THE CREEKS ARE FLOWING!!!!

Last Wednesday evening (19 Nov), it started raining - hard! And rained and rained and rained. Hanneke was up at 5.00am and the first thing she noticed was the sound of running water from the gullies to the north and south - something we have never heard before.

Time to go and check the creek crossing. What creek crossing? It was gone - completely washed away.

This was the view of the crossing at about 7.00am on Thursday the 20th. The heap of debris piled against the tree on the far bank shows how high the water had been during the night - more than a metre higher. Gordon tried wading across, but got only a quarter of the way and decided it was too dangerous. Exciting, but the reality was that Hanneke needed to get to Brisbane that day, so as to be at the University to give her Masters confirmation presentation early the next morning. We decided that there was nothing we could do at this stage but enjoy the spectacle of flowing water - and we had plenty of that.

Time to check out the creeks in the gullies leading into the main creek.

Above is the creek some of you will have seen (Sandstone Pool Creek) - it usually contains water only in a couple of deep sandstone pools where the wildlife comes to drink - that's one of the pools overflowing at the top of the photo.

Every gully was flowing and the Back Creek was rushing. Hanneke's Mum and I walked along this creek in August when it was dry. Totally unrecognisable now.


Further up Back Creek there's a rock ledge that we have never seen water flowing over. It must have been truly spectacular when it was at its height during the night, with another 50cms or more of water flowing over it.


Higher up Back Creek there was still a good flow of water.

By lunchtime we decided we had to do something about getting Hanneke to Brisbane. There was no way we were going to drive across the creek that day, so we packed our bags and waded across and then walked out to Vicki's place and she drove us to the bus stop near the Gatton University campus - where we waited, standing on the seat of the bus shelter to avoid the wind and rain as three storms swept through the area - and eventually the bus arrived 55 minutes late. In all it took us about five hours to get from home to Brisbane.

Hanneke gave her presentation on Friday morning (she was accepted) and we got a lift home with one of her examiners who lives in Toowoomba.

Of course we had to walk into our place and wade across the creek, but the water had dropped a good half metre or more. It was now obvious that the flow had scoured out a 60cm deep hole on one side that would have to be filled before we could think about getting the Subaru across.


So we loaded up the trailer with a good heap of rocks -


some of them a bit bigger than others -

and kept dropping them into the biggest holes until we had a "reasonably" level surface on which to drive across.

And that's how we are getting in and out until we can get Bernie (our earthmoving wizard) to re-build the crossing.

Southern View

Just one of the reasons we live here - view to the south across the Lockyer Valley early on a cloudy morning.

Slab for the New Shed

Progress on the new shed at last. Here's the site levelled - the house site is to the left of, and behind the trailer.
Formwork in place - though it took a bit of pressure to get them to put in all of the holes for the piers under the columns.

Plastic moisture barrier under the reinforcing - also helps to control termites.

Pouring the concrete - all done in one day - all 15 cubic metres of it. The slab is 100mm thick, with a 200x200mm beam under all edges, and piers 300mm deep and 350x350mm square where each of the columns will go. It's 12m x 9m overall.

These two guys did all of it. Very hard work.

Nearly finished. It started raining gently just after this, then got heavier as the night progressed. We had to put covers over the two awning slabs around 7.00pm.

Most of the material for the shed was delivered the same day. The erector expects to start putting it all together around 11 June - should take about a week to put it up, weather allowing.

Our Green Frog is Recovering!

Remember the Green Tree Frog with the major wound on its face? There's a posting about it in the January 2008 archive.

Well, we got an email from the frog expert in Brisbane who took it in to see what the "disease" was and what could be done with it. Pearl is amazing - she knows so much about frogs and is so caring. She figured out soon after we left Frog with her that it was most likely a severe wound, and not some rampant virus eating into its face.

Here's the latest news Pearl sent on 17th May:

I still have your frog she is doing well and still eating lots of crickets. She will probably be getting ready to “hibernate” for winter soon. Just a recent photo- as you can see the face is still crooked but has healed in the upper jaw and there is a large area on the lower that needs to heal over still. I will leave her alone til it gets warm again.

And here's the photo that Pearl sent - quite a change in just a few months.

