We've Moved!

You can follow the Vinegar Hill View doings over at www.lockyervalley.org

See you there.

Weird and Wonderful Critters

It isn't just the vertebrates that are worthy of attention here on the hill.  We often find invertebrates that are just plain weird (in wonderful ways).  Here are two examples from the world of beetles.  They bring to mind Darwin's statement that the Creator surely must have been inordinately fond of beetles.

You can click on the images to see an enlarged version or on the common names to go to relevant web sites.

This beastie is the Feather-horned Longicorn Beetle (Piesarthrius marginellus).  The larvae of most of the longicorn beetles (Family Cerambycidae) are woodborers.

Here's the Yellow-horned Clerid Beetle (Trogodendron fasciculatum).  The clerid beetles (Family Cleridae) are mainly predators on other insects (hence the substantial mandibles on this one.)

Thanks to the Queensland Museum Information Service for the preliminary identifications on the basis of these photographs.  And, by the way, Darwin thought the Creator must have been inordinately fond of beetles because he made so many of them (though there is some doubt as to whether Darwin ever said this)

Five weeks since the floods

It is five weeks since the floods in the Lockyer Valley that destroyed parts of Grantham and Murphys Creek.  The scars are still raw - particularly on the community but also on the landscape.  The road through Grantham just opened a few days ago; before that it had been closed to all other than local residents, emergency services and volunteers.  Driving through there the first time is like a kick in the stomach, even after seeing all the media coverage.

Of course I'm not going to photograph Grantham or Murphy's Creek, but here are some photos of one of the bridges over the Lockyer Creek where it passes through the outskirts of Gatton - quite a way downstream from Grantham.

Davies Bridge, the road bridge we cross on our way into Gatton, is visible under the middle arch of the railway bridge - the highway barriers give it away.  In the worst recent flooding (in 1974) the water came up to the blue mark that you might just make out on far side of the left-hand column in this photo.  In January I'm told that the water came up to the beams under the railway line.

The photo below shows the state of the bridge today, looking from the upstream side.  None of the large scour in the background was there before the flood, that whole huge scoop out of the bank was done by the rushing water which at this point was well above the sandy area in the middle top of the photo.

On the downstream side quite a bit of the foundation of the bridge seems to have gone, and the scour in the photo above was eating back into the bank under the road.

I'll try to get some photos of the other two bridges into Gatton, and of other parts of the Lockyer Creek in the next week or so.

Finished the "trim" work inside the house

Well, finally finished the "trim" work inside the house - architraves around the windows and door, skirting on the bottoms of the walls, and the tile splashback across the backs of the kitchen benches.  Oh, and quite a bit of remedial work on the plywood lining on the walls where it had buckled due to the very damp air over the last couple of months.

Probably easier to explain in photos than in words.

Here's the complex bridge between the benches behind the stove, for something to rest the tiles on while the glue was drying.

More tiles, and an example of the architraves that I put around the windows and door.  The bench tops are recycled Australian hardwood timber (Red Ironbark).

And the skirting, around all of the walls.

We had the final plumbing inspection today - think it went OK.  The final inspection for the other aspects is tomorrow.  Fingers crossed.

Can a snake climb a wall?

Do you think a snake can climb a wall? Even a vertical corrugated iron wall?

Well, this morning I was enjoying a cup of tea and reading the news when I heard one of our tree frogs give a quiet croak. Nothing unusual there, they croak like that if they think it might rain, or if they hear something that sounds like distant thunder.

Then it croaked again, a little louder, and sort of "insistent". Still nothing unusual - the day was heating up, and the frog sounded like it was on the outside of the wall of the house somewhere, so it was probably getting quite warm. And that sort of plaintive distress call is their way of saying, "Don't like this, but there aren't any options I can think of".

A bit later it croaked again, louder and more distressed. Hmmm.... not so good, but probably just the heat. Again, louder, more distressed, then another call and another. Frog in trouble. More precisely, frog being attacked by a snake. We hear it regularly here, and if we are quick enough we can save the frog from being eaten. Not that we want to deprive the snake of its meals, but they get plent of frogs when we can't hear, or when they are on the roof and there is nothing we can do about it. and anyway, the stupid snakes often try to eat the fully grown tree frogs, and that they can't do, so the frog just gets carved up by the snake's fangs, not to mention terribly agitated.

