Tag Archives: Bees

A tinder dry tale of a late winter fire

by . Posted on
Comboyne View
09 Aug

Last Monday I was in town (which isn’t usual) and happened to hear on The Country Hour that the RFS was bringing in the fire permit season a month earlier than they have for the past few years. It used to be 1st October. For the past couple of years it has been 1st September. Now they were saying 1st August.

That meant we had 3 days to do a month’s burning! Farmers generally burn off in August – after the frosts have killed the grass and the air temps have increased. So bringing forward the deadline was a foolhardy decision by the RFS. It would have been better to have told us all in June or July that if there was no rain, they would be bringing in the permit season earlier.

I had been for a big walk, high into the bush the previous day, looking for the star picket post remover which seems to have vanished into thin air! I hadn’t been up there for maybe 6 months and I was amazed by the depth of the leaf litter and the branches and other debris littering the bushscape.  After 7 lush wet years and then the high, drying, winds we have experienced lately, I was walking on 6 inches of crackly, slippery, dryness and navigating fallen tree limbs very few feet.

We hadn’t burnt up there for about 4 years and clearly, if we wanted to be safe in the event of a catastrophic fire summer, we needed to light it up.

We don’t like to burn, unlike many farmers who use it as an intrinsic part of their overstocked cattle feeding regime. But occasionally we use it as a tool to clean up an area or lighten the fuel load to protect us against a hot summer fire.

With the forecast el nino spring and summer, and as we back onto State Forest, we feel compelled to protect ourselves. Our lovely neighbour has been asking us to light up behind part of our property and into hers for years. So we lit into the bush behind us, Ged stayed home and we had our English wwoofers, Ben & Naomi on hand in case of escapee blazes (we have all had one ‘get away on us’! and burn a paddock we didn’t intend to!)

All went well for a couple of days but on Friday when little Ben and I began our descent off Comboyne mountain after preschool we saw a haze of thick smoke in the valley and were worried! As we drove along the final stretch of Tilbaroo and looked over to our land, we saw a spreading grass fire where we definitely had no intention of burning!

Through the gate, through the river, up the bank, hooting and shouting to Ged ‘the farm is on fire!’  He leapt in his car with the fire beaters and we stopped long enough at The Tree House to hoot and yell the same dire message to the wwoofers and then we all raced over to ‘the other side’ as if we were competing for the world rally racing championships!

Little Ben and I checked the bees while the boys raced into fire fighting mode. The bees had fled and Ben and I were devastated. Not again! (I was responsible for the last getaway blaze & have been banned from playing with matches for life!) We met up with the boys and sent Naomi & little Ben home (I need to do a poo, Mummy!)

It didn’t take long to get it all under control. The bees came home and are busy, busy. But the bush is still burning. The neighbours say it hasn’t been burnt for 20 years or more. Better a cool winter burn than a raging summer furnace travelling at 30kms an hour – with the tops of oily eucalypts alight, fireballs and radiant heat.  Unfortunately State Forests and National Parks are little managed, so we are giving them a long overdue clean out and in this valley we can all feel a lot safer and more prepared for whatever Mother Nature may throw at us in terms of drought . . .

The valley still has a smoky haze, the helicopters are keeping an eye on the fires on distant hills and we can relax, hoping that this will keep us safe this summer . . . the river is SO low, the creek is almost dry, the dams too.  When we arrived here the drought was ending.  We have had 7 years of flood and fertility.  This is going to be a new experience for us on this land we love.  But we will weather it.  And we will grow and learn.  We have to.  That is the lesson of Mother Nature who tempts, taunts, tries, feeds and clothes us.  Like every woman she has many moods and is sometimes swift to change them.  Like every woman she makes us happy when she is balanced – sun and rain.

Right now we are praying for rain . . .

Pig Tails

by . Posted on
02 Nov

On the recent holiday Monday we had a rare family outing.  To the abattoir with two very fat pigs. As a recent convert to the joys of bacon fat after over 20 years as either vegetarian or vegan, I knew that I needed to see the full journey of my meat from paddock to plate.

