WHAT'S ALL THAT BARKING DOWN BY THE RIVER?

Ravi (the red kelpie) bailed up this big old man kangaroo, so he went for a swim. Roos can be deadly to dogs in a river. The roo's longer legs allow him to get a grip and drown the dog.




A lot of people this of kangaroos as gentle animals. And they are. But they can also be fierce fighters, especially the big males. They fight each other for possession of a mob of breeding does (as in "doe, a deer, a female deer...")





This big male roo simply waited Ravi out, took a b ath, then hopped out and went on his way. The drought has brought many roos in from the west. We'd have several hundred on Uamby now.

Adoption scheme creates chaos (good chaos)

When we launched "Adopt A Sheep" three weeks ago we had no inkling of what would happen. We have been inundated with city people (mainly) wanting to help out. We have had more than 20,000 people visit our blogsite (http://adoptasheep.blogspot.com) and more than 1500 sheep in our flock have been 'adopted'. Every adopting 'parent' receives a certificate with a photograph, and generating these while managing a rickety order processing system has been a nightmare.(THIS IS US AS WE APPEARED IN THE MUDGEE GUARDIAN'S WEEKLY EDITION)
(THIS IS DANIEL CATCHING A MEAL ON THE RUN DURING OUR MARATHON CERTIFICATE-A-THON)

We can now afford to feed our flock for two more months - 2/3rds of our target commitment of 100 days. Meanwhile the rain has come - nearly 45mls in the past 3 days. We'd forgotten what it looks like. It looks like this: ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP))))((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP))))((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP))))((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP))))((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP)))) ((((RAINDROP))))
We need that much every week for the next 6 months to fill the dams and soak the soil down deep to reignite the cation exchange process (the electrical process that soils use to transfer nutrients to roots).

The soil is waiting for rain. If we 'eat out' the paddocks, there will be nothing to hold the soil together. It will be bared to bake in the sun (and release large amounts of the greenhouse gas CO2). There will be only a hard surface to greet the rain, which will run off into the dams and waterways, carrying our most precious resources - topsoil. By retaining groundcover, we not only protect the soil, we prepare the ground to recieve the water and draw it down into the rootmass which will be the engineroom of growth for the new vegetation. There is a world of bugs and microbes and fungi and microfauna down there, dormant and just hanging on for the rain. They spring to action when rain arrives. But there's a more important reason to give paddocks a good rest from grazing - it's that the grasses will grow even when there's no rain. ALl they need is time.

This is bare earth.
(THIS IS BARE EARTH. WHICH IS BAD. IT BREAKS DOWN UNDER THE HEAT AND BLOWS AWAY. OR IT PRESENTS A HARD SURFACE TO THE RAIN WHICH MAKES IT HARD TO SOAK IN.)
This is a little ground cover. Probably not enough, but it protects the communities living just beneath the surface of the soil.
(THIS IS SOME GROUNDCOVER, ENOUGH TO HOLD THE TOPSOIL TOGETHER AND STOP WATER JUST RUNNING OFF AND NOT SOAKING IN.)
(THIS IS BETTER GROUNDCOVER DURING DROUGHT BECAUSE IT PROTECTS THE SOIL FROM THE WORST OF THE HEAT AND THE ROOTMASS IS LARGER AND READY TO SOAK UP THE RAIN)

This rain is a blessing. Now we need time for the grasses to respond. And they a responding. Within 24 hours of the first fall the green started to appear. This is becuase we have some rootmass retained because we took the animals off the paddocks before theyw ere bared out. The paddocks that are eaten down to billiard table smoothness will take far longer to respond, the grasses will be sparcer, and will have far more weed infestation. (Weeds love bare earth.)

Why do weeds love bare earth? Because they thrive when they have no competition from sturdy grasses and shrubs. You see, grass and weeds don't just grow in any place at any time. When you know the lifecycle behaviour of plants you can read a patch of ground like a book... A heavy infestation of weeds is not necessarily a bad thing because weeds have a role to play and a time to play it. Weeds are opportunistic - they take hold whenever they get a chance. We'll talk about weeds later.