So I rushed out to see what was going on. I went along the side of the house, looking on the ground, because I really didn't expect to see the snake up the wall of the house, and I've never seen one up in the rafters under the eaves - just doesn't seem possible for them to get there. So there I was, walking along the gravel beside the wall, looking into the longish grass near my feet, trying to see frog or snake. Suddenly, a movement out of the corner or my eye, in fact right at eye height, on the wall of the house! I jumped back, turning as I did so. There was the snake above me, flat against the vertical wall, beside the window, with its head pushing into the gutter where the wall meets the top of the window. Clearly there was a frog in there.

When it realised how close I was the snake started trying to climb the wall. Here's what it looked like.

Using the corrugations in the wall as a measure, that snake is at least 1.3 metres long, and probably 1.5 metres.  Except where it is supporting the top part of its body on the top of the window, it is held on the wall only by the bits of its tail jammed between the iron and the window frame and any friction from its scales on the corrugations.  And in fact when I first saw it, that was all that it had to hold itself in place - none of it was resting on the top of the window at that stage.

The lowest part of its tail is 1.6 metres off the ground, so it had to get up there the same way, jamming curves in its body into the space between the corrugation and the window frame.  Sort of like a rock climber doing finger jams to hold themselves on a vertical face with their fingers in a crack and the friction of their feet pressed against the rock face.

It's been quite a time for reptiles, particularly these tree snakes.  Our neighbour John and I were sitting having a cup of tea outside the office a week ago, and a tree snake (mabye this one) went past us and climbed into the carob tree by the bird bath.  Two days later I was watching TV in the evening when I became aware of something watching me.  A green tree snake was resting its head on the top of the TV, staring at me.  Silly me tried to shoo it outside with a broom but of course that panicked it and it slithered off to find a hiding place, so I had to finish my TV viewing knowing that the snake was still somewhere close by.

About ten days before that I nearly stepped on a big green tree snake, possibly as long as the one on the wall today, on the track down near the creek crossing.  That one got as much of a fright as I did, and reared up to threaten me - they are full of bluff, but it is very unusual for them to try to strike - and anyway they are harmless.  Here's the photo I got of that one.  You can see the blue skin starting to show between the scales. When they are really threatened they inflate their bodies much further so that there is a large area of this iridescent blue sking showing - quite confronting.

The other recent reptile experience that comes to mind is the Water Dragon that was watching me pull out weeds down by the creek crossing when the creek was running strongly in January.  We see very few of these here - maybe becasue there isn't usually any water in the creeks - but they are beautiful animals, and this one was in full colour.

Links to satellite views of our weather

These are real time satellite views of aspects of weather systems in our area:

 This link shows weather systems in Australia and nearby seas.

This link takes you to rainfall happening in Australia and seas to the east.

And this one takes you to a lightning strikes and weather events in Queensland.

The links should open in a new tab or a new window - the first two might take a while to load, they contain a lot of image information. I tried to put these under the "Links" heading in the column to the right, with our weather forecast links, but for some reason they don't work there.

Camera Trap Results

We have been using the camera trap for a couple of years now, and have caught a range of targets, including foxes, birds and (mostly) wallabies (and occasionally some unsuspecting visitors).

I set the camera on a tree near the sandy bend in the track a couple of weeks ago because I kept seeing deer, pig and fox signs there.  Just retrieved it today and at least the deer were cooperative.

The trap uses an infra-red flash when it is triggered at night.  Here are two deer (well, one and a half) moving down the track.

Apart from this one night time shot, they seem to be on the track in the early morning and early evening.

Is the one below the same as the one above?  Hard to tell because of the different angle and the different lighting, but I think it's probably the same one.

In the shot below (taken this morning) there's another deer off to the left of the track, just above the left ear of the one on the track.  That one looks to me to be larger than any of the ones photogaphed on the track, so maybe at least three different animals.

I'll reset the trap in the morning in much the same place and see what comes along.

Climate Change - Should We Take Action or Not?

Check this video.  This guy has a really clear way of presenting the options.  His first video on climate change has had 7,200,000 viewings until now, and this one which has only been around for a short time has already had over one million viewings.

