May Day burnings!

With May 1 just past, the Big Burn to clear the creek began in earnest!  By my count there were 12 stacks to burn, and Sue and I, over 2 days leveled them all.  The weather was perfect for it, cool, calm and the very lightest misty drizzle until about 2.30 when the heavens opened and made our bonfires safe to leave overnight.  These stacks have been sitting around drying for months now, and all it took was a little newspaper to get them absolutely blazing.  Sue and I also learnt that it is a good idea to show more respect for fire at the starting process. Enough said...

Below are shots of the two of us looking gloriously sooty! The radiant heat from the fire behind us was so intense, it took a couple of hours to get any closer than this.

The next shots show the current state of play.  There is now space to get paths made and the re-vegetation planting will now begin properly.  It still looks pretty raw down there.  The piles of branches and logs will now be relocated into path borders, seating areas, critter homes and hillside erosion control.

Where you can see still standing tree trunks will soon house bird houses, and I can't wait to get this underway.  The bird life along this creek line is amazing, so all of the planting we will do specifically targets local birds. 

European wasps

Over the last couple of months it has been very hot and dry along the creek.  Each bit of undergrowth cleared leaves exposed soil and lots of bugs.  They all scurry away as fast as possible.  However, the European wasps arrive in force.  Initially I thought they were just after water, but on closer inspection, they were hunting bugs.  I could get quite close and they took no notice of me whatsoever.  They would find something bite-size, pick it up and head off to their nest, somewhere beyond my current work zone.  I wondered when or even if I would find their nest, and yesterday I did. And I still marvel that they did not go at me as I cleared all the Cape Ivy from their dead log home.  At the time there was no waspy activity, I only noticed their HQ a couple of hours later.

Anyway, they are right in the line of progress and in huge numbers.  I took some photos, but they seem to have vampire qualities, in that they are impossible to photograph, except the one hint of one in the close up shot.  Please just agree that there are a lot of wasps here!

Next step is either alerting the council or doing my own commando raid...I will meditate on this...

Changing landscapes

Another hot and humid day today, 35C, and it is an energy zapper!

I have set a goal to clear to the end of the creek before it runs under the road  and away.  This is so all rubbish can be cleared, trees and weeds removed and waterways unclogged before the next rains due in a couple of months.  It took ages to get any headway initially, but once a path was cleared to the creek, things started to flow, so to speak. In this little patch is my favorite waterfall, and have been itching to get to this bit to get the rubbish out. Well I was in for an interesting surprise.

Neither of these foreign objects are going anywhere!  Look how the tree roots have completely embraced that tyre. It will now be there forever.  And the bit of tin crushed and molded to form the lip of the waterfall is now part of the landscape.  To try and remove it would require heavy machinery...

Here is the full waterfall (before shot), the main flow is off to the left.   As you can it was in a terrible state, and the amount of rubbish dumped along here is staggering.  There is still a way to go, and no shortage of weed to battle.  We even had Jim in to spray everything early this morning, so this should make blackberry clearing easier... More to come!

It was also a good day for the chainsaw and the slasher.  More piles of burnables followed soon after...

Progress marches on...

The last post was a bit of a catch up on months of very poor blogging and sporadic visits to the creek to get on with the job at hand.  The mild spring and early summer here meant that everyone's lawns and gardens grew furiously with no view of dormancy in sight, and I ran like a crazy man to keep up.  Just before and after Christmas there was some staircase action, and as of yesterday, this is where we are, with the finish only days away...

Nick really has done a great job here, the slope was a real challenge, but now we can easily walk down to the creek!  You really need to try to walk up the hill stair-free to appreciate how awesome this structure is. Nearly 60 steps!

Back to the clearing.  After a big break from it, clearing has commenced with earnest.  This whole area is unrecognisable now with the big willows gone.  Sorry folks, they were gorgeous, but they had to go to make way for the right native trees.  And yes, I know, the poplars are not native, but they do create an interesting vista, and will remain until they fall.  I do wonder how long that will be, they are very old and last month one fell all by itself, rotten at its base.

