“Bark Burst”!

Now we are in Summer but it feels more like Autumn with its morning mists and degrees of coolness.  It is still raining intermittently and everything is growing at a great pace. One of the good things about that is it should be keeping the bush fires away this season. 

Remembering this time last year brings back the feelings of stress and anxiety as we waited for the raging fires to be turned in our direction.  When the rains came, the fires were about 8 kilometres away in one direction and burning solidly near Bundanoon in the opposite direction. So we were really on double alert.

The sheep have had their lambs and there were some twins and with the grass they have grown very fast.  There was only one poddy lamb this year and she soon went back out into the flock where she  made friends with some of the other lambs.  She could be seen running and playing with the others but when she was thirsty, she would come running back to the human who poddied her for a bottle of milk.

By the time these lambs are about six weeks old they don’t need milk and survive on water from the troughs. An interesting phenomenum of this breed is that they start eating grass within the first week of birth. They also shed their wool so do not need shearing and do this by rubbing alongside a tree or along the fences. This helps remove the shedding wool. It does not help the fences!

What is spectacular here at present is what I call “Bark Burst!” Because there has been such growth in everything, the trees burst their bark and it drops in great sheets, all round the bases and the trunks are exposed, shiny and so colourful, from creamy white to brilliant orange and many colours in between. This is when the trees are an artist’s delight.

Actually, every season, the trees here change through a vast medly of colours and go through mauves and many greys and rusts, browns, purples, oranges, dull reds. There is much to appreciate here whatever time of the year. Nature always has something to share with us.