Our great southern migration

  This post will be mostly about our farm birds but also a bit about those idioms. It also rings true right now as I am starting a site visit for veterinary school accreditation. That is definitely part of the gate keeping process!  Gatekeepers have various repercussions, depending on the topic, but are generally considered to be a person or thing that controls access. This could be access to a place, a person, a resource or information. In that line, most of our birds are not truly gate keepers. The jacky-winters on the gate above are not restricting anyone. They are part of the robin family and seem very peaceable. Ditto for this scarlet robin female: However, the magpies below are a bit more threatening. If we go back to the social psychology roots of the term, Kurt Lewin used it study how social groups filter and manage choices. These three are definitely a social group.  As we head into spring in the southern hemisphere, we are now down to two magpies. Our best guess...

Elphie really needs some white letters but she does okay with these! Elphaba is our workhorse green four wheeler - she moves us around, holds random things when sitting in the shed and serves as a pruning platform.  She is currently holding Dubya's blanket so it can dry out. Our motorized vehicles have names. You have likely seen posts about Betty - our diesel truck. Betty is also very handy around the farm for pulling things, carrying things and especially getting us up and down tricky hills while doing so.  Scott has been taking her into the scrub to bring back logs he has chopped up from fallen trees. She does fine in four wheel drive and doesn't seem to mind. She brought back a load of hay for Dubya last week. It has gotten so dry that there isn't enough grass to keep him gaining weight.  Goose is our other truck and serves as a mobile water source. She has been chugging along despite not having a great battery. She isn't registered so has to stay on the farm.  G...

  Yesterday we got to play (a bit) and assist with training activities put on by the local fire service brigades. It wss an all day affair followed by drinks at the pub. As probationers, we didn't join the fire scenarios but did help with set up. The image above and the video below are a burning building example - you need to try to put out the fire without letting in a lot of oxygen that will fuel it. There are specific spray techniques you use to get it put out safely and effectively: For the car fire, I didn't get much info on how best to approach but you need all your skin covered in case of explosions, glass fragments and other toxins. The one I started with got abandoned after set up as two teams got called off to a grass fire We helped with the set up and monitoring of the grass fire scenario - the goal is to move the basketball over all the pylons set out as the fire margins using just water from the hose. This meant the truck had to come with: The scenarios involved sa...

  No, it isn't the river Styx but Barrabaroo creek. We did two stick pile burns recently. The second started late since I had a doctor appointment midday. I got tired of waiting for the last two stumps to finish burning so put them in the creek. Did go fish them out later.... Forgot to take pics of the stick piles prior to burning but you can tell from the ash that this had a fair bit of old weeds and sticks from my prior clean up activities.  The burn pile up the hill had more dead trees and branches. Scott remembered to take pics He had that fire mostly down to embers and small flames by the time I got back. Rakehoes are very large and heavy hoes with rakes on the non-hoe side. I am dragging one around in the image below; it did come in handy to move the burning and non-burning bits as needed. These fires get hot!  Burning is not allowed in the heat of summer or if things are too dry or windy. Usually the non-burn period starts in October but they have moved it up to Au...