Miss Lucy – newest resident at Kilcowera
September 2, 2009
- Miss Lucy our little Australian Silky Terrier
A busy August at Kilcowera.
It started cold but gradually warmed up until we were in shorts and t shirts, eating salads and warning the visitors to keep an eye out for snakes. We’ve had several changes in the weather that promised a slight chance of rain but it didn’t happen, so the drought continues for us. A large chunk of south west Qld is still drought declared and we have been constantly advising would be visitors that it is dry here still. They all seem to think that, as the channel country rivers ran earlier this year the drought is over. All we have had here are dust storms and a measly 26 ml of rain this year.
With the unappealing threat of a long, hot, dry summer ahead of us again, Greg has been repairing stock waters around the place. One tank and trough had not been used for about 5 years and we have refurbished it so it holds water again. A windmill broke down some months ago and it too is being fixed, he thought it was a write off but the problem is not as bad as first thought, thank goodness.
We have had quite a lot of visitors throughout the winter, mainly birdwatchers and campers also a few fly in people. One bloke was flyiyng a little Cessna 150 to Thailand and he stayed here on his way there and back. Brave man!!!! Many of our guests were on their way to Lake Eyre to see the spectacle. It must have been pretty busy out there over the winter months.
Both Greg and myself had a little trip away for shopping purposes – his purchases were mainly for water improvements, he’s got pumps, pipes, fittings, compressors, motors and all manner of things in an endeavour to make our stock waters more dependable and not so reliant on wind.
I had a week away mainly to visit a daughter and to see her graduate from Uni. I was soo happy for her that she passed as she has worked so hard to get through Uni and hold down a job as well. The other big job on my agenda was to come home with a puppy as my little Chihuahua died last year and it has been a lonely existence without a little companion. Someone to talk to.
So Lucy has joined the family, she is an Australian Silky Terrier and what a bundle of energy! She loves our visitors and is getting more confident and cheeky as every day goes by. She is also the scruffiest little animal that I have ever seen and it is nearly impossible to groom her as she just wants to play all the time and won’t stay still. She has been a bit crook today and looks very pathetic.
Catalogues were very big in the 80’s & 90’s and still are!
February 22, 2009
When we first married and I came to live here we made our own electricity, had a third world phone, not much money, no credit cards (nobody trusted them), no internet, a once weekly mail service and I was also the new kid on the block with a pair of in laws to try and win over.
We had to live quite a frugal lifestyle as the family had to go into debt to buy Kilcowera and understandably wanted to pay it off asap.
So there just wasn’t the money to spend on luxuries, holidays or even former pursuits of Greg’s like playing polo. His horses were now just used for mustering.
The other women on nearby stations were considerably older than me but offered me friendship and advice and an avenue for plant, vegetable, egg and magazine swapping which saved money and gave me a sense of belonging to this very cliquey new world I found myself in.
We would often receive catalogues in our mail. Oh, how I used to drool over the Myer Direct one! It used to have everthing in it – clothes through to homewares and furniture. Well about 10 years ago Ezibuy took it over and Myer had nothing to do with it any more, I was pretty disgusted about that. (Sshh, Ezibuy is a NZ company). I still buy the odd thing out of Ez when I just need to buy something! All the woolen things are made from NZ wool which sticks in my craw as the Australian wool industry needs all the help it can get!
That used to be my all time favorite, but there were others, the bulb catalogues were big in my life. I only had to look at the special deal on Daffodils or Jonquils and in my minds eye could see drifts of flowers under the trees in my lawn. Digger’s seeds come to mind too. Fair dinkum, us gardeners must be the most optimistic people on the planet. Over the years I have spent thousands on plants and bulbs, fertilizers, water crystals, pots and seeds. And I’m still not happy with either of my gardens. Still, 15 years of drought out of the 28 that I have been here might have something to do with the gardens’ lack of lushness. Selective thinning when I have to ask Greg to come in to the garden with his chain saw to cut down dead trees. More on this topic soon…………
Lake Wyara’s water birds.
January 26, 2009
In the first half of 2008 there were approximately 10,000 pelicans breeding on the western shore of Lake Wyara. It was a magic sight and sound and smell to stand out there seeing all those pelicans that had come all this way from the coast to breed. In the 28 years that I have been here it is only the second time that I have seen them breeding on Lake Wyara. They could have been there at other times though.
They kinda snuck up on me this time as I did not think there was enough water in the lake for anything much to be happening there. Then out of the blue a journalist rings me up and asked “ How’s your pelicans going?”
Says I “No pelicans here mate”.
Journo “Well the National park ranger reckons there’s about ten thousand on Lake Wyara.” “Hmm, I’ll ring you back tomorrow when I check it out.” So a quick fly out over the lake confirmed this amazing news. Here’s some pictures.
Greg and National Parks are currently working on a new boundary fence that will keep stock out of the park and enable us to use our 70,000 acre Lake paddock again. We have had no stock in it for 5 years as a part of the old boundary fence was pushed down for a road to the lake from the Currawinya side. This little guy just came right up to us to check us out and then waddled off to his mates.
Lake Wyara a Wetland of International significance.
January 23, 2009
In 1991 National Parks and Wildlife took over the grazing property Currawinya, our eastern neighbour. They also took Lake Wyara a 6000 ha salt lake classified as Vacant Crown Land which was our eastern boundary and physically on Kilcowera.
When Lake Wyara is full it’s a beautiful blue saline expanse of wetland that supports enormous numbers of birds, fish, turtles, crustaceans and sea grasses. It is filled by 5 big creeks, 3 of which start and end on Kilcowera, Benanga, Youlaingee and Kihi creeks. The lake has been listed by RAMSAR as a wetland of international significance.
Lake Wyara had some water in it in 2008, this picture taken from the north and at 1500 feet.
We have an interesting scenic drive which is a 60 km round trip out through our Lake paddock. It goes over the highest country on Kilcowera and offers great views of Lake Wyara and the creeks. The lake has been pretty much dry for about 4 years now but surely it will fill again soon.
Kilcowera has many different types of vegetation and land types, ranging from dunes to gibber plains, out around the lake is sort of like channel country with small dunes.
The image above shows Pink Eared Ducks on one of the creeks that flow into Lake Wyara. We see some interesting birds out there not seen around the Homestead, like the gibber bird and orange chat. Of course when the lake is full it is teeming with water birds. These beautiful birds below are Red Necked Avocets. To be continued………….
