the time she was rescued, already very underweight but kept comfortable and warm and humanely euthanised.

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So we visited another carer, the bat lady. She is wonderfuly and spends most of her time caring for fruit bats. I didn’t know this but fruit bats are a keystone species for Australian bushland, apparently there are the only effective pollinator of many eucalypt species, as some eucalypts can only be pollinated effectivaly at night. So bats are super important and apparently not doing well on the east coast at the moment. We are definitely keen to do some bat care soon, but have to get our lyssa virus shots before we can handle them.

This is Boof the black fruit bat. Blacks are apparently the biggest, growing up to 1kg and wingspan of up to 1m. Hes very cute, and young bats love a cuddle.
Another cool bat fact I picked up, buts are nectavores, they dont actually eat fruit.. they squeeze the juice out of it and spit out the pulp! (and they eat nectar) This way they keep the weight down for flying.

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The little fellows are Coucal Pheasants, Centropus phasianinus.

These chaps were at the carers place to which we took the sick Kookaburra. They are very noisy and cute, and prefer to have food tweezered into their mouths rather than pick it up themselves.

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The snake that likes to knock pictures off the wall decided to sleep in the kitchen the other day. He quite generously  tolerated us feeling his scales. We are really looking forward to doing the WIRES snake handling course in November.

This fellow has lovely markings, and has been the most prominent house huntsman this month.

One day of the mango harvest. We were not prepared. Lost so many mangoes to overripening. I think that bats at 70% of the total mango harvest, but now I understand the bats a bit better, Im not even mad. I was foolishly waiting til the magoes were very ripe, but the best way to eat them is when they are still a little green, oh my god. sweet and sour mango flesh is heaven.

I thought this one looked a little… sleepy? Sick? a gentle nudge sent him leaping off the balcony and into the bush. Must store chemicals better so frogs cant get near them.

This is the biggest wasp Ive ever seen in person. He seems pretty chill. Not aggressive. He just collects grubs from somewhere to put in the nest. About 5cm  from head to tail.

Jess got me this wonderful present because I am very lucky. It is hand cut and welded from rose gold. theres two bands that have been forged together as one ring. This is another piece by Jean Burgers. Almost all the jewelry I wear on a daily basis comes from her. I highly recommend you check out her stuff.
https://www.jeanburgers.com

There is more to write but this has been hard and I feel like its too long already. My love to everyone whos reading this I hope you’re feeling wonderful and enjoying life. 

Feb 2017

It has been another wonderful month, focussing strongly on meditation.
I have also rediscovered yoga so trying to bring that into the daily routine.

We had some pretty epic thunderstorms this month that made the house shake, in a week or two we have an arborist friend coming to remove trees that threaten the house so that will be a big relief for the next storms.

So many amazing times have been had, there have been lots of visitors and we have acquired kayaks for river adventures, but have not adventured yet. 
So much time spent swimming in the dam. Well not really swimming, we float around with pool noodles and let the little rainbow fish nibble on us.
The dam currently has earthworks going on, reinforcing the dam wall just in case the wet season really does arrive and it overfills.. so no swimming for me at the moment. It sounds like army tanks are coming over the hill for the last three days.

I am working on resolving the last of my health issues, practicing vipassana sorted out most of my chronic injury pains, once I did the 10 day course it was like they had disappeared, I wonder if it was psychosomatic, like emotional trauma from old injuries presenting as physical pain. Anyway thats gone so I was still reinjuring myself fairly frequently due to lack of core strength, I would get displaced ribs and pinched nerves that felt like knives in my back making it painful to breathe, but yoga is giving me lots of core strength and flexibility very quickly. Jess’ sister is a yoga instructor and came to stay with us, made a routine just for me which is doing wonders.

So the only physical complaint I have at the moment is itchy legs – i think the grass here is setting me off – and an old liver complaint, it seems to get blocked and swollen and sore sporadically and it is very uncomfortable and inconvenient, so I found this technique to flush out thickened bile and stones from your liver (symptoms sound just like what going on for me) where you eat raw foods for a week then drink tablespoons of citrus juice and olive oil every fifteen minutes all day and it purges your liver. I am enjoying eating raw foods and using this as my diet to do my ceremony, but I am really looking forward to a lamb stew at the end of it all. I have been loving makig stock and broth from bones and turning it into stews and curries. Makes me feel very healthy. 

All the plants and cactus are growing very quickly now, they seem to have adjusted nicely, however I am having trouble making new cactus grafts, seems like everything I do is getting infected and failing, but I will keep trying different techniques until I figure it out.
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This chap came in the bedroom today and knocked a picture off the wall and it smashed on the ground. Naughty snake

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First mango of the tree – well the first I got. The bats and rats have been smashing them, Ithink we have lost half the crop already. I wonder if I can get some kind of ultrasonic deterrent for the bats..