I didn’t want to go.  But we were combining the pig delivery with a pick up of new bees, and hoping for some fun time in between the two.  Of course the pigs were impossible to load on the trailer (all animals know where they are going when the day comes) so we were late and then when we finally found the abattoir (no signs) a semi trailer of pink pigs had just arrived before us and so we sat and watched them being unloaded, squealing at the cattle prod and blinking at the light in the bright spring sunshine.  They didn’t look as if they had ever seen daylight before.

I stood by the trailer and looked my pigs in the eye, crying softly and whispering, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . .’

Needless to say, the promised fun time, didn’t eventuate!

I had been warned by a neighbouring newbie pig farmer not to go to the abattoir and for my husband to go alone, so I was terrified of what I might find.  It was clean and quiet, but then it wasn’t a working day.  Behind us in the queue were farmers with cattle and sheep.

I went around the corner of a building to do a wee and there saw the slurry pit and that did smell, and no matter how brave I am getting, I wouldn’t want to go on a slaughtering day.  When it came to our turn the men were patient and kind to us, the pigs were unloaded into a concrete stall, awaiting branding by the local LHPA inspector the next morning before they could be ‘processed’.

Needless to say, I was the only emotional female there on the day and I am sure there were a few smirks about my blubbering, but the farmer unloading his sheep looked at me with empathy, no one likes this part of the job.  I was asking him about the skins and where they went.  The abattoir worker told me they put them out for tender and were processed in China, no one is Australia tans hides any more.

As it turns out, there was a bit of confusion about my pigs and they had a slight stay of execution until the afternoon on the following day.  I don’t like to think of them in that concrete cell listening to the dying of their fellow animals and knowing that inevitably their turn would come.  Like a short term death row.

Pigs are the most delightful animals.  Funny, naughty, friendly and affectionate.  Actually, all our animals are like that.  Each with their own unique personalities, very few without a name. Every soul on earth deserves a name.  The animals are not lesser than us (on the contrary, they don’t have to work for a living, and are peaceful, joyous, living in the moment highly evolved beings).  And yet we kill them and eat them.

I have long held a theory that there is a scary dichotomy in the fact that the holocaust is seared into our memories (and rightly so) as the most horrific atrocity ever committed on earth, and yet we cram animals into cattle trucks every day, all over the world, without telling them where they are going, and execute them en masse.

My only consolation is that I know that my animals have lived a good, healthy, fun life on pasture.  They have been loved and well cared for.  And I see nature’s brutality and arbitrary cutting down of animals – the perceived waste when an animal dies of natural causes and is left to decompose and just feed the wild dogs, goannas, eagles and other scavengers.

Still, I wrestle with my conscience when I eat meat even though I do feel it is good for my physical body.  I wrestle with my soul beliefs often, and especially when I have to look an animal in the eye as I load it for its final journey.  No one wants to die – human or animal.  We all buck at the very idea, and fight to the bitter end.  Animals are no different.  They deserve a lot more respect, dignity and thanks for what they sacrifice for us.

Every meat eater needs to visit the abattoir once, and farms many times, to force themselves to become acquainted with the animals they feast on.  We have become so divorced from our food sources and as a result have become gluttons for artificially coloured, pre-packaged meats from supermarkets, with no thought for the lives they have lived or how they died.  Animals offer us such love and joy in their lifetimes and the ultimate sacrifice to fuel us.  My five year old is such a little carnivore and he knows he is eating ‘Harry’ (steer) or his pigs ‘Lilli Pilli’ and ‘Blackie’ and tells lovely stories about their lives.

Next time you tuck it into meat on your plate, spare a thought for the animal it came from, and please start asking where it lived, how it died, what it ate, where it roamed, or if it was able to roam at all.  Get to know a farmer, familiarise yourself with the animals, bring some consciousness to what you eat . . . please.

