The View from Vinegar Hill: Flying Ant Migration

Sunday, 6 January 2008

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.

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About Us

We live on 34 ha of sandstone bushland in the southern Helidon Hills, overlooking the Lockyer Valley 100km from Brisbane (Australia). It is registered and managed as Land for Wildlife.

This is one of the driest areas of Southeast Queensland and getting drier. And while the Lockyer Valley is highly fertile and known as the "salad bowl of Queensland", our soil is decomposed sandstone (with the emphasis on "stone") - there is very little actual soil.

Three of our major objectives are to live lightly on the Earth, prepare for peak oil and the increasing impacts of climate change, and to demonstrate by our lifestyle that the average person can go a long way in improving the sustainability of their lifestyle.

So far our self-sufficiency efforts extend to:
# 1.98Kw solar power that runs everything except our main water pump (and that will be replaced with an electric one sooner or later);
# a 200 L solar hot water system using evacuated tubes;
# about 120,000 L of water storage, of which half is for household use and half for gardens and fire-fighting;
# small passive solar house (nearing completion);
# composting toilet (our design), with the resting bin run as a worm farm to produce a rich fine soil that is buried under new gardens and under the mulch around fruit trees;
# worm farm and sand filter (our design) for all our waste water; and
# a vege garden that waxes and wanes depending on other priorities, but in the past has produced about 80% of our vegetable consumption.