No matter what your opinion on climate change, it is worth watching.



Please pass the link on to others to help them to make up their own minds on what their postion is going to be [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF_anaVcCXg&feature=player_embedded#! ]

Current State of the House

Here are some shots of the outside of the house in its present stage of construction - not much more to do on the outside, and most of it will be unnoticeable, i.e. it won't look much different to this.

Here's the view of the north side - note the large windows extending down quite low and the wide eaves (one metre), both features that contribute to the passive solar design.

The gravel around the base of the walls fulfills two functions: discourgages termites (under the gravel is a layer of compacted crusher dust, topped with black plastic); prevents vegetation growing near the walls and windows (for fire hazard reduction and to deter termites).

The western side is toward the workshop and two of the tanks.

That's the evacuated tube solar hot water system on the roof.  Running on only 13 of its 24 tubes because that's all it needs in summer.  The tanks are stainless steel, with 22,500 litre capacity in each.

Here's a view from the south, with the workshop to the west of the house - providing some protection from westerly winds in winter and from radiant heat from bushfires.

No views of the interior yet - it is currently in chaos as I'm working simultaneously on window architraves, skirting, and the splashback for the kitchen benches.  The workshop is similarly in chaos, with painted timber drying everywhere.

One day it will all be finished.

The Creek Crossing Revisited

Took a walk down to the creek crossing this afternoon - what an amazing change from six days ago (see the video two posts back).  But it isn't pretty, and I won't be driving across it any time soon.

Here's what it was like on the 11th of January:

and here's what it's like today:

If it helps, the photos are taken from opposite sides of the crossing.  In the last one, the track to the house is in the middle left of the photo.  In the earlier one, the track to the road is in the middle top of the photo.

Clearly a huge amount of rock has been eroded away, though it is impressive that so much of the foundation of the crossing remains, even in the gully carved into the crossing against the far bank.  Bernie (our earth-works magician) did a great job on this crossing.

Parts of the rest of the track were a bit knocked around too.  Here's the section that I repaired so painstakingly back after Christmas - the rocks in the erosion gullies represent about seven hours' work with a wheelbarrow.

The flowing water has scoured out around the repair on the right.  But what isn't so evident is that the erosion gullies have been extended several metres at the top of the photo.  Living on a hill has its advantages (e.g. no floods) and it's disadvantages (e.g. needs a cross-country access track that has to be maintained).  Oh well....

TALENT!

I'm experimenting with the format of this blog (if anyone out there is watching or cares) so just be patient while I exercise my limited artistic and layout skills and try to learn how this "blogger" thingy works.

And while I'm at it I may as well experiment a bit with content too (see below), and add a new link to our weather (see in Links below right ) that not only gives the forecast but also the current conditions and details of past weather.  I've also added a link to our local weather radar.

I'm indebted to Grumpy Old Ken for the following example of Talent with a capital T.  What an amazing person this artist is - and what an amazing art medium and performance technology.  Enjoy!

It's WET here.

 Well, it is nearly a year since the last posting on this blog.  For a blog that was supposed to keep family and friends informed of what we have been up to it has not been very successful.  That is my fault - too many other things getting priority.

Right now, though, I just want to share with you the flood situation here.

We, of course don't have a flood, being on top of a hill, though there is so much rain that the water can't get away fast enough and is often running in shallow sheets across the ground.  But nothing like other people in the Lockyer Valley and Toowoomba, who have experienced the worst, most destructive floods on record on this area - and some of the most destructive, if not the most destructive, in Australian history.

Here we have had 321mm of rain in the first 11 days of January, which is 71% of the highest January rainfall ever recorded in Gatton since records began in 1897, so it looks like we might be breaking some records again this month (December was the wettest December on record here, and 2010 was the wettest year (by more than 200mm).  Of course our rainfall might be different to the rainfall recorded down in the valley where the official weather station is, but I'm pretty sure that they broke all records there too.

Our front and back creek crossings are currently under water; the back one has been under water more often than not since early December.  There is no way out until the water goes down, however right now that doesn't matter - if I got out onto the road there would be nowhere to go.  All the bridges between us and the rest of the world (Gatton, Brisbbane, Toowoomba) are flooded and impassable.