A Cleansing Fire

by . Posted on
Ged watching his fire
30 Sep

Pyromaniac that I am, I love the burning off season. Lines of fire, snaking across country and into the bush, lighting up the late winter nights with their warming glow. I love to light them, putting a lit match to the bladey grass and hearing it snap, crackle and roar. As a general rule, we don’t burn Avalon, because we believe in repeatedly slashing the grass and mulching the land to retain moisture and build up the soil levels to create healthier soil and pasture. 5 years ago when we came here, the land was all bladey grass, bracken fern and fireweed, now we have beautiful native grasses, kikuyu, clover and oatey grass, and the bladey grass is almost gone. Burning bladey grass might give you green pick for the cattle, but all you get is more bladey grass, so it never made much sense to us. However, as a way of seeing what is there in areas that have not been slashed, it is invaluable, and as a way of quickly clearing the land without slashing, it can be useful. But not our preferred way of doing things.

Anyway, the Friday before Ostara, the spring equinox and the real Easter in the southern hemisphere, it was a dull day, with moisture in the air, no beating sun and the hint of rain to come, so Ben and I thought we would just quickly light some fires to burn down into the weeds along a section of the river bank and into the neighbour’s paddock, which she has always invited us to burn. We lit a few fires along the fence line which blazed up briefly and then fizzled so we figured they would be out momentarily and went home for lunch. About 4 hours later we drove over to feed the horses and I saw the wall of smoke . . . ‘I think we have a problem’ I said to Ben. He wasn’t concerned. He’s heard Mummy say that before when she’s inadvertently burnt a paddock!

We drove over the ridge and saw a line of flames licking voraciously at everything in its path. 500 metres from the site of our start up fires and travelling in the opposite direction to our intention! We weren’t going to even try to beat this one back, it was going to have to keep gorging until it was replete. All we could do, was damage limitation. We drove down to the horses and set them free. Then we splashed water all around the water tank above base camp and removed all the water pipes, stand pipe and hoses. Then back burnt around the tank just to make sure. Next we drove through Henry Hollow and up into the Dam Paddock and there we stopped in shock and horror. We were faced with a blackened wasteland and facing us were the bee hives standing sentry like and stark white against the ash. ‘The bees! Daddy is going to go mental’ One hive was already swarming. One was still smouldering. All our lovely workers, all the new frames and comb all ready to be filled with lovely, life giving honey. All my fault . . .

We rang Ged and told him the bad news. But it was to get worse. By the time he came home two hives were burnt to cinders and we will have to start again with nucleus hives. He found a hive of European bees in a fallen tree and bear like tried to extract the comb and honey and then persuade some to take up residence in some of our boxes but they didn’t want to relocate despite their hot home, so that didn’t work out the way we planned it either. The fire continued on its merry way all night and for two days thereafter, clearing, cleaning, exposing.

At least we are rid of the high load of dead grass before the predicted drought gains intensity – although the ground is already so dry, the river lower than it was at the end of the last drought, we are desperately begging for rain. And the fire has cleaned up and rid us of old stumps and piles we inherited from the previous owners. And the exciting news is that what we really wanted to burn, the oasis with the spring in the middle, is now accessible and we can see the tree graveyard in there. This is obviously where they used to go to extract millable timber, cut fence posts and strainers etc. I spent two days in there, black from head to foot, lugging logs and branches and chainsawing wood to make it manouvrable, feeding the existing fires to clear areas of all the fallen timber. There’s another 6 months work in there but it will be beautiful when it is done. A lush green forest, a shady oasis in the middle of the pasture where the stock can retreat to on hot days and Ben and I can wander in awe.

We have to take the long view in farming. And I am learning that stressing achieves nothing. There was no point in trying to fight that fire, she obviously wanted to be burnt. And now she is.

Working in the blackened aftermath over the weekend, I meditated on the cleansing fire, the phoenix arising, and the rebirth and renewal offered both by the fire and the first days of spring. How it was possible to rebuild and restart in the ashes – relationships, friendships, dreams, plans, futures. Here is the cycle of life in all its stark reality – death, decay, rebirth. Every aspect of our lives affected by these never ending circles and rhythms if we could only realise it, and stop demanding the excitement and blossoming of eternal spring. We have to learn to live with the circles and cycles, see them, accept them and even embrace them as essential for our evolving, revolving life on earth.

