a wet summer's aftermath

After a wet summer, changes are evident all over the place. Some bring challenges, some pleasure, some simply a happy reminder of the interconnected and unpredictable nature of the property. With full dams, after 14 years of - at best - partial and seasonal filling, the growth on their banks is drowned and dying, everything from large wirilda to wide swathes of reeds, dense shrubby nets of cassinia and emerging gum saplings.

These photos are from January and February ...

Look closely and you can see a dragonfly - who knew there were so many different kinds! They are busy all over the dam edges. This is one of the smaller blue/black-bodied ones.

Frogs, too, are everywhere. In fact, I've twice had rather disoriented looking frogs jump out from deep in the leaves of a head of lettuce that's come in from the garden, and land on the kitchen bench. Here's a not-quite-a-frog-yet spotted in the grass around the bottom dam ...

The level area between the causeway/dam bank and the lower dam, for years a pathway for passing roos, dry and stony except for a seasonal flourish of pink Christmas lilies, is now effectively a bog. The ground is wet and deep orange-y brown, and new plants are emerging. Including clumps of papyrus weed, which I've not seen on the property anywhere till now, and that I've not decided yet how to deal with. For now, casually pull the little bulbs out as I notice them.

 And of course, everything is growing. Everything. Sometimes that's welcome, like the river red gum that had grown quite high on the lower dam bank, and had strengthened but hardly flourished since protected with mesh and given a little swale above - it's now almost a foot deep in the dam, but happy as Larry (left). Or the allocasuarina, which can be seen being fastened into its enclosure on another page here, which now waves healthily above it. It's not clear from this pic, but now (April, with even more growth) I can reach out and hold its tip - so that makes it almost as tall as me, so about 5 1/2 feet.

New growth is emerging where it's not wanted - or maybe not wanted. Still to find definitive advice on some of this. The gum burls are kicking up now growth, which gets rubbed or pulled out as I notice it, usually with lots of handrubbing afterward to enjoy that amazing eucalyptus residue. The olives are sprouting madly from their bases, and despite seeing some books insist that this be controlled and removed, I've since seen contrary opinions, so am taking my time deciding.

 

And of course the weeds love the rain too. Mallow, as here, thistles, milkweed, sorrel, you name it, we've got it and it's flourishing. Including things never seen before.