At present that isn't a problem.  I have about a month's supply of food, and of course we are self-sufficient in electricity and water, so it is no great hardship to just stay here and potter along with jobs to finish the house (those jobs that can be done while it is bucketing down raining).

Here's what our back creek crossing looked like at about 1430 this afternoon.

All for now.

LIZARDS

What a week it has been for reptiles - apart, that is, from the usual monitor lizards (goannas), skinks, geckoes, snake-lizards, etc.

The other night Hanneke went out to the rubbish bins behind the office, and there on the concrete was this beautiful beast.  At first glance we said Blue-tongue Lizard.  But it was too slender and graceful, and didn't have the stumpy fat legs of a Blue-tongue.  And besides, its tongue was pink, with blue along the middle, though it used it in a typical Blue-tongue fashion, darting it out frequently, with the tip turned up.

Nothing obviously matching it in our local guide (Wildlife of Greater Brisbane), and the same in Steve Wilson's excellent Field Guide to Reptiles of Queensland.  So we turned to the bible - Cogger's Reptiles and Amphibians of Australa.  There it was Pink-tongued Lizard Heimisphaeriodon gerrardii.  When we went back to the other guides it was there, but the photos weren't so diagnostic - and it seems that the genus has changed - it's now Cyclodomorphus garrardii - can't blame Cogger though, our copy of his book is the 1992 edition.

This morning Hanneke was walking up the track to the vege garden and saw a strange movement in the sandy soil beside the track. A bunch of heads poking out of the sand.

A nest of Bearded Dragon eggs was hatching.  This species (Pogona barbata) is common around here, and in fact we'd seen an abandoned attempt at nesting in the vege garden a couple of weeks earlier.   In 2008 we actually saw a female in the process of digging out the egg chamber, and she later backfilled the hole and packed the soil level with the surroundings.  These eggs were probably laid in October, though the incubation time is pretty variable, depending on weather conditions.  There are five Dragons in the photo above.

They seem to hang about with just their heads showing for a while, maybe watching for predators, maybe just resting after the effort of hatching and digging up to the surface, then make a break for cover.  They seem to be attracted to any higher part of the horizon - clumps of grass, piles of sand or rocks.

We are clearly starting to see a pattern here.  The nest we saw being laid on 7 November 2008 hatched on 1 February 2009.  And back in 2006 Liz found a young Bearded Dragon on 9 January (photos below).

FROM FLOOD TO FIRE

A year ago - 19 November 2008 - it was a flood that washed away our creek crossing.

This year - 21 November - it was a fire.  Some unbelievably stupid arsonist(s) lit about 60 fires along a six kilometre stretch of Wallers Road through the middle of the Helidon Hills last Saturday morning.  Within a couple of hours it was a huge and uncontrollable bushfire.

By Tuesday midday it had burned its way across the hills and was into the headwaters of Lilydale Creek - the creek that we cross to enter our property - in the panorama below (taken from the hill behind the house) you might just make out the smoke coming up from the creek gully in the far right.

By midday it was advancing rapidly down the creek, and though the wind was keeping it away from our place, there was no certainty that the weather would not change.  By 2.00pm the fire control centre had decided that they were going to back-burn from behind the houses on our side of the Hills - something they had been preparing for during the two preceding days.

Two teams of fire-fighters arrived at our place about 5.30pm, one from Parks and Wildlife and one from the Rural Fire Service.  They decided to burn on the western side of the ridge (and buildings), as this was the downwind side, and then to come back and burn the windward northeastern side.  By this time a strong northeasterly wind was blowing.

They used a backpack leaf-blower to clear a line down the path from the header tanks up on the hill down to the workshop, where it then followed the edge of the firebreak around the buildings.  We had asked them not to burn the firebreaks, partly because of the erosion that would be likely if it rained on bare soil there, but also because of the effort Hanneke had put into bringing them back to native grasses and shrubs.  They were willing to do this, even though it meant a lot more work for them in keeping a wet line between the fire and the firebreak.  The photo below shows the beginning of the back-burn at the top of the track below the header tanks.