Swarm

by . Posted on
01 Dec

I was slashing on a hot spring day on the ‘other side’  and swung past the bees as I often do to clear the long grass around their hive entrances.  Never before have I been stung but yesterday I felt them land on me and I swiped them away.  One protested with a dying deed into the crown of my head and it really hurt!  As I swung past again on my next round they landed on me again but this time I was smart enough to do nothing, still smarting from the last bee’s dying wish.

Today I almost ran into a swarm building on a long low branch of a big she oak along the river flat by the teepees.  Missed it by an inch or so thank goodness!  No wonder they were all so cranky and aggressive yesterday.

I rang Ged who is the bee expert (he loves those bees!) and he got very excited and said he would capture the swarm and put it in the last remaining empty box when he got home from Sydney.  Sure enough when the sun was warm we all drove over to watch the bee whisperer at work.  The swarm had completely changed shape in the intervening 12 hours and was now hanging like a flag down from the bough.  Ged put on his white jacket with hood and veil and tucked his jeans into his pants (they do like to climb up trouser legs) and gave the bough one good shake into the box and most of the swarm had a new home.  A few more shakes and some gentle sweeping with the bee broom and we had captured our first swarm.  It was amazing . . . my husband the apiarist and more lovely runny honey for Avalon.  Yay!

Fashion on the Farm

by . Posted on

We robbed the hives yesterday fashionably attired in our whites and veils while Pickle sat in the car supervising with a bottle.  He was fed scraps of honey laden comb to keep him quiet as we moved frames and boxes and coaxed the bees off the frames we were taking home.  He would imperiously yell ‘more’ and ‘honey’ when his supplies ran low!  Later, when I was uncapping the honey stores in the kitchen and ged was chopping up veg for supper I said ‘It’s addictive, isn’t it, this self sufficiency business?  The more I do it, the more I love it, and the more I resent paying anyone for my food.’  We carried on working and then I said ‘The funniest thing for anyone to witness though is my transformation from Margot to Barbara . . . ‘

He looked at me, undyed hair streaked with grey, worn and honey strewn shirt, jeans and thick socks, at our unkempt house with the piles of never-ending washing to be put away, the cat and dog lording it by the fire, the home baked muffins and cookies on the kitchen bench and the oranges and lemons in baskets awaiting the honey to be made into jam.  He laughed.    ‘You’ve come a  long way, baby!’

Queen Bee & the Workers

by . Posted on
28 Jul

The boys are back in town!  Scottie bought a mate up with him for a couple of days this week as Gary couldn’t make it and Bill the painter has been here stripping the external windows right back and priming etc.  So Avalon is a hive of activity and the Queen Bee is happy!!

Talking of bees, we have ordered a hive for the Spring from a local Bee Farm as we have both always wanted to have our own bees and honey.  Have also ordered a ‘Starting with Bees’ book from our friends at River Cottage, and have asked the local apiarists who are setting us up to teach us everything they know – should be fun!
We are ever more like the Ark – two crazy cows, two hefty horses, two delinquent ducks, two house animals (Phee and Mischa) and ok, ok, FIVE hens.  But there’s not much you can do with only two eggs a day.  The ducks really have been a special needs case since the drowning of their two brethren (they had climbed into the chook’s water bowl and then drowned in too much water when they were little).  They spent weeks and weeks refusing to come out of their little shed and we had to tempt them into water with ever bigger troughs equipped with standing stones and log and plank ramps etc, and when we threw them in the river they ran back home as fast as their little waddling legs could carry them!
We were slightly despairing that they might every become normal and then the other night we had a lot of rain and decided to take the cars out to be on the safe side and Ged wheeled me across on the flying fox first (and let me tell you, you know you’re very pregnant when manouevring yourself in THAT confined space!).  I had the torch and played the beam out over the river to guage the rising tide and what did I see but two white ducks paddling around in the pitch black . . . I told you they were special!!
Scottie makes the missus happy!

Runaway Children

by . Posted on
19 Nov

What a week! Grab a coffee, tea or G&T and settle down for a laugh . . . .

