On the law of averages, we have had a good April, with around 100mm of rain falling in the month. Unfortunately it came all at once. The heavy rain caused our creek to flood, blocked our access for a day or so, and caused minor damage to our temporary fence along the creek line. The Red Drawbridge was pressed into service to bring the family safely home – but this kind of work is hard on the machine, and I will need to devote some time maintaining the slave cylinders (part of the brake system) soon.

The rain brought some of our hard working little creatures to the surface. A stroll around the paddock after the rain stopped revealed our dung beetles coming up for air from their little burrows beneath the cow pats. These creatures are so important in breaking down manure and turning it into fertilizer – and it was so good to see them working away. Jo is pretty sure these beetles are Onthophasgus Binodis an introduced dung beetle (more info here: https://www.dungbeetles.com.au/species/onthophagus-binodis). Native beetles much prefer the native dung of kangaroos and wombats (of which we have plenty of as well!).

The rain also softened the ground, allowing me to rip contour lines for Jo’s new orchard. We have chosen to re-purpose one of the small foaling paddocks near the house for the orchard. The main reason for this site is that it is close to the house, close to an existing water pipe, and will probably be the easiest place on the farm to net in order to keep birds off the fruit. Of course it is not just simply ‘rip lines and the job is done’. The first thing I had to do was service the tractor. This was complicated by the fact I needed to fit a new fuel cock first to allow me to change the fuel filters first. Then I slashed the paddock, before ripping along the contours. I also needed to fell three nearby pine trees that had died. I removed most of the branches, but I had to wait for appropriate weather window to burn the stumps.

Two months later we are almost ready to plant the trees. I am still to install a new water pipe and watering system with drippers on each line. Whilst a simple tap and hose will be easier to install, we want to make it easy to water the trees in the future. Watch this space for updates as we build the orchard.

In the meantime our beautiful weaners have continued to grow. Sadly, the irregular rain, and not much grass growth this autumn means we will be unable to feed them over winter. They will be heading to the sale yards later this week. We have decided to keep three heifers, which we will return to the herd of 12 cows. Part of the requirements to sell cattle, is that they must be able to be traced back to the farm of origin. To do this, we fit them with an electronic ear tag with a RFID chip linked to the Rock Farm. They soon all sported the latest fashion accessory, a lovely white ear tag.

The grass situation is a little worrying. We haven’t had much autumn growth, and what little we have had is seeing massive pressure from kangaroos. Our neighbours alarmingly have had feral pigs digging on their property. It is all part of it I guess, but a little frustrating when we try our best to rest paddocks. We have plenty of hay in the shed, which I am happy to feed the cattle (it is after all my method of providing new nutrients onto the farm), but we are delaying feeding as long as possible.

The good news is it hasn’t all been hard work. We did manage a quick night down the coast to make the most of the last warm days of autumn, and have made use of our new wind break around our fire pit, using garden prunings to cook our dinner. We love our little walks around the Rock Farm. Sometimes I can’t see the view for the jobs in front of me, but it doesn’t take much to lift my gaze and pinch myself to realise how lucky I am.

Perhaps our most exciting news relates to our local community. Last weekend we hosted our local Regenerative Land Managers group at the Rock Farm. We have a new direction to take this collection of land managers, and much of our discussion centred on the best structure to move our group to another level. More on that perhaps at my next update.