Frog Bog as an extention of our Pond

Since our pond was cleaned out, I have become increasingly interested in water plants and bog plants. There are quite a number of water lilies still sitting in an old bath under the Pepper tree waiting for me to tidy up and re-pot.
Next to that bath was another sitting there doing nothing and when our friend came to work in our garden on Friday I wondered aloud if that could not make a frog bog.....Bless him," of course," he said," that can be done" and set to to make it so...
After a while it became a bit hot so he put up the sun shade and went to it with gusto.

He had to cut through some pretty tough Holm Oak roots but in the end the hole was there and he could fit the bath into it.
Some one at some stage had cemented the drain hole shut but he was able to get it loose enough for it to give a little drainage as we didn't want the water to rush out.
We had to get some coarse gravel and on top of that he put some shade cloth we had lying around
(wonderful to be recycling all this stuff) and on top of that came the soil dug out of the hole.

We are on clay soil which is ideal for a bog garden and also to pot-on the waterlilies as they like to be solidly anchored.
I did get some plants for the pond as it has been suggested I don't use the pump and water feature anymore because that only spreads the algae and disturbs the water lilies which like a quiet life evidently....
I don't want a filter either as I would be cleaning that every other day.

We also found a hollow log and some more rocks
and as you can see now that it is filled with soil, I can start planting things in there.  Someone has given me a Lobelia sort of plant and I wonder if that would go in there as it is a bog plant but it looks very delicate with dainty blue flowers.
We have two frogs at present, my bedroom is near the pond so I hear them plonking away during the night and hope they will breed up too, as the murderous white faced Heron has played havoc with both the gold fish and the frogs....
Do click on thephotos to get a better view....

More Tragedies in the Garden

We have had Murray Magpies making their beautiful mud nest in the Holm oak this spring and they seemed to have hatched two chicks. Every time I had to go out the front door the parents would shriek and carry on warning the youngsters we were predators so to be very aware. This gets a bit tiresome after a while as the Willy wagtails take absolutely no notice of us at all. They have raise two separate sets of chicks. Only two survived out of the first batch as I found one chick drowned in the pond because the nest was right over the water.

Getting back to the Murray magpies, it was quite a shock yesterday morning as I was looking out of the window waiting for the kettle to boil for my early morning cup of tea, to see one of the birds dead under the Holm oak. When I went out to see what had happened there was a little chick sitting there quietly as well. This one slowly went and hid itself while I got the shovel to pick up what looked like it's older sibling.This one was added into the little bird cemetery I seem to be creating....I may need to put little plaques up......BIFCUS, Black bird, Willy wagtail.....Later in the day I found the little one dead also.It is a mystery why they should have died really as they are mainly insect eaters I thought.

Meanwhile the Willy wagtails have built another nest in the Wisteria tree next to the Holm oak. this will be their third brood. there must be plenty of insects around for them to feel so full of beans and start another family. They recycled their old nest from the patio would you believe....

On a brighter note, the first figs of the season which are always quite large have made their presence known and wonder of wonders, the birds have not found them as yet. We haven't netted the trees yet but will do so within the next day or so.

 The other fruit which comes early are the cherry plums. Usually the birds get them before we do but I did hang a bright Twenty-first birthday balloon which had blown in from somewhere Sunday morning and hung that in the tree.... it glitters and sparkles and perhaps deters them a bit.
I have saved up all the quandongs from August/September and will now make quandong and plum sauce with them. It is quite a tart sauce but goes well with sausages or BBQ meats.

Last week these cacti were in flower and they always amaze me with their stunning beauty.
The plants sit there all year and you need hardly water them and then they bring forth these lovely blooms...
The diversity of plant life  is a constant source of  awe to me, from huge trees to tiny little plants and even tinier flowers.....
Also all the edible plants we have never heard of before. I didn't know that Nardoo leaves are edible ...but beware its spores, they are toxic I have heard...
Do remember to click on the photos to get a better view won't you......

