paintings of bobo creek

when i took my dad and two of the girls up to the property during the recent school holidays we all trooped down, with our paints and sketch pads, and enjoyed a few peaceful hours by the creek painting. despite the lower water level the creek is still a magic place; heavily shaded by rainforest remnant and ferns and masses of lomandra grass. the bed of the creek is strewn with large and small pebbles.
i sketch roughly with conte crayon then overlay watercolour before finishing it all with opaque black chinese ink applied with a fine brush.

bobo creek wildlife

i took the younger girls and my dad, david, up to bobo creek for a few days last week. we timed the weather perfectly and enjoyed the recently-rain-refreshed landscape. the girls learned to drive the pajero slowly around the bottom paddock while i dug out thistles and checked over the land. the creek is low and a neighbour suspects that someone upstream is taking more water out than they should be. we'll have to investigate this, although we don't know what we could do. bring on the swales and dams. speaking of that, pete is booked in to do darren doherty's keyline design workshop in january, so we will be better equipped to make a start after that. the keyline method uses a series of linked dams, as we have in our permaculture plan, but also uses the yeoman's plow to allow water to penetrate deep into the soil without disturbing the rich networks of microorganisms.
anyway, i was thrilled to catch sight of two pairs of regent bowerbirds in a quiet grove down by the creek. they are unmistakable with vivid gold and black plumage. the photo is from this site.

we were playing cards one night when a little beetle started flashing bright light on the table. we turned out the gas lamp and watched in amazement as the tiny thing flew off, visible in the dark for a long way through the trees. it must be a male firefly which according to this website: "The males flash light as a signal whilst flying to wingless females on the ground. If the female is receptive she will return a weaker flash and couple will unite and mate."

the last encounter was rather unfortunate. we always take our dear jessie dog with us. she's a ridgeback cross mastiff and a gentle giant. she and the bunny lick each other and run around our sydney backyard together. jessie is familiar with our pet diamond python and also licks that gently. so i was not prepared to see her with a full-grown red-belly black snake between her jaws. i've never seen jessie 'go' for anything, so i guess while sniffing around some rocks she uncovered a snake who reared up at her. she killed it, which is sad, because we don't want to harm anything on the property and want to encourage wildlife. we've heard stories from neighbours about their dogs saving their lives and assumed jessie would certainly not fall into that category. but...now we'll have to be more careful with her, both for her sake and the sake of other poor snakes.
david with the unfortunate snake:

leaves on the creek

bokashi update

i blogged a while ago about my further forays into the fascinating field of fermentation. how's that for alliteration! anyway, i've got jars of wonderful things fermenting away in the kitchen with weird scobys and bulbous grains swelling and suspended in colourful liquids. that's kefir, kombucha, em (effective micro-organisms), my sourdough starters and my homemade bokashi bin. the bin is not quite as lovely to look at as the kombucha, but it is doing really well. each evening we empty the day's food scraps (including: cooked and uncooked meat, fish, small bones, pastry, bread, dairy products, eggs, plate scrapings, fruit and vegetables, cooked left-overs, tea leaves and coffee grinds and more) into my bokashi bucket, sprinkle it well with the "pickling bran" (see recipe below), press down to keep as much air out as possible and seal the bin well. then, once the bin is full i have been transferring it to a larger sealed container outside. it gets a bit pongy in there as it really needs to be buried, but as we have only a pool and pebblecrete in sydney, it then has to go into a big earth-lined container which is then covered in more soil. i used two bags of potting mix this time. some of the bokashi waste can go directly into the worm farm, but our worms are pretty well fed. there should be a two week wait before the full bin is put into the earth or the earth-lined container. after a few weeks the waste breaks down beautifully to form rich dark soil - albeit with a few egg shells to be seen...

this is the pickled waste before being buried for two or three weeks

bokashi bran recipe
to one cup of warm water add 1 tablespoon of molasses and 1 tablespoon of effective microorganisms (you may have to google. i had it posted from this site). stir well and add to 500gm wheat bran. combine and place in a thick sealable plastic bag or plastic container. leave for two weeks without opening or disturbing. this is important! then use to sprinkle over the kitchen wastes in your bokashi bin.

