Snakes alive!

According to wiki 

The Eastern Brown Snake is the second most venomous land snake in the world.

Sharyn & I were enjoying a pleasant morning tea when one slithered past our feet less than a couple of metres away.

He was hunting for lizards and had the scent of one behind  this rock wall.

While peering into a crevice between the rocks it suddenly thrashed it's body and disappeared completely. At the same time a copper backed lizard dashed out from the other side and headed for cover elsewhere.

The Eastern Brown emerged, still hungry, but ready to strike. Shortly afterwards it hide itself behind the same rock, waiting for the lizard to return.

I didn't do any wall building for a couple of days.

Garden in December

The garden has a few new ironstone walls, and some of the flowers are showing signs of recovery after the the 'roos have left. Early  morning is the best time to shoot - photos, not 'roos. The thyme and salvias are thriving - the 'roos tend to avoid them. Although, the strawberries behind are a favourite of theirs, we've put mesh over a small area, they can share the rest with the bower birds and currawongs.

This area close to the pizza oven is a favourite of mine, it shows the tiers of rock walls we've built to define areas for planting.

The herb garden - thyme, oregano, rosemary and sage, with a few curry plants, lemon thyme and mint hidden amongst them.

New rock wall lined with hebes and westringea.

Cales and I have been experimenting with concrete garden art. We started with a couple of spheres. They fit in well with the salvias, dianthus and ironstone.  The mulched areas will be massed with flowers eventually.

Open Gardens at Mt Wilson

We visited Mount Wilson on Sunday to get some inspiration for our garden. We usually only visit Mt Wilson when we are camping or canyoning, but this weekend there were many gardens open to the public. Although there are over a dozen gardens open, we only managed to visit three of them - Nooroo was the first.

Nooroo

It is famous for it's wisteria collection - a little disappointing although it is a little early to expect any flowers.

It's a beautiful garden with a country feel - wide walks with massed colour.

Breenhold

We visited Breenhold after lunch. It is a huge private garden - 12 acres - all full of interest.  It's known for it's clouded azaleas. The hedge lining the long curving gravel driveway is a taste of what's to come.

After greeting the owners we followed their recommended route around the property. And soon came to a beautiful pool, surrounded by mossy local stone. The brolgas were the first of many tasteful pieces of garden art to be found.

After meandering through the cool shade we came to a grassy area and our first sight of the clouded azaleas.

A more formal area was next - a perfect curve lined with precision cut box and more azaleas.

The topiary continues....

Around halfway through the garden this delightful gravel path wended it's way around a large man-made lake. The vegetation spilling onto the path is a fantastic look - it's clean, looks natural, is low maintenance and feels like it's been there forever.

This is just a taste of Breenhold - highly recommended.

The third garden was very disappointing - make sure you start with a well known garden and get a recommendation about other gardens that are worth seeing.

Yengo is definitely on the agenda for 2013.....

The climate at Mt Wilson is very similar to ours, many of the species will thrive here at Hat Hill Farm. We took hundreds of photos - I hope we can replicate the 'look'.

Slashing

We've been having a bit of fun over the last few days driving this little tractor, with slasher attached, around some sections of our property.

As we are the first people to ever live at Hat Hill Farm, giving shape to the land is up to us. Our attention has definitely shifted from mainly working on the house to now being focused on the land, and we are spending more time thinking about how we want different areas to work and look.

This weekend we'll work on clearing up some of the fallen trees and logs that came down in the storm last year. Which will help build up our firewood supply for this winter. The autumn weather has been amazing so far and we haven't lit the fire yet, but I'm sure we'll need to soon!



Note: There are more photos of me on the tractor than Keith, but he has done most of the work . . :) !

Steps

Over the last few weekends I've spent some time levelling our car park. It was a gentle slope following the contours down towards the veggie patch. Lots of cut & fill with the excavator, and the result is that it's now levellish(?).

However, the cut has meant that we need some steps.... so today's job was to smarten up the stepp bank and install some steps. This is the start of the set-out... making sure they're straight, square, level and with even treads....

It all came together quickly, once the set out was done.... cut out five rebates in each stringer for the five risers. As the rebate would be buried, I used an axe instead of a chisel... a lot quicker. Then set the stringers in place, and nailed the top & bottom riser in place.... a few small adjustments to the stringers to ensure they were still square, straight and even. Then hammered in four short hardwood posts and nailed the stringers to them... this will make sure the whole structure doesn't slowly migrate down the slope. And the 3 intermediate risers were easy to slot in.

And by lunchtime, the finished product looked like this.

Raking the soil level, and topped with 50mm of mulch making it look almost professional! I also managed a bit of stonework around both sides to blend it in with the landscape.

I now need to find a way of getting the wheelbarrow up the steps or find an alternative route.