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This graft was at Jess’ shop in Melbourne where it got spidermite damage. It was treated with white oil and recovered nicely but now seems to be pupping in spirals. PRetty cool.

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This guy wanted to get in our roof but he was too big and got stuck, had to get out backwards.

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The biggest wasp I have seen in the house, couldnt get a better picture because I was  a little intimidated.. it was about the length of my thumb.

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This one speaks for itself.

We have had lots of friendly spiders in the house, they seem to watch what we are doing of an evening. We had friends round the other day and put music on and a huntsmen appeared to be dancing it kept spinning round in circles clockwise and counterclockwise. Never seen anything like it.

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Cute! But have to wee elsewhere. Keep lid closed from now on.

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Cool Cicada, had a damaged wing, Nice patterns.

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Snake in the bamboo forrest.

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This is the most common dragonfly I see up here. He kindly held still for me.

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Unusual coloring..

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This was another monster bug but this one held real still for me. Again almost as big as my thumb.

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Thats it for now!

Jan 2017

Well! It’s been a long time since last update, so much has happened. Back around the end of October, Jess arrived and everything has been very fun and productive ever since.

We both went to Vipassana when she arrived, which was even better the second time around, really helped me establish my practice much more strongly. I have been meditating two hours a day ever since and I can really feel the positive changes in my consciousness the more I practice.
I have started doing Wim Hof again which feels amazing and really seems to work well i conjunction with vipassana.

Ceremony has been a big part of our lives these last few months, Jess’ first experience with the plant and my relationship with it continues to blossom. IT has been strongly encouraging me towards vipassana and any other form of self growth I can commit to.

We have a good friend come to stay with us for a while, he loves gardening too and having another ennthusiastic pair of hands makes working much more fun. We have been buying lots of fruit trees from Daleys Nursery, the variety there is amazing, but have been keeping htem all in pots through the heatwave we have been having. A storm broke just last night and dumped about 120mm of rain overnight, which cancelled our plans for more ceremonies, but it was timely as Ithink we really needed the rest.

We have seen a pair of wedge tailed eagles over the property on an almost daily basis, and recently a smaller third has joined them. The wildlife continues to amaze me with its abundance.

We have been having some issues with the sun killing seedlings and making our plants suffer, so we put up a temporary shade structure to keep them happy (mainly jess’s work there) Our button cactus don’t seem to get adequate pollination from the insects up here so I am painting the flowers with a tiny paintbrush and that has massively increased the amount of fruit being produced. Iguess there is too much pollen to choose from up here and my cactus rate pretty low on the bees priority.

I feel like everything is coming together in my life like a perfect storm. The property (currently known as lhamma dhamma kharmma farmma) is the perfect place to let go of all the past traumas and really focus on awareness, happiness and liberation. Not just for me and Jess either, we have had several friends come and stay for a while to have some respite from the rest of the world to good effect.
It feels so safe and welcoming here, Iam really positive about the now and the future.

These are the lizards that are everywhere in the house and around the property. This one got stuck in a cactus pot and had to be rescued

What looks like some kind of strage nest, but I suspect is just a termite mound.

Heres a big python I found behind the cactus, Jess thought he was dead because he had milky eyes and wasn’t moving.. a gentle poke with a stick showed he was not and we beat a hasty retreat. Milky eyes means snake is shedding and probably grumpy.

One of the cute frogs that have appeared around the house since summer began.

A nice peice of TBM crest kindly donated by interbieng. Looks like a fist. Gave many fistbumps before being grafted.

Heres my first ever cactus flowering again and Jess making her first appearance on the blog.

The mealworms grow very quickly up here! We finally got around to eating some, we fried them in coconut oil and they were pretty tasty. Kind of like nutty popcorn.

Here’s some of round one of grafting lophophora and trichocereus seedlings onto pereskiopsis. 

Seems to be going well!

Some crests from ferrets backyard sale in Melbourne that jess brough up for me. Had some sunburn on day one and some rot problems.. just trying to keep them alive and get some grafts off them in case they die. This front one is still very healthy though thank goodness. It has lovely form.

This is Franklin, otheriwse known as ratdog. He is lovely but deeply helpless. He got stuck in a pile of discarded duct tape the other day. He needs constant supervision to stay out of trouble. We worry a snake will eat him if we let him out of sight. He is a welcome guest on the property.

HEres another Trichocereus Bridgessi Monstrose crest donated by interbeing. He is a generous chap.

This one I have on its own roots rather than grafting it. It looks too good to chop a piece off.

Same cactus.

The famous and much sought after boobs cactus. Kindly gifted by nrivers. I do have amazing friends don’t I?  Thanks to all my friends for helping to make my life awesome.

Heres a graft that Jess had in the shop back in melbourne, it got a bit of mite damage and now that is fixed it is going a bit crazy putting out pups everywhere and growing in interesting ways.