Tragedies Happening in the Garden

Last Sunday was a beautiful spring day and I was feeding all the pot plants....I do wonder at myself, for we have a two acre wild garden and still I like to have plants in pots cheering up the verandahs.....As I came round the corner, there was a fledgling Willie Wagtail on the grass, all covered in ants yet still breathing. So I picked it up and brushed off all the ants as best I could and brought it inside thinking I might be able to save it. Sadly its little eyes had already been devoured by the ants so the kindest thing to do was end its little life. I gave it a Christian burial which Brian thought quite silly as he of course is an atheist.....

Interestingly too, was the fact that the fledgling's siblings were sitting on the  bowl on the south side of the house, yet I found it on the north side of the house, how did it get there? Their nest is in the Holm oak this year which is not far from the bowl.....Now the parents are already building a new nest in the vines on the patio, right by the door we use each day while they are still feeding the two off springs.
It was a great surprise too, to find the Bronze wing pigeon has started a nest on the chicken wire- overhang above the chooks' little mansion. It flies off the moment I enter their yard to feed and water them but at least the eggs ought to be safe there,  as pigeons they are noted for their sloppy nests of only a few sticks and eggs drop off quite readily.

As it was such a beautiful day last Sunday we had our ritual dry sherry before lunch on the patio and there we saw this rather large grass hopper.Or is it a locust? how does one tell...
It did keep a wary eye on me while I was trying to get close enough to photograph it.
Seeing we have had a reasonable season on the Fleurieu peninsula , that could well be the next disaster...a locust plague... it doesn't bear thinking about....

This season too, the Granny Smith apple tree is absolutely covered in blossom and the exciting thing is there are lots of bees around again so here is hoping for a good crop. We will net the tree soon as last year we let it go too long and the parrots had nipped off all the little apples before we thought to net it.
They are such destructive birds the parrot as well as the cockatoo families and while we know they are natures pruners we'd like them to stay with their native fruits....Funnily enough they have not bothered the quandong tree. I have been harvesting them and will make a plum and quandong sauce with them when the plums are ready.

The yellow irises are the first of that family to flower and they put on a very cheerful display.
Now the purple, red and yellow with white falls are joining in
And so it goes, each cycle repeating itself and having their time in the spotlight....
The heron has been very attentive to our gold fish, it must have a nestling to be so unafraid of our presence, it stands its ground till we make a sudden move...out of twelve gold fish I can now only see six....oh well, the do breed a bit like pigeons, always at it......

Pond Spring Clean

 Our pond has been looking a total mess for quite some time now and I found it too overwhelming to try and tackle the cleaning of it ourselves.
The last time, Anton cleaned it and that was about seven years ago I think.
So I went to the web and found Rob who specializes in pond cleaning.....
He arrived Monday morning at 9.30 am and looked at the pond and said something under his breath about the fact it seemed somewhat overgrown and dirty.....I had to agree of course and feeling very embarrassed offered him a coffee to ease my conscience somewhat ....

Rob changed into his waterproof gear which reminded me of our trout fishing days in the Snowy Mountains at lake Tantangara and Tom and Mollie Taylor's Currango homestead where we stayed in the autumn and caught amazing rainbow trout.....Rob hopped into the pond and started lifting the massive root systems the water lilies had established for themselves....did I perhaps have a saw he could use to cut the mass into more manageable sizes. In the top photo you can see the fake crocodile behind him and that was the first to get the chop....then all the green weed which , once it is established goes feral

After some heaving and tossing which took quite a while, the pond was ready to be pumped out.
This proved to be quite a difficult job as well as of course the Holm oak has been dropping acorns for years into the water and they sit on the bottom of the pond and block the filter of the sludge pump....
Meanwhile Rob was fishing out the Gold fish which, miracle of miracles, the White faced Heron had missed. There were also some fat tadpoles which was good to know as I thought the Gold fish ate all spawn and tadpoles which might have had a chance to metamorphose into frogs.

By about three in the afternoon the pond was down to only a little puddle and we could see headway. I thought to fill the pond up again with the rainwater from a tank we have and use mainly to water out summer garden. However, Rob says rainwater is too soft for Gold fish so we had to use mains water. Later though he said he had some stuff to harden the rain water so we were able to compromise and use half and half.
We had over an inch of rain out of this last weather system so the tanks were overflowing and it was good to use some of the water for the pond.

