Here's some photos of what's happening on the farm. For more, including wildlife photos and links to wildlife videos, click on Image Gallery in the menu on the left.

For Stone Bridge Tours in Print check the SBT In The Media Page.

What a difference rain makes! The dams are full or filling, the grass is green and has begun to grow, and with water in the house dam, we can again plant and water a winter vegetable garden. There’s nothing like the flavour of home grown vegies! In early February we were carting water from the river to keep the stock and the shade trees alive, and now we have water and options.

Brian had been cleaning out dams as they dried and had pushed the soft mud from the bottom of the House dam as high as possible when we got a fall of rain. 5 inches fell over four days filling smaller dams; the House dam had good inflows, as water continues to gurgle out of the hills the House dam is now passed half full. The rising water is chasing Brian and his "mud moving project" up the side of the dam as he waits for the mud to dry enough to move that bit further.

Millions of Wingless Grasshoppers are munching their way through the Snowys already drought stressed paddocks and gardens. They rise in clouds as you move about the property, and have the dog snapping as they bombard her – she’s seriously outnumbered! The birds are delighted with the high protein, hopping snack. The chooks look particularly comical as they bob up and down chasing hoppers, but the birds don’t make any real impact on their numbers. Locusts congregate into bands which can be effectively sprayed, unfortunately wingless grasshoppers are not so obliging and spraying is not an option.

Click on Grashoppers, to see just how many grasshoppers rise as Brian walks passed the front of the house.

A pair of Yellow-faced Honeyeaters nested in the potted weeping maple on our northern veranda. They were just outside the office window so we had a good view of the proceedings as they built their nest, laid two eggs, fed hatchlings (bugs must be great protein; the little ones grew like weeds!) and finally fledged.

We control predators on our property so our trees and vines about the house are home to many bird species including Striated Pardalotes, Diamond Fire Tails, Willy Wagtails, European Gold Finches, Top Knot Pigeons with many others visiting. Through spring and summer there is always something going on in our bird community.

To watch Brian cleaning out the spring, click on Spring Cleaning

Making sure that stock have good access to water is even more important now that the hot weather is here. Weed growth and silt need to be cleared and spread away from the spring. Sheep prefer the sweet spring water to the muddy dam. Dam levels are low and while there have been storms about the area we are still waiting for our turn. The spring is starting to fill again ready for the sheep’s evening drink.

A drink sure was a good idea on a “35 degrees C in the shade” day! We were intrigued watching this half grown echidna trundling along headed for the house paddock dam.   We’ve never seen an echidna drinking before and wondered how this one would manage with the mud on the edge.

It didn’t seem to be a problem and it even went for a cooling paddle (or was it rinsing its fur) before high stepping out of the water and getting on with its day. We were surprised to see that it only had mud on the soles of its feet as it trundled away with its seafaring gait. To watch this echidna in action click on echidna drinking.

Egg production is all or nothing; right now many are laying and we are getting 6 to 8 eggs a day. They average two eggs every three days. To join me on the evening expedition to feed the chickens and collect the eggs, click on Chickens

Feeding the chickens is a regular evening chore. We have 15 Australorp (the black ones) and Plymouth Rock (the flecked ones) chickens. They are strongly motivated by food. These birds are dropping the hint that they think its dinner time by gathering at the front door. Of an evening they are shut in their fully meshed pen to protect them from predators such as foxes and quolls.

We occasionally see them about the paddocks in the early morning or evening. These rare glimpses are always a treat. To watch it hissing its disapproval from the back of the wood tank click on Quoll.

Things to watch out for when you’re putting your hands in the wood tank! The afternoon was closing in so I went out to get a piece of wood to keep our heater going for the evening. I was surprised to find the wood tank occupied by a somewhat defensive Spotted Tailed Quoll. We took its “mug shot” and a bit of video, got our wood and left the quoll to go on its evening rounds. Spotted Tailed Quolls (Dasyurus maculates) are Australian marsupial carnivores about the size of a cat.

Brian, with the Caterpillar D4 bulldozer, made the most of the opportunity these dry times provided when the "200 paddock" dam went dry for the first time since it was constructed about 50 years ago.  Silt had built up and bulrushes colonised the dam and it needed a good clean out. It was slow, mucky work dropping the blade into the silt, dragging the silt up out of the dam behind the blade then pushing it up to top up the dam wall.

The dam is now clean and we look forward to the rain to fill it - send it down! To stand on the dam wall and watch Brian and the D4 at work click on D4

 Stone Bridge Tours        Brian & Jan Mitchell
Worongah, 798 Wroes Road, Numbla Vale, NSW 2628, AUSTRALIA

Tel: +61 2 6456 6745        Email: info@stonebridgetours.com.au