George is back so the activity (and laughs!) are fast and furious . . . he slashed the ‘House Ground’ (river flat in front of the house) and spotted that our resident plover female was firmly ensconced on her nest, and conducted a battle of wills to see who would yield first. George lost! Mrs Plover stuck fast until George and the slasher were within millimetres. Brave girl! I don’t sail so close to the wind with George! Needless to say, he slashed around the nest and later took me over to see it and FOUR lovely brown and black eggs (I know, I must take a picture).

Then, as if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, the Jehovah’s Witnesses turned up. It was a gloriously sunny day, and after all those weeks of grey and unrelenting drizzle, I was determined to make the most of it, so I had decided to clean the accumulated months of mud off my car which turned into a mammoth session with the power washer and hoover and so I was bent over, hoovering the boot, in my skimpy running shorts and tee shirt when approached from behind by two suited and booted men clutching a bible and copies of ‘Watchtower’. They admitted that my lovely sawmill man, Chris Latimore, had suggested they came a-calling so I couldn’t be rude, I had to be charming and so we read bits of the bible together as we discussed their antipathy to blood and chatted generally about the state of the world, the community and the beauty of the day. Who knew that I could be SO diplomatic!!!

George came back from lunch while they had me mataphorically pinned against the wall and I saw him sniggering as he fired up the tractor and continued his linear progress up and down the flat. Once they were gone I decided to belatedly go for my run, and donned my baseball cap and fly veil. George stopped me in my tracks ‘I didn’t know you kept bees’. ‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me, George.’ ‘Got any honey to sell then?’. ‘Not yet, George’ He’s so sharp he’ll cut himself one of these days . . .

Then he decided that he had had enough of the piles of timber and old bricks STILL desecrating the House ground and enlisted me to help him move them. And he rolled one of the stay posts (one foot diameter for the uninitiated, and seven foot of hardwood) onto my right foot so I was literally hopping mad! It was a very short run . . .

On Tuesday night we hared out of Comboyne down to Laurieton to go and see ‘Death at a Funeral’ which had come highly recommended by Ged’s parents. Of course, we were late, but the movie really was hilarious. The ultimate in British family dysfunctionality, exposing all those wonderful family undercurrents and all the skeletons tumbling out of the closets (or coffin!). Highly recommended. Laugh out loud funny. Of course, when we got back to the car I said ‘I don’t know why you’re laughing, Ged, that’s just like MY family, you know!’

Once we had decided to get married, I had a clear picture in my mind of how I wanted the invitation to look. I wanted a sign made and a picture taken at our river-crossing entrance. It has taken months to get Ged to make the sign (so far down the list of priorities) but finally it was done, and beautiful. And I told George to slash the area when it transpired he was finally coming back to work after the wet and working for Frances next door (all the neighbours are so impressed with the progress at Avalon, they are all convincing George to do the same for them. ‘As long as I am still your number one priority, George . . . ‘). So the grass was cut, the sign made and Ged and I had a dusk session there, measuring the height I wanted it at and the distance from the gate post, and pulling out some tobacco trees which would ruin the perfection of the shot . . . I was due to take the photos the following day after Ged had chopped the sign down to exactly the right height. He came home that afternoon and said ‘did you take the photo this morning?’ ‘No’, I replied ‘I haven’t had time.’ So he broke the bad news ‘George dropped a match along the fence line’. So my beautifully cultivated oasis is a desecrated, darkened wasteland, and I guess I have to find another location for the photo shoot . . . .

A large number of you have asked about the ‘Giraffe Shed’ so here goes . . . the guy who owned the property before me was clearly an idiot. Not only did he build the cattle yards right next to the house; leave the land to go to rack and ruin; light a fire which burnt out half of the neighbouring national park; etc., but he built what we now call ‘The Giraffe Shed’. A roof on stilts – 6 metres off the ground – which means that even in the dead centre, you are still at the mercy of sun, wind and rain. And the roof is angled FORWARD so when it is raining you have to run through a wall of water to get to the car! Apparently he was going to build a boat in it . . . a tall ship? And sail it down the river like Noah when the flood came? Because how else would he have been able to get it out? Needless to say, making the shed shorter is yet one more thing to do on Ged’s list . . .

