From the banks of the Yarrowee River

There has been useful rain the bast couple of nights and I am hoping that I will be able to turn dead grass and weeds in the front garden into lawn.  I took a walk beside the Yarrowee River that is just across the road from my Trad Pad and the river was doing well - as you can see - in spite of one tree having a branch broken.

On the banks of the Yarrowee ... a new Trad Pad

2012 turned out to be a whole year's hiatus on The Trad Pad.  With hindsight, it is going to be a year that I wrap up thoughtfully and tuck away.  I am rather glad - in the end - that I didn't do anything public on The Trad Pad last year.

On the banks of the Yarrowee River, Ballarat

This year looks like being very different.  I have moved to a really real Trad Pad situated 2kms and a world away from the city centre of Ballarat in Victoria, Australia.  I am living in an historic old mining area across the road from the Yarrowee River at the foot of a forested hill.  In this out of sight, out of time part of the world the roads have no bitumen, no channelling and kerbing.

 Water in a formerly dry waterhole on the Yarrowee.

Below: blossom and oaks on the Yarrowee.

Until yesterday, directly in front of my place the river was dry.  After some good and much needed rain, there is now water in my part of the river.

I live right on the Yarrowee Trail - part of the Goldfields Track and the Great Dividing Trail.  Runners and walkers and bikers of all shapes, sizes, and ages wander past my place.  I have a large old Golden Ash in the front yard which is a beautiful and natural form of air-conditioning and perfect for sitting under on a hot afternoon.

And - as you can see from the picture in the title above - there is a verandah.

The cottage that is The Trad Pad is quaint, quirky and small and in need of some repair.  It allegedly has three bedrooms but I prefer to say two bedrooms and a dressing room because the third has the only built-in wardrobe in the place.  While it would take a single bed, I have two chests of drawers in there instead.  So it is not a sleeping room but a dressing room.

While there is a nicely sized front yard there is almost no backyard.  The backyard is a sort of triangle (the house is on a corner - the western wall forms part of the property's boundary) with a lane behind which once would have been used as a dunny-run - adjoining a square. The whole is gravelled instead of grass.  If it was grassed one would need barber's clippers to trim the lawn.  I have some of my potted plants there.

 

At the foot of the forested hill

Blog Action Day on WATER : Global Handwashing day - The Wiggles & Nelson Mandela

To-day, as you can see, Trad Padders, from the post below is Blog Action Day and the theme for this year is WATER. I am trying to kill two birds with one stone so I am combining the Water theme of Blog Action Day with a little soap because to-day is Global Handwashing Day.

A little water and a little soap can make a huge difference in saving lives and helping us to ward off disease.  I love the emphasis on the kids because we want them to grow up strong and resilient, don't we.

The first Global Handwashing Day was in 2008.

Our very own Wiggles wrote a special tune.

It is catchy and easy to teach to your kids.

And here is the video for 2010

Please value water.

It is our life.

Please support the human right to water and its understanding.

Article 31

In Australia, water was unbundled from land

by a COAG Agreement in 1994.

This made water a tradeable commodity -

when once it was part of the Commons -

it belonged to all of us.

This definition of water rights comes from Wiserearth:

Definition: Water rights are the legal rights that define ownership of water and water sources (surface and subsurface), the use of water and the priority of water use. Water rights allocate water to different users and can be contentious in areas where water supplies are insufficient for the demands upon the supply, and where people are denied or deprived of access to water. The right to water is increasingly considered as a basic human right that has to be reconciled with legal water rights already in existence.  Unfortunately, privatization and commodification of water often undermine this right by cutting off supply to those who cannot afford to pay.

Maria, Mildura and the Murray in a mini flood

From Drop Box

I have received a small collection of photos from Maria Reidl, that great Water Warrior, of the iconic Murray River at Pinkie Point, Mildura in what Maria describes as a "mini flood". The real thing has yet to arrive. Currently somewhere near Echuca!  Make safe your houseboats!

In search of the rushing, gushing Yarra River - Part 1

I had a lovely day out yesterday.

It was full of the unexpected and pleasant surprises.

Large tracts of Victoria are under water at the moment.

A vast contrast from the worst drought since white settlement

and the deathly bushfires of last year.

The radio said that the Yarra River was expected to flood

at Yarra Glen.

I didn't want to wait till the Yarra actually flooded.

I wanted to see the Yarra gushing and rushing

with the water of the yet-to-be flood.

And I did.

This is the story of my day in search of the pre-flood Yarra.

The map at this site will give you a bit of an idea of where I went.

As I left the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne behind

and hit the Melba Highway,

everything was green

and there was water, water everywhere.

Dams were full to the brim.

A few drops more and they would overflow.

Water was lying at the edge of the road

and the Yarra billabongs were spreading.

The photos above and below were taken
from Skyline Drive looking back to Yarra Glen.

Looking for Sugarloaf Reservoir Park was quite an exercise.
I think there is a job going begging in the Victorian public sector -
Commissar of Signage.
I find the signage poor in and around Melbourne -
sometimes beyond belief.
It doesn't compare with the signage in Sydney -
where the traffic moves so quickly
and the layout of the city is so convoluted
one would never survive without clear signage.

I turned off the Melba Highway at the appropriate sign.
Not to see another sign on a major road for the rest of the day.
I later was told I did not go far enough along
the Yarra Glen to Eltham road before turning off.

I had two sets of "clear" instructions
neither of which delivered the desired result.

After wandering hither and yon -
yes, I didn't have a clue where I was -
I found Sugarloaf in the distance.
The photo below is the result.

My camera is fairly humble -
a Kodak EasyShare DX7590
(5.0 