here's a link to a great blog on bokashi.

nurturing trees

i've been buying and propagating what i can in the way of fruit trees in order to raise them to a stage they can be planted at bobo creek. small trees are much cheaper than bigger ones. to far we've got lots of citrus, pear, fig, custard apple, feijoa, mango, boysenberry canes, blueberry, japanese maple and elm, white ash, liquid amber, bottlebrush, firewheel, grevilleas, crepe myrtle, dogwood and more that i've forgotten. there will be many more but it feels satisfying to be able to raise something here.

because of our delightful but voracious bunny, i have had to find a safe place or put everything up high. here is a little japanese maple that she savaged just after i'd repotted it. luckily it's started to sprout so should survive.

happy first day of spring

today pete drove up to bobo creek to take the load of decking and floorboards, windows, doors and railings that we were virtually 'given' by the same guy that sold us the cottage in mosman. it has been a massive amount of work - lifting up up and denailing the floor, carrying really heavy things...but we will be so grateful for it all sometime in the future. and it saved a whole lot of old timber from being trashed.
meanwhile i grabbed some seville oranges at the end of their short season and am making bitter marmalade. beautiful spring weather, although rather too warm for this time of year. many parts of australia have experienced their warmest winters on record...

MHRDC - maximum harvestable right dam capacity

something we all want to know... how much dam storage can we have on a property? here we are merrily designing dams on our property. but there is a limit to how much one is allowed to store. good news is that we can use water from the creek for washing, cooking(?), stock and kitchen gardens, and that given our rainfall and area we can have a total of 2 megalitres. that's about 2 olympic swimming pools, or 440,000 gallons thank you. of course with permaculture a lot of water is hidden away within the swales. if you want to calculate for your own place and live in nsw, try this department of water and energy calculator.

geo-tech report

part of our development application and decisions regarding locating both cottage footings and the waste disposal/worm farm require a geologist's report. we were lucky to find a great expert in the area who spent time analysing soil and also giving us his knowledge and experience regarding the placement of a particular dam that we were hopeful about but unsure.. anyway Tim Minty's report gives that dam the thumbs up and he gives recommendations about the construction of the dam: (i quote from his report)

3. DAM CONSTRUCTION:
3.1 The top 200mm of soil should be pushed westwards off the surface of the proposed dam-site and stockpiled for landscaping etc.
3.2 There is only about 400mm of soil over the soft rock (siltstone). This gravelly plastic layer should be stockpiled for seating and also covering the geofabric membrane needed to seal the dam. Batter at 45º on the upper side when excavating.
3.3 Excavation of soft rock to a maximum of 4m below the surface will provide some of the fill needed to form the dam wall.
3.4 The base and sides of the dam wall to be the sandstone.
3.5 When filling the gap in the sandstone outcrop to start the dam wall bring gravel from the small quarry on the property.
3.6 When the gravel has been compacted in 200mm layers to fill the gap and raise the wall to about 2m above the sandstone it will be time to cover the inside face of the wall with a thin layer of clayey gravel.
3.7 This clay layer should then be covered with heavy black impermeable plastic sheeting overlapped at any joins.
3.8 The sealing plastic membrane should then be covered with clayey gravel to keep it in place.
3.9 Finally the overflow for the dam will need to be constructed over the road (which is to be built on the dam wall).
3.10 To prevent erosion the section of the overflow over the road should be weak concrete made by mixing one part of cement to four parts of the local road gravel.

notice tim recommends moving and preserving the top soil. some excavators just bulldoze over the top of it...
i'll try and indicate the location of the dam. it was paula's idea, and we really like it because it sits directly in front of the cottage and eventual house site looking northwards where the view is and visible from the main parts of the cottage and especially the deck. the dam is located on the edge of the escarpment where there is evidence of erosion and paula's suggestion is that the road deviate over the edge of the dam, thus compressing the wall. hard to describe, but think 'scenic'. here is the diagram of this area - 'ducks' is the dam site:
and here are two photos that show the edge of the area...
where the rocks are will be the dam.