Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Friday 17 July 2015 and I woke up to snow at Daveen. We've lived there for 13 years and this was our first snowfall. In fact, the last time snow settled on the ground at Dalveen was 1984. How lucky was I to be up there for this fall. I'd gone up there on the Tuesday and was returning that morning, so just managed to squeeze it in.

Goodness me, it has been a long time since I last posted to this blog. Once you get to 60 it's hard to keep up with how quickly time flies. What's happened since I last posted a blog - everything and nothing really. My days at Dalveen are filled with mowing, chain sawing, mending the odd bit of fence, chopping wood for the fire, brush cutting, poisoning blackberry, laying more and more fallen timber on the wood heap for burning this coming winter, taking the dog for a walk, filling in rabbit holes, entertaining the occasional guests, etc. etc. Brisbane days are spent finishing off all the renovations we've done to the house over the last twelve months - or rather making a list of what has to be done and then finding a reason not to do it. I have made New Year's resolutions however, and the dreaded 2014 list has resurfaced as a 2015 list. I'm very into Ancestry.com.au but I've come to a bit of a standstill with my family tree and over the last year have done two family trees for friends and also a family tree for my brother-in-law Peter. I've become quite adept with it now and can practically complete a family tree for a friend in about two weeks. All I need is details of their parents, their grandparents and hopefully some details of great grandparents. We are so lucky in Australia to have so much information digitised and available via the internet. When I think of how hard it was for me trying to complete a family tree back in the 1980s I have to shudder. I look at how far I managed to get and it was past Great Grandparents. Nowadays my tree buckles under the weight of Great Greats, Great Great Greats, Great Great Great Greats etc.

Dalveen is in the throes of a drought at the moment. Our dam is wasting away and we really need about 200mm rain in a day to bring it back from the brink. We've lost a lot of trees to drought this year. Our last Silver Birch finally curled up its toes in 2014 and died from lack of water. Thankfully the Japanese Red Maple managed to survive so we'll still have a bit of colour in Autumn. A Claret Ash died but we have two left; our Chinese Pistachio continues to thrive and look beautiful in Autumn; as does the Liquid Amber. The saddest event for us this year was the loss of our 80 year old Fig Tree. I'm pretty sure the drought did the dirty on it. There are a few suckers growing from the roots of the old fig tree, so am going to wait until Autumn when I'll cut down the old Fig Tree and hope that one of the suckers is strong enough to grow into a replacement fig.

Photographs below show dead old wattle which fell over while we were away - this led to half a day of chain sawing and carting branches away, and finally pulling out the big root system and towing it across the paddock to the pile for eventual burn off; our dead 90 year old fig tree; fence posts rotting out and needing replacing; dam falling away during the drought and opening up a land bridge to the other side; summer storm rolling in across the flowering black wattles.

The Old Wattle died

Thanks to Global Warming the 80 year old fig is no more!

Next trip I'll have to mend some fences - so to speak

Damn Drought has brought a land bridge to our dam

Summer Storm approaching over the flowering Black Wattles

Some pics of the house and land at Dalveen might be called for I think.  That way you can see why I love it so much, although it is getting to be a bit of a handful these days.  When we were looking for a little house near Stanthorpe almost 10 years ago, I fell in love with this one at first sight.  Stanthorpe and vicinity were suffering from a drought at the time, and this house had been on the market for a couple of years with subsequent price drops.  Built around 1916 by an ex Brickee from Sydney it is unusual for the area - a cavity brick - usually you'll find timber houses from this era in Queensland.  The house and land were bought and built for Mr and Mrs Coomber's retirement - to be a Fruit Orchard - stone fruit in particular.  However, the fruit trees would not mature for a few years and the Coombers took in boarders while they waited for an income from fruit.  At the beginning the boarders were returned soldiers from World War 1 who had been gassed and came to the mountains for the fresh air for their damaged lungs.  Consequently the house became known in the area as a bit of a convalescent home for these returned diggers.

Last time we were at Dalveen we had a few visits from a very friendly King Parrot.  I'm not sure if he has been hand reared, but he was definitely the most inquisitive King Parrot I've ever had the good fortune to come in contact with.  As I talked to him, he came closer and closer and in fact at one stage I thought he was going to land on my head or my shoulder.  He was very beautiful and seemed to be accompanied by a juvenile King Parrot who was much more cautious of the humankind and stayed well and truly out of range in the nearest gum while his friend came in to have a chat.

Just back from Dalveen - unfortunately the grass was as high as an elephant's eye up there.  Spent about 10 hours all up on the ride on, mowing in and around the house, sheds and dam.  It all looked perfectly coiffed as we left for Brisbane yesterday.  When will the warm weather leave and the autumn chill arrive.  Once that happens I can finally forget about mowing and get stuck into some other chores around the place.  There's a lot of brush cutting to be done, the blackberry bushes need to be dealt with, and the chain saw needs a long workout in order to store in some wood for the fireplaces which will be very necessary once winter sets in.

On a brighter note, our Satin Bowerbird has returned for the 5th year in a row and rebuilt his bower.  Actually, I can't know that he's the same Bowerbird, but I like to think he is.  For the first time this year I actually saw a female near his bower.  I wasn't lucky enough to capture a photograph of her, but I did get a couple of the male when he came closer to the house to feast on a fallen persimmon.  I went down to take a couple of photographs of his bower and he was most put out, emitting a few harsh churrs to send me on my way.  I left him half a broken blue peg in payment for the photographs.  I placed it on the grass well away from his bower and when I peeked in the next morning I saw that he had placed it with his other blue treasures near the bower.  I often wonder if they collect these "blue" treasures because of their violet blue eyes.  Perhaps they see the colour blue as a stimulant for romance - a sort of "come hither and look into my eyes" but with the bowerbird it is a case of "come hither and look into my bower and see all my beautiful blue ornaments I have displayed for you."