Here is the new shade structure that replaces the awful old swimming pool. No gate, just pool ladder. So far it has kept out all the critters.

And a cute little frog who jumped on me in the bathroom.

Week Thirteenish

Another interesting week(s)

Been a little uninspired to write, but things have happened.

I did a lovely little ceremony with my best mate, not so sick this time. I feel like vipassana and lack of impatience has really paid off dividends. Although aya told me I really should try and meditate more. Fair point. Very excited to explore further in the near future.

The weather is warming up real nice, its sweaty doing anything at the moment.. Ilove it.

Bloody rats ate my entire arioacarpus collection. Such is life I suppose. They must taste good, they leave my lophophoras alone so thats the main thing.

Heres my local land mullet.

Heres the 5 foot long goanna thats beem wandering past my bedroom!

Oh yes he is big. But shy. Cute.

Heres the new  graft a friend gave me. Thanks nrivers! Ilove it. Potted up now.

Heres one of my new arios that is now rat poo. I hope they realise this means I will turn them into food for the 5 foot goanna.

On the up side Ihave got some vegies in the ground that havent been eaten  – yet – ordered lots of vegie seeds, got some new grafts happening, cleaning up the house in preparation for my lovely partner to arrive, funny how you only notice the clutter when you think of someone else living in you space!

I finally figured out that it is microbats coming and shitting in my bathtub every night! I dont really get why they are shitting there at night… being nocturnal I would have thought they would be doing that during the day. Anyhow im not really mad, just sick of cleaning their shit. So going to build some microbat nesting boxes. Lovely little things eat all the mozzies! While Im at it might build some boxes for kookaburras and owls and anything else I spot in the area. Gonna wait til Jess arrives so we can do the fun stuff together.
No luck with the Wildlife camera yet, and I just broke my computer so I cant read the SD card at the moment. Will have to wait til Isort out somemore technology.
Feeling very good about life.

Week Eleven

Snakes! I love them. Lots of snake action in the house at the moment. The brown tree snakes has taken up residence in the corner of my lounge room during the day. Very discrete and non threatening. Needs a name but it hasn’t come to me yet.

I have had a fun week. Went to a nice new friends party, made new friends, visited The Channon market for the first time. It was the 40th annniversary of the market. Very big! Bustling with everything. Lots of music and great food and good stuff. I bought some plants for the garden, I’ll detail that next week. Definitely a place for me at the market. Going to have an awesome stall one day.

So there were some setbacks this week. Something has eaten all my vegie seedlings. Well, the ones I put in the ground anyway. Very frustrating, but to be expected I guess. Looks like vegies will be needing full rat proof enclosures. Thats going to be a bit of effort and some cash expense. Fortunately the animals haven’t eaten anything in pots, (yet) so Istill have some seedlings to be working with.
If anyone has some seeds they would like to share, Im keen on anything edible, Iam starting from scratch so all is welcome, but particularly keen on chillies and herbs.

Iturned the hot water on for the first time since arriving. I am having a guest next week to help me with permaculture design (Yay Audrey!) and I want her to feel comfortable and have the full luxury experience. She says she is fine sharing with snakes so I think it will all be ok.

This is mittens, the carpet python. Mittens has reappeared in the yard this week. Haven’t seen her for weeks, but shes back.

Mittens found the rat trap. She wasn’t going to let it go, I got a couple of long sticks and opened up the cage, Mittens missed the opportunity and left again.

This little fella flies around making as much noise as a blowfly. Cute.

Black cockatoos are back. They are elusive to the good photos though. I will work on it. Im told some local indigenous folklore says that the number of black cockatoos you see and the direction they are flying tells you how many days til it rains and from what direction it will come. So far this has been true from my observations.

This isn’t my photo, but this is the new discovery. Land mullets. They have been elusive to the camera so far, but I suspect they may be eating my vegies.

Week 10

So this week has been accidently pick up huntsmen spiders when I am not looking week. It just keeps happening. They are not very bitey thank goodness.

There was some noises on my roof the other night so I had a look with the torch, brown tree snakes mating on the kitchen roof. Camera flash wasn’t bright enough to capture the action and they don’t seem to like torche very much. How romantic. Speaking of romance it is only 30 days until Jess arrives which is pretty exciting. Ihave started the process of tidying the house. I know she will get her tidy on when she gets here so I’ll try and make it as nice as I can so I can try and teach her all about how to do nothing for a while and get her out of city mode.

So I have started some vegie seedlings. I thought my seeds might be a bit old, but I got a good rate of germination from them. (These are my last year leftovers from an order from Eden seeds) These ones I just chucked in some soil and kept them wet, most were coming up within 7 days, however after about 2 days I got impatient and put down another bunch of seeds on some wet sphagnum moss in takeaway containers.. Not so good as soil, but got some more things coming up.