Now we can see a cleared creek way.  I might keep some of the big logs as natural bridges.

I am back there again tomorrow, still more to clear, so much rubbish to haul out of these dry beds and up the hillsides and only 3 more months till the burning season!

Here is a shot of the area to the left of the staircase (facing the road), to show this area nearly ready for the reveg process.  You get a real sense of achievement when you look at it all from this perspective!

The hard trees, they're gunna fall

"Use the chainsaw, Nick!"

This is actually an old post from October...yes, it has been a while since my last post...

It is a week since my last visit to The Creek, and today was particularly satisfying.  I brought in my great friend and landscaping buddy Nick Thwaites, to do some tree felling.  The ones I had in mind were all in need of sensitive dropping.  They either were too close to the road, the power lines, other trees that did not need to be squished, or simply on really treacherous terrain. By tricky terrain, I mean a 45 degree slope on slippery loose soil.  A lot of fun...

We dropped about half a dozen this day, including the olive behind Nick in the photo above.  That one was a bit scary, as there was little room for error and not a lot of running away room.  We dropped it pretty much where we wanted it, so no drama there... Prepping the tree and site beforehand takes quite a while, which surprised me.

By November the real big trees came down, and our tree guy Nathan Beers brought the massive willows down.  He was amazing to watch!

 But Nick and I wanted more excitement and adventure.  So we decided to build a staircase from the house to the creek!  Below is during mid project... This whole area was big willows, now all cleared leaving the natives.  Future posts will start to look at the re-vegetation program, which will be really interesting.  In the meantime there is still a lot of clearing to do.

Chainsaw action

Today was great, made some big progress in a couple of areas and dropped some problem trees which were a bit close to the road for my liking.  This chainsaw, it just powers through all this soft timber!  A number of burning piles have been renewed and stacked high, and know that Sue will have a ball burning them away! Which she did (below)...

The first area of dramatic improvement is right at the driveway (above).  I raked up all the weeds and blackberry that were choking the creek (on the road side of the creek) and must say the place is looking a bit raw and exposed.  Still, it was all necessary and I hear from a great authority that now that the ground is clear again, the dormant native seeds will now take this opportunity to renew their bid for supremacy of the creek. Now to see what emerges!

The next area needing attention was the other side of the driveway, which was too hard to get to following all the rain we have had lately.  The main tree problem here or was is hawthorn.  For the record, this is a horrible tree to work with.  Spiky, tangled, whippy and generally uncooperative.  I will be very glad to get this lot burned away!  Building this pile opened up my arms countless times and defied my thick leather gloves too.  The first pic below is deceptive, the pile is at least 2 metres tall.

This is one of the trickier trees to drop and involved a bit of clever roping off, which worked a treat.  And of course when I cut it all up I got shredded.  Payback, I suppose...

Steady progress!

Thanks to the flu I was taken out of commission for a couple of weeks, missing 2 weeks of the most glorious weather and returned to the real world of winter all over again.  It even hailed one day!  My poor little seedlings at home are very confused... On the other hand, this is perfect bonfire weather, everything is wet or damp.  Once you get the fire going, you can pretty much burn anything.  Not surprisingly, blackberry bushes burn nicely, and the weed trees, particularly willow, burn hot and fast.

Last week was my first visit in three weeks, and made up for it with some more blackberry clearing and tree felling.  Tree felling is very fun and blackberries bite.  My forearms are like pincushions!  Despite the hazards, it goes without saying that each bit of reclaimed land brings enormous satisfaction.  Sue and I have a perfect arrangement now, I build the bonfire piles and she burns them at her leisure.  Tending the fires is a surprisingly time consuming activity and it is staggering how much material can be cleared away in a few hours.   I am more than happy to do the burn pile building...