It was really hot at the weekend and so we didn’t seem to get so much done on Saturday. We filled up all the water bottles at Angle Creek and planted an Acer at ‘The Triangle’ and another Robinia along the ridge running down to the ‘House Ground’. I pulled down a fence and Ged cut down more She-Oaks along the river and piled them up ready for another big fire. And I had a big cook-in to re-stock the freezer which was cleaned out to feed Ged on his NT adventure. On Sunday morning I had booked George to go up to Ged’s and bring down his two horses so they turned up about 10 ish. His horse, Gypsy, is a GIANT. 17.5 or 18 hands of sparkly white. I swear you can see her from space! The other horse, Rocky, is a gorgeous buckskin gelding about 13 or 14 hands. I thought Tinkerbell would be thrilled to have such a good looking boy friend and Baby pleased to have someone other than Tinkerbell to talk to, but Tinkerbell put her ears back and charged and even Baby was bucking, rearing and running as if the world was ending (‘the sky is falling, the sky is falling . . . ‘)

So we left Ged’s horses in the yards and let mine have a good sniff and snort and then ignore them. So we put mine in the adjoining yards and they carried on like a couple of galahs (sorry, Aussie expression, no real English translation – closest is ‘idiots’) and then after they seemed to have settled down a bit, we tried putting them in together. Well, that looked like it was going to turn into a major kicking contest so I let go of the gate and let them free. My two streaked away as if the hounds of hell were after them and Gypsy and Rocky bolted after them. After one full circuit of this side (up the sheer banks of the gully, along the ridge, down the hill to the ribbon river flat) we followed them and when the ghostly Gypsy caught up, Tinkerbell again decided to take on the phantom who let fly with both barrels. No contact, but what a reach, what extension, what power! No wonder my two little girls took off again and this time ran right to the end of the river paddock. When I caught up with them they were wading, then swimming, downstream, unsure of anything except escape. I drove back for the camera as they looked so stunning swimming away. But when I returned with Ged they were long gone and I decided I’d better go and round them up and send them back before they swam down to the sea! I wasn’t suitable attired for river wading, shorts and girly slip-ons but I quietly tracked the horses through the she-oaks and snuck out in front of them to wave them back whence they had come. But they weren’t having any of it. They were going forward, not back, regardless of any obstacles in their way. So I grabbed Baby and decided to escort them over the river where Angle Creek joins it and up the steep ravine to the road and then back through the Angle Creek gate. We were almost at the other side when Baby planted her two tonne Tessie weight firmly on my left foot which was insecurely planted on a rock in the riverbed and there we stayed for what seemed like hours but probably wasn’t. I got her off and out and up the narrow, steep, pass and then had to let go such was the pain. She and Tinkerbell trotted up the cattle track to go and find their cow friends on the hitherto nexplored ‘other side’ of the property. And I hobbled to the bridge shouting at Ged to ‘get the car and meet me at the Angle Creek bridge’. My hero came roaring over the hill and took one look at me sitting huddled on the log bridge and scooped me up into his arms and into the car and home. He nursed me all day and waited on me hand and foot while I sat and lay with it elevated, iced and rested while it swelled ever bigger. He had to carry me to the loo and back and lift me into the bath and out and was so kind and sweet and concerned. Twice we got in the car to go to hospital to have it x-rayed and then twice I changed my mind, so he was absolutely the handsome romantic hero of my longings, carrying me hither and yon at my behest. By midnight I was hobbling and today I am almost walking so reiki and arnica have done their job well and hopefully tomorrow I can catch those recalcitrant children and teach them that sharing is just a part of life . . . thank God we don’t each have children and are starting a step-family – I couldn’t stand the strain!

As if that weren’t enough drama for one week, Phoenix was sulking on Saturday night for no apparent reason but on Sunday his silence and deep depression became obvious. His nose was swollen to about eight times its normal size! Obviously he has been stung by a bee or a wasp or something and she is still a very sad and swollen little soldier. We have been in the wars this week! There’s nothing quiet about living in the country . . . !


THE RUNAWAY CHILDREN . . .