Solar Power System Installed - at last!

After many delays our new solar power system has been installed - where before we had three panels (total of 290 watts at 12 volts), we now have 12 panels (total of 1980 watts at 48 volts).
Hanneke cleaning the dust off the panels before we connect them up to the control gear. That's the satellite broadband dish behind her.
A view of the panels on the roof - taken from the roof of the shipping container we are using for storage.
Gordon spent about four days helping Dave (the designer and installer) put the system in, as well as another 4-5 days lining the walls where the internal controls are mounted, and building a box to house the 24 batteries. One day the whole shed (to become our office) will be lined.

Both Dave and Gordon ended up with "battery back" after lifting all the batteries (32kg each) into the box one evening and positioning them accurately so that they could be connected up. Those are (some of) the batteries in the box at the bottom of the photo.

It is amazing to have so much power available, after years of limiting ourselves to only two lights at a time and not being able to run things like power tools, washing machine, or iron unless we turned the generator on.

First big test was to do a load of washing in our antique, $100, washing machine that uses gross amounts of power and water. We tried it in the afternoon when the batteries were near fully charged - it didn't even take any power from the batteries, just some of what was coming from the panels on the roof, with some left over to go into the batteries. Wow!

The generator will retire now, until we get at least three days of no sun, when it will be needed to charge the batteries - maybe. Not sure just how many days the system can go without reaching a critical level, could be up to five.
You can see how the panels sit down low on top of the eastern and western awnings - to keep the wind loading down as much as possible.
All the bare ground is from the levelling for the house and new shed sites. The two steel pegs in the foreground with the yellow tape on them mark the western end of the house (one day).
[photos by Dave Keenan - system designer and installer - contact me for his details]

News - late March 2008

Our secondhand shipping container arrived on Thursday afternoon. The truck that brought it could only just squeeze around the bends and between the trees on either side of our 2km track. When he got to the top of the hill the driver wasn't in a particularly happy mood - unlike most people who arrive at the top and immediately exclaim "Wow! What a great place!"

But then, he probably realised that he had to get out again.
Anyway, he put the container down with the most amazing precision - within a couple of centimetres of where we wanted it.
On the way out the truck had a lot of trouble getting up out of our creek crossing - a combination of lack of weight over the back wheels and the track still being damp from the rain that morning. Took him four tries before he got out, and then it was only because he tipped the tray of the truck back so that it increased the weight on the back wheels.
It looks kind of huge alongside the shed, and takes quite a bit of getting used to. We are eventually going to move it a bit, so that it is parallel to the shed and then put a roof over it that will extend to the awning of the shed. This will keep the container cooler, and make sure it is weather-proof, as well as giving us a carport alongside it. Maybe one day when we have finished the house we will put some windows and another door into it, and make it into guest accommodation. But for now it is much needed storage space.
We spent Friday moving the stuff that came back from Holland out of the rented storage in Gatton (the cost of that had gone up 40% in six months). Then on Saturday and Sunday we sorted through the boxes and got out things that we needed, and put back stuff from the shed that we didn't need to have access to for a while.
Also moved some boxes into the container from the shed - these boxes came back from Cambodia two years ago and we were very glad to have them out of the shed. Quite an effort, and by Sunday night we were both exhausted.

Our Red-necked Wallabies have been back around the shed every evening - the new grass in the forest is probably getting a bit older and tougher and they seem to prefer the new growth on the grassy area that has been mown. They are obviously the same ones that were here before the rain, because they are so used to us and our noises. Strange to see them sitting not far away and taking no notice of us talking or moving things around, but then stopping and pricking up their ears and looking toward distant noises from down in the valley. Feels great to know that they are so accustomed to us.
We think that this group is an older female, with a quite young joey (we haven't seen it out of the pouch yet, though it feeds on the grass it can reach as its mother bends down to eat), and a male that is probably her last offspring from then end of last year.
We had a fight outside our bedroom window in the middle of the night last week - we could hear the loud "thump" as they kicked each other in the body with their back legs, while balancing on their tails.

Rainbow

Life and Death on the Garden Path

Was walking back from the path gardent the other day and, just as I was about to step over a patch of longer grass, a lizard (skink) about 7cms long dashed into the grass. There was a sudden movement, the lizard disappeared from view, some thrashing about in the grass, then the lizard appeared, belly up, in the jaws of this monster.