The pump we have in the pond and use to circulate the water through the fish fountain, turned out to be a septic tank pump and not a proper pool pump with filter.
Rob thought to bring one down for me and install it till we realized I would have to get into the pond to extract it to clean the filter....
That would have been fine in my young days but now I am the age group which has learned caution and carefulness and timidity and all those sad terms one despised when one was young.....
Ah, well, the fish pump will have to do and I will buy a swimming pool scoop net to get any debris out before it starts to rot and become sludge once more.....

More Spring Flowers....

 Here are the Black Ducks back again as a pair perhaps having a spell away from the children. The male ( I assume it is the male) sitting comfortably on the fake Crocodile's back sunning himself while the female is busy finding bargains in among the weeds. Also there are two pink water lily flowers to add to the sense of spring. We haven't had that much additional rain so the pond is not as high as it can be at times.

The next photograph does not capture the beautiful light of the early morning. As I sit in my favourite possie, looking out past our gumtrees  to the far Adelaide hills, the rigid lines of vine yard posts in the foreground, all golden in the rising sun, remind me of the organ pipes in the Reformed church in The Hague our parents used to take us to each Sunday morning.
As a five or six year old, I could not understand the sermon being thundered down from the pulpit and so I would count the golden church organ pipes-so many small ones and so many larger ones....Having counted them I would then count how many ladies had feathers in their hats and how many didn't. Poor God must have despaired at the little girl later thinking He was angry and punishing for such inattention....It has taken the little girl a lifetime to realize the opposite is true. And so I photograph the wonders of our garden and the constant reminder that Spring is resurrection in concrete form,

the Plum tree flowering and the Willy Wagtail renovating last years nest ready for its little mate to lay her eggs and start a new generation....
How could we doubt so......

It was very exiting to see so many bees in the Canary Island lavender this morning. Bees are so much on our minds these days as their numbers have declined too and my local bee keeper had to give up her stall at the Farmers Market because of the drought and not honey to sell...
Frogs too, give us some indication of the havoc humans are wreaking with sprays and polluting our creeks and water ways. Mind you, the White faced Heron has a good go on our frogs in the pond too......

Spring and Fathers day on the 1st of September

 What a lovely surprise late yesterday afternoon to see three Bronze Wing Pigeons at our pond. If you click on the photo you will see that one of the females has raised her wing so you can see the bronze underside. We have only ever seen the male and on occasion the female so now there are three it must mean they are happy to breed here. They must also be finding enough food as we are surrounded by vineyards and Chrissie next door and I are the only ones who still have clear spaces with lots of trees.

I also thought you might be interested too in the fake crocodile we have in the pond.... someone who saw the large root of the waterlilies asked if it was a crocodile..... the lone black duck in the background has been coming most days now and I suppose his mate is somewhere sitting on eggs.
It would be lovely if they brought the ducklings over to our pond again like they did last season.
They were such a lively bunch and rushed about like a lot of sheep dogs let off the chain.

 The same duck posed for me to show you how large the Blood Lily leaves grow after the flower has finished. I find bulbs especially amazing because they appear mostly in autumn and put on such a lovely show after the very hot and dry summers we have here.
I wonder if the dried leaves may not be good for paper making as they seem quite sturdy when dry. Or even basket making.....

These photos were all taken yesterday afternoon when the garden looked spectacular with its mown green grass and weeds. I think we have had an exceptionally cold and damp winter, not wet so much as dreary and drizzly. The fire was never allowed to go out, day or night, though the wood we had is not exactly first class and incline to go black unless you kept the flue open most of the time. I bought some special devices to help combat the smoke but I can't say I am impressed.....still having to scrub the glass in the door... still, what is that bother compared to not having a warm house....

Really Really Wild things......

 It was astounding last week to see a fox come in to drink at the pond and then hurry onto the verandah ....in the middle of the day, I ask you, what was he intent on? Of course it is the mating season for foxes at present and you can hear their primordial, husky bark in the middle of the night, calling to each other. It always makes me feel vulnerable somehow... as though it might be a wolf and I want to hide my head under the blankets. I followed this one to make sure he didn't stop at the chookie yard and have a hasty lunch. Last I saw of him he was galloping down the neighbours vineyard.