I am starting pretty minimal this time round, I have 

Butternut pumpkin

Roma cherry tomato

Sugarsnap peas

climbing beans

chamomile

Sunflowes and giant sunflowers

cucumbers

passionfruit

none of the spinach, basil, onions, other varieties of tomatoes seem to want to germinate so Iwill try resowing them.

This is my temporary garden bed. I chose this spot because it is easily reached by the hose, hose some nice soil, isn’t overloaded with tree roots, gets full sun most of the day.

My mango tree is flowering. Im very keen to eat them all. There was lantana growing all through the mango tree 9and most other places) so I have been hacking it off at the base and removing as much of it as I can to get more light and space to the tree. Need to get a tough long sleeved shirt. My arms are all cut up from lantana.

 I thought I would try growing pineapples. Seems easy enough from my readings. However something pulls them out of the pots and eats them each night. All the wildlife had been so nice about not eating my cactus I thought that maybe this wouldn’t be a problem for me and my garden would be the exception. No. I guess I better start thinking about fences.

My new chair finally arrived! Oh my goodness. Luxury. Rocking recliner. Good lumber support. Can stretch out and get horizontal. There’s nothing better than dozing to a book in a rocking chair. This is another little dream come true and such a massive change from a camping chair that makes my feet go numb after a couple of hours. (see lonely abandoned camp chair in the corner of the photo)

This is the view out my lounge room window. Im slowly cutting back all the lantana and bamboo and scrub so the view is expanding. Within the next few months I am expecting some arborist assistance to get rid of some Camphor and a few gums that are threatening the house. Then that valley view will really open up.

I need to figure out my exactly how much clearing I need around my house to meet the bushfire safety standards. Haven’t done that yet.

So my plants are recovering nicely from the move now, new growth coming through. Iam relocating the pots from my soil and potting area into a new place where I can admire them more readily and the hose reaches much more easily. 

Looking much happier now! the rootstock for this graft started sagging and snapped before the move, so I had to cut it much shorter, looks like is has rooted up again nicely, new growth showing, feeling much firmer and such beautiful flowers. I really like the extra colour in the Jourdanianas.

Also looking happy. Can still see some of the damage from moving, but hopefully it will grow so much that all those blemishes will end up being covered.

This is my hard luck cactus. I don’t know why, but this guy always gets the worst run of it. Attacked by bugs, knocked over, get some rot from beig wet in the bug eaten bits. Also I always liked using him for grafting stock, so he was always being attacked one way or the other. I think Ill be nice to him for a while now. The rootstock got damaged in the move and went all soggy and gross at the base, so I had to surgery, He is only a week back in soil, but I see new growth appearing, hopefully he will have better luck up here than victoria.

Yay for recovery.

This is one of the chaps who was cut up by a wire cage in transport. The rot got to the rootstock real close to the graft, but it didnt get into the core so Ithink it is going to be alright. The main heads of the graft were turned to smoosh but there is still a fair sized button growing up there.

Yeah thats still a happy button. I think he will be just fine.

Week Nine

A few happy discoveries this week…. 

My property has large lizards!

What a beauty. Walks past my bedroom every day at around 10:30. Right past where I wanted to put the chook house.. 

Last night I walked outside to find there were fireflies everywhere. It was pretty glorious. Tonight, no fireflies. The internet doesn’t seem to have much information for me on how to attract fireflies or what to expect of them. Any info welcome.

One of my grafts has been looking sad for the last … 12 months or so. I finally got around to doing something about it.. the pereskiopsis it was attatched to had rotted out some time ago.

The loph has been trying to root without any soil to root into.

Its still healthy, just a little dehydrated

This is one that was done at the same time and hasn’t rotted out. Lovely.

So when I cut the lophophora for grafting, it looked quite unusual. I haven’t seen the insides look like that before. Any thoughts?
It’s been a pretty quiet week for me, though I must say I have some wonderful new friends up this way.

I visited with a new friend I know off the shaman australis forums and was given lots of new healthy pereskiopsis stock for more grafting, and a beautiful grafted trich crest which I shall show off later. Thanks mate when you read this! 🙂

I pulled my finger out and planted a bunch of food/herb seeds.. small pots with moist soil was my method. I even labelled things this time. After three days I got impatient with nothing germinating so I tried putting some seeds in sphagnum moss inside take away containers to see if that would work any better. Turns out I didnt actually look at the pots very closely theres already giant sunflowers and chamomile coming up. Yay!

I have also been potting things up this week, I don’t yet know where I want to put things in their permanent place, so big pots in the meantime. Audrey, my permaculture consultant designer and friend is coming up in a few weeks to help me sort out my design. I would hate to put fruit trees down only to find out thats where the bulldozer needs to go.
Thats it for now.