It's a Burton's Snake-lizard (Lialis burtonis), and specialises in hunting and eating other lizards. Doesn't have any legs, just a couple of "flaps" on its sides where the hind legs used to be.

See the line above the eyes? It's a "hinge" that allows it to take big mouthfuls of its prey, and to bring the tips of the jaws together when it has something big in its mouth. After grabbing the skink it adjusted its grip until is was putting pressure on the lizard's lungs, and kept this up until it stopped struggling (i.e. dead). Then it quickly flipped it around with two bites, till the head was in its jaws and proceeded to swallow it head-first. Took only about 3-4 minutes to swallow the whole thing.

Boring, boring, boring

The digger / excavator / post-lifter-outer. Drilling here to check the depth to bedrock under where the slab will be for the house (one day ....). The post behind me is the corner of the house, and the other corner is in the vege garden in front of me.

The pumpkins are taking over the world - they not only grew all around the outside of the garden but are now climbing up the trellis which is supposed to be for beans and tomatoes. BUT when they grow on the trellis they produce far more pumpkins. Can't figure that out, but it is good news. We now have about ten small pumpkins and one that is bigger than a soccer ball - by about 50%.

Hanneke figured the other day that we are producing about 80 percent of our vegetable requirements. We are talking about where to put the chicken yard, but that may be a few weeks yet.

Praying Mantis Egg Case

Was up by the top tank the other morning very early - after a night of rain - to check whether our repairs to the pad the tank is sitting on had been affected by the rain. Thought I saw a new kind of pale blue flower in the grass, and when I went to have a look it took me a while to realise that I was looking at a praying mantis making its egg case (called an ootheca). I was actually holding the praying mantis in my fingers at one stage, thinking it was the stem of the "flower". Duh!

Flying Ant Migration

We had a flying ant migration the other night after a very warm and humid evening. Lots of them coming into the shed.

The next morning the water barrel at the tank overflow has masses of them floating on top - an amazing sight against the dark deep water in the barrel.

Sad Green Frog Story

The other day when it was raining (it has rained pretty much every day since Liz left - so the rain frog she gave us for Christmas is proving its worth!), two of our Green Tree Frogs were out and about near the water tank. One, which was sitting in the leaf-excluder, was fat and healthy. The other, which was down near the tank was looking a bit thin, though it had a good colour - unlike when they were really starving during the drought, just skin and bones, and their skin colour was dark and unhealthy looking.

When Hanneke had a close look at it she realised that its face was a mass of raw flesh - looked like it had poked its nose into a cheese grater - with large red and white raw patches, one of which looked like a growth on the bottom jaw bone. Looked like the sort of thing one sees in reports about the cancers on the faces of Tasmanian Devils. It was really heart-wrenching to see. She caught it and brought it inside while we thought about what to do with it.

We have had at least one of our green frogs with a growth on its face - since a few years ago, but we can’t be sure it was this one. And that growth wasn’t open and raw like these, just a raised, warty-looking ridge above one side of the top jaw.

A search on the internet led to items from the Cairns Frog Hospital that seven green tree frogs have been recorded with cancerous growths on their faces. This is being studied by a team from James Cook University, along with other frog diseases such as a fungus that seems to be very widespread and that really weakens its victims.

Hanneke contacted the manager of the Cairns Frog Hospital, who asked for some photos of our frog. When she received these she thought that it might be a combination of cancer and flesh-eating bacteria, but she wanted the frog taken to someone who could take some samples to confirm what it was. She and Hanneke discussed sending the frog via Qantas air cargo to Cairns or Townsville (or to a NSW university, but NSW has a regulation banning the sending of diseased frogs into that State). Eventually they decided on a PhD researcher at Queensland Uni, who is working on frog diseases.

We made a special trip to Brisbane (actually Manly West, the other side of Brisbane, two hours away) to deliver the frog to her, and she will take samples of the wounds to try to identify the problem, as well as trying to nurse the frog back to health. She is obviously very much a frog lover, so we felt great about leaving the poor thing with her.

Will let you know when we have more news.