XPLORE – Out & About

Last week we spent a few days at a Bush Heritage Australia conservation property, Scottsdale Reserve, which is located approximately 70-kilometres south of Canberra on the Monaro Highway.

And the weather was much warmer than the last time Baz was there in August when temperatures plummeted to minus 10 degrees.  This time around the days were warm and the nights balmy…

Our assigned task was weed control, spraying fields of St John’s Wort that are now starting to flower. However, sporadic rain showers slowed this job down.

Mind you rain is most welcome on Scottsdale as it has been in drought for sometime.

So while Baz was out in the Polaris spraying weeds, I got to have a Master-class in propagating two types of Eucalyptus trees (Eucalyptus Bridge Siana and forgot the other one…oops)!

The propagation process entails looking under a microscope to see how many seeds are mixed in with the chaff, which in turn determines how big a scoop of seeds/chaff go into the potting tray.

I had no idea the seeds would be that microscopic, so it was a very small scoop…!

The trees will be planted on the property sometime over the next couple of years…

Late in the day, just around dusk, we made our way to a beautiful spot on the Murrumbidgee River, which the property fronts, to see if we could spot a Platypus, or two, but to no avail on this occasion, they didn’t want to come out and play. But we saw turtles, water rats and some big Murray Cod!

A great and fun time to spend a few days helping out the environment!

And hey, you can read some more about the work Bush Heritage Australia does, here.

Photos: Janet-Planet & Baz – The Landy, in Australia’s Alpine Region…