As they moved around the western firebreak below the buildings it became harder, because of the steep drop of the hillside below the edge of the break.  It must have been like standing on the edge of a furnace.

When they began to burn the windward side it became a lot more difficult, but by this time two Rural Fire Service tanker trucks had arrived with additional water, so they moved one of them close to the fire line and ran out a hose.  Nevertheless it was a spectacular sight, and one that would have been terrifying if they had not been so clearly professional about what they were doing.

After both sides of our buildings had been back-burned, as well as the western side of our access track, the teams moved off to burn from the breaks around our neighbours on both sides.  By this time it was 10.00pm and we were both exhausted.  I've no idea how the firefighters managed to keep going till after midnight when they changed over with fresh crews.  Hanneke went to bed and I sat up till midnight to make sure no embers got into the buildings - and all this time there were fire-trucks coming up every 30-40 minutes to make sure everything was OK - and they continued this after I went to bed.

I'll try to expand this posting at some future time when I have a chance to talk about our preparations before the fire, and the behaviour of the fire over the next couple of days.

UPDATE - at last



It has been a shockingly long time since anything was posted on this site. Large gaps in the story of the process of establishing our "Vinegar Hill Complex" - too many to fill at this time. However, here's a shot of the house, from July/August, but looking more or less as it does now.

We are working on the kitchen benches and cupboards now - more on that later.

There has been progress with the workshop too - slowly getting into better shape for doing serious work - latest addition was this new three-metre work bench. It's currently being used to make up the components of the kitchen benches.

We've spent the weekend putting up a shade house in the vege garden - the first thing that has been added there since the 3000 litre water tank late last year. It's made from the frame of one of those temporary car garages that was given to us.

We are going to try out "wicking garden beds" - where the soil sits in a 100mm pool of water that slowly wicks up into the soil as it dries. This is said to signifiantly reduce evaporation and thus result in far less water use - something that really matters here as we move further into a hot dry summer.

Below are a few shots of the new structure - taken using my mobile phone, so maybe not as sharp as they could be.

The tank on the right is the 3000 L garden water tank (it now has a pressure pump attached to it, so we can use it to water all of the gardens), and on the left is a heap of lucerne straw, waiting to be used as mulch on the garden.

The shade house partly completed - still needs the ends closed in.  At the back is a section of one of our first water tanks - actually it was here when we came and had gone through a bushfire.  We cut it into three sections and used them as surrounds for permaculture beds, to keep the wallabies and possums out. The blue containers are trial wicking pots (still more work to do on them), made from recycled 200 L plastic drums used for shipping food ingredients. The tree on the left is one of our lime trees.

House Slab - at last!

The pouring of the slab was supposed to be done in mid-November, but was prevented when our creek crossing washed away in the middle of the month (see last post). After we got a load of rocks and sand in and formed a new crossing, the continued rain meant that the creek flowed over and through the new crossing until after Christmas. This meant that it could not pack down, and it was not safe to risk a full cement truck (20 tonnes) on it.

28 January 2009 - The team arrives to start the slab. These guys are amazing, totally prepared, bring all their gear with them, make up reinforcement and formwork on-site.


Digging the outer footings.


Bit tricky getting the footing trench to match with the plumbing already installed. That's the shower and composting toilet in the background.


Internal footing trenches dug and mounds of road base packed down. Workshop in background - stainless steel rainwater tank on the right.



Morning of the second day - plastic membrane being laid.


Footings being poured - afternoon of Day 2


Beginning of Day 3 - first pour of the slab onto the footings. 11mm of rain overnight, and the driver of this truck said that he had trouble getting up the track from the road.

The second cement truck arrived before the first one had left, and said that he doubted that anyone else would get up the track because of the damage he had done to it. It had already started raining again. While he was there the first truck left - and got stuck trying to get up out of the creek crossing. Gordon arranged for our earthmoving contractor, Bernie, to bring his big back-hoe - before he arrived the truck driver managed to get out. Bernie agreed to stay around in case anyone else got stuck (two more cement trucks due), and while waiting he touched up the track to eliminate the more boggy bits.

No more problems with bogging - thanks Bernie.


The finished slab, looking west to the workshop.

View to the North across the porch.


View to the Southwest.


Looking East at sunrise.

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.