This was our Adopt A Sheep PR release

Adopt An Australian Sheep?

“Adopt A Sheep” is an online appeal launched by an Australian farm family to raise the money they need to fee their flock through the worst drought in 1000 years.

The appeal is being launched on a blogsite – http://adoptasheep.blogspot.com .

The flock of 3000 mothers and lambs are being hand fed on a woolgrowing farm called “Uamby” in a valley 300 miles north west of Sydney, Australia in a historic district first settled in 1822. The Kiely family sent 1000 wethers to market as the long dry got longer, but they stand to lose nearly a decade of breeding for superfine fleece if they are forced to send their lambs and ewes to the slaughterhouse.

Adopting “parents” pay $35, the amount it will cost to feed a single sheep for 100 days. In return they can choose to adopt a lamb, a ewe or a ram and give it a name. They get a photograph of ‘their sheep’ and a certificate of adoption. As well they will receive frequent reports on how their sheep is going. And the Kielys invite adopting parents to visit with their sheep out on the farm.

Michael and Louisa Kiely left the big city several years ago and ‘went bush’ to join the farming families fighting to make their dreams come true in the Australian outback. “We walked away from a marketing business that was very successful, but was tearing us apart as a couple,” says Michael Kiely. “It was always Louisa’s dream to go farming, and it was always my dream to stay married to her. So here we are.”

Australia is in the grip of the worst drought in living memory, with waterways drying up and dams at historic lows. The Kiely’s have battled drought for most of their farming career. They use special farming techniques to protect the environment from degradation and make the most of what rain falls. They were recognised in 2005 by being selected as among the 10 most innovative farm families in the Central West. They use greenhouse-friendly no-till farming and humane stock-handling techniques.

The Kiely’s were able to graze their flock on green pastures long after many neighbouring farms had started hand feeding, thanks to a system called time controlled grazing which allows the grasses time to recover and encourages ‘biological diversity’. They also keep a mob of kangaroos and wallabies on their farm.

“The ‘roos deserve a place to live, too. Unfortunately they get to the best grasses before the sheep do, but we’ve learned to live with that.”

The Kiely family has also made their own private reconciliation with the original native (indigenous) inhabitants of the land. Wiradjuri elders conducted a ‘welcome to country’ smoking ceremony during which the Kiely’s read a declaration of commitment to protect the land. (See http://envirofarming.blogspot.com)

They are woolgrowers for ethical reasons: “Our sheep are precious to us and we'd hate to lose any more. We grow sheep for wool because it's not the same as growing animals up to slaughter them. We make sure they have enough shade and water and we use the most humane handling techniques. And we're always looking to improve. Because we believe contented sheep produce better wool, and better karma for everyone.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Michael Kiely (612) 6374 0329
Michael@newhorizon.au.com
http://envirofarming.blogspot.com

‘Uamby’
RMB 384 Uamby Road
GOOLMA NSW 2852

Hi,

It's amazing what you can do with the Internet. We launched a blogsite (costs nothing) called "Adopt A Sheep" 3 days ago, asking visitors to donate $35 to pay for the emergency feed for a single sheep through the next 100 days on our drought-affected property. (http://adoptasheep.blogspot.com) The bank tried to put us through the hoops to register as a credit card merchant, so we simply plugged in PayPal (costs nothing). I mentioned it in an email to one or two people and we had our first adoption order for 5 lambs yesterday. Sent a press release to a few newspapers around the world and here at home, and got a story in the Daily Telegraph this morning - and woke to the telephone ringing... A Sydney radio station wants an interview, a television network is flying a crew up by chopper to film a segment... (Nothing's guaranteed with PR until it appears in the media.) I got the idea from World Vision's tv campaign: adopt a child for Christmas. It's one thing to have the idea - it's another to be empowered to execute it. The Net makes it all possible. Low budget... No, No Budget Marketing.


Cheers!

Michael