 The other wild things which have appeared is this wood duck couple, they have wandered onto the patio as well and left the inevitable calling cards. Just a while ago when I went to get wood for the fire, they were right in front of me and didn't hurry off that quickly but stayed in among the rose bushes. So I wonder if they are looking for a tree with a hollow to nest in. They hatch their young high up in trees and the poor little ducklings have to jump and plop on the ground to follow their parents to the grazing grounds. They are not ducks but Maned geese and are grazers.

 We have also suddenly seen the Eastern Rosellas which are feeding on the left over Kalamata olives. This one I photographed through the kitchen window and thought the native sage with its lovely little blue flowers a great background.
Last year I was not feeling very benevolent towards these and the rainbow lorikeets as they totally stripped all the apple trees before I had time to net them....so no Granny Smiths or Golden Delicious... and whats more they were also into the Quinces which has never happened before....

The other curious thing, which I meant to blog about when it happened in May, was that the Greenies were busy building a nest. It is a beautifully constructed hollow form hung from the vine branch and decorated with all manner of bits and pieces... it was the wrong time of the year and we thought everything seemed out of sinc with the season somehow.... climate change and global warming on our doorstep....
Remember to click on the photos to get a closer look at the creatures......

Autumn Rain to Save our Bacon....

 At last, after the driest spell on record, we have autumn rain....the West terrace weather station in Adelaide South Australia started recording in 1839, it goes to show how hot and dry this summer has been. So it has been such a relief to see rain in good measure blessing the barren soil and giving the trees and plants at last a good, long, drink. There is absolutely nothing like rain for plants to respond, as one can water all one likes, only rain makes the plant world smile...
the clouds above the Willunga hills seen across our paddock are a wonder to behold.

,

As I was checking for damage to the trees after the fierce winds which also accompanied some of the rainy days, I found this Lehmanii flower on the ground and brought it in to photograph it.
It is an amazing structure, about 12cm across and 8cm high.It is covered in stamens and in amongst them are the bigger female ones which will turn into these wonderful red tubes, like finger stalls.
These then drop off and leave a solid wooden sphere which make wonderful fire wood and leave hot coals for a long time. While eating breakfast I could see a tiny insect running up and down the spikes having a great time....
 Again, looking at the trees, there were lots of red flowering blue gum blossems  on the ground in one place.
Looking closer there were tiny seedlings sprouting amongst the leaf and bark litter. Probably all weeds of course, but at this stage I am very happy to see green things after all the brown we have seen for months on end.

Next to the Blue gum is a pink gum which has white flowers, sadly I couldn't see any bees but it was early in the morning and the bees were having a sleep-in perhaps? after all the rain and the sudden cold as well they may have been reluctant to leave their warm hive...
These trees were all planted 28 years ago when we first came to live here and the block was practically bare. We now live in a very healthy little forest and have plenty of small wood for the fire....

We seem to have a sudden influx of Wattle birds.
The Noisy Miners left a little while ago and I think the Wattle birds feel safer now. They are amusing to watch as they are like a mob of school boys let out for the afternoon and having great fun in the local swimming hole by swinging off branches into the water diving under and out the other side to land on the fig tree or in this case the little statue sitting on the edge of the pond.

The dead BIFCUS on the right was in the front garden last week and we could not find out why it had died. BIFCUS stands for Black Faced Cuckoo Shrike and is a nomadic bird which does visit us occasionally. It makes a lovely soft churring sound and is quite unobtrusive. It lives on insects but will also eat berries and fruit and may occasionally eat little birds' nestlings...
I gave it a decent burial under the walnut tree....

Garden in drought and a visiting Tortoise

 We  had an extremely dry summer which has continued into autumn this year. It has been a real battle to keep plants going with a minimum amount of water. On the left you can see the bark and gum leaf litter which looks like the Australian bush but is actually part of our wild garden. It has even beaten the Blackbirds which normally love to scratch and carry on, they have moved into the vineyard next door which of course is irrigated and lends itself to scratching around in damper soil.

