This cool wet summer is glorious. The grass continues to grow, the cattle are fat and rainy days mean inside jobs are slowly being worked through. The rain also means we are able to continue to grow and develop the Rock Farm with a couple of little projects.

I was really excited to get going on our first project – having placed an order almost 18 months ago. With such a magnificent body of water in our dam, it seemed like a good idea to stock our dam with some fish. Last week we took delivery of 500 Silver Perch (bidyanus bidyanus) fingerlings from Alan at Jamberoo Aquaculture (http://www.silverperch.com.au).

The silver perch is a medium sized native fish found in the Murray Darling Basin. This means that should our dam overflow and fish escape, they will enter their natural habitat. Sadly today the silver perch are functionally extinct in the Murrumbidgee river system, which our local creek eventually joins. Indeed in the last 40 years wild silver perch populations have collapsed, with only a small pocket surviving in the mid reaches of the Murray River. The fish do not breed in dams or other impounded water supplies.

The fish arrived in great shape, and quite a lot larger than we expected. In a couple of years they should be plate size – if the cormorant who has taken to camping on the dam wall doesn’t get them first. To give the fish half a chance, I put some old pipes in the dam to give the fish some shelter should they want it.

In another part of the farm, we have been watching oaks come out of the ground. We planted a range of acorns last May and around 70% have sprouted and are doing well (https://rockfarming.com/2021/05/16/more-trees-planted-on-the-rock-farm/). I was sharing my progress with a colleague at work, when he invited me to collect a number of oak seedlings that had come up under some oaks growing at his place to fill in my gaps. There were hundreds of little oaks all competing for lights, and I quickly filled all the punnets I had brought. What I didn’t expect was some much taller saplings also looking for a new home. I harvested three buckets of tall saplings and hurried home.

I soon had the new seedlings and taller saplings in the ground. Hopefully they make the most of the rain forecast this week.

I spent an hour or so weeding around the seedlings, and mulched around these young trees. This really is the most ideal season to get them established. Knowing how many oak seedlings I left behind, I will be going back to get some more soon.

A shout out to CK for the beautiful trees and Alan and Jamberoo Aquaculture for the beautiful fish! It sure makes the sunset photos even more special overlooking the dam with it’s new inhabitants and sharp eyes may spot the oak saplings in the tree guards on the right behind the dam.

My next post has some exciting news – and I can’t wait to share it with you. There are some wonderful people in our local region doing some exceptional things on their farms, and I had the privilege to join some of them to hear their stories and how they are also pursuing the goals of healing their land.