 Large sheets of bark have been shed by the eucalyptus trees which in a way is quite useful for us as we gather it into the shed ready for lighting our winter fires. Some of the colours are so beautiful, soft greys and subtle reds you feel you would like to do something creative with them, but hey, there is only so much time in the day....A lot of the smaller bark is left behind as it is good cover for insects and little skinks which love to hide under it and sometimes gives you quite a start as they suddenly appear and hurry off to somewhere else....

 Despite the extreme drought, we have bulbs suddenly appearing, first the Bella Donna or naked ladies lilies and then the very tall Candelabra lilies. This year though, the individual flowers of the lily are not as big or robust as other years when we have had some summer rains.
It never ceases to amaze me, to see them appear one morning without any fanfare, looking stunningly beautiful...
"Consider the lilies of the field" springs to mind...
The other flower which is a vivid red with golden stamens are the Blood lilies, these hug the ground on short stems and are very much loved by the New Holland honey eaters which descend on them in the late afternoon in sight of the verandah while we are having our end of the day drink....they are fun to watch as they also splash about in the birdbath and get the Willy wagtails all annoyed as they think it is their private bar and chase them off. Then Wattle birds may come and have a drink, imagine drinking someone else's bath water.....

 The wood heap on the right will help to keep us warm for a little while this coming winter.
Some of that wood was brought in for us from another garden which was glad to get rid of it.
It breaks my heart though, as the colour is a beautiful deep red in some of that wood and would polish into something lovely
If only I was a wood worker....

 Now this morning early, the birds were kicking up hell's delight and I wondered if the Koala had returned. I couldn't see anything in the trees at all but when I walked out to have a closer look and see what all the noise was about , there was a Tortoise all tucked in on itself when I got there.
Quickly got my camera but all you can see are his little claws and he was Not going to stick his neck out for me no matter how long I waited...

I turned him (was it a him?) upside down and we can see his lovely patterned underside....
The pointy end is his rear and the blunt end where he hides his head. He is the long necked native tortoise and wanders about a bit, he was probably heading for the ponds further up the road...
I turned him the right way up and a little later saw him walking away
The birds meanwhile got on with gathering their breakfasts ...we would be knee deep in insects if it wasn't for them....earwigs...pillbugs...millepedes....

....New birds in Tineke's Garden

It has been very hot here for the last few days and today it is 40*C outside. So we have been a bit worried about the second family Mr&Mrs  Willy Wagtail have hatched since the new year. There are only three of them because we wondered if a Tawny Frogmouth might have kidnapped one because they were sitting in the  the patio vines too for a couple of days....
The little babies decided they could leave the nest but they finished up on the patio bricks, still unable to fly at this stage. Mum and Dad are still busily feeding them and we can watch them through our sitting room glass door while having a cup of tea.

You can see how little they are sitting on the patio bricks. I have put water there for them but it is only the parents that seem to drink.
What has really surprised us is that suddenly there are three,great ,big, (compared to the little baby birds above) Grey Currawongs hanging around the bird bath, keeping all the other little birds away from the water. This is at the front of our house. Grey Currawongs usually live in scrub country, like the Mallee or the Adelaide hills and are awful nest robbers....They look black but they must be the Grey Currawongs as Black ones live only on the East coast of Australia.

The only redeeming feature is their melodious call which can reverberate over the countryside.
They mostly live on insects they find in the forest litter and they also pull bark off the gumtrees to find insects there. And as I said before they will rob the nests of other birds in the Springtime when all the birds are busy hatching baby birds....
Their size is 500mm (which is 50cm to my mind) so you can see by using a ruler how long they are. They seem to have very savage looking beaks.....don't they...

Now, a kinder but also noisy bird is the Rainbow Lorikeet, this one is sitting on its own for the moment but soon a dozen or more will arrive and they squeak and squawk and push each other around in the water, if there is any left that is...
They live mostly in the top of trees on the eucalyptus flowers and their noise can be quite deafening.....

This pair of Kangaroos were in the garden earlier last year in the winter time when our garden is green instead of brown like it is in the summer.
The sun burns everything off in our hot summer and I always think the plants respond to the heat like your plants in the Northern hemisphere respond to the snow and ice... by going under ground and waiting for kinder weather.... Don't forget to click on the photos to get a closer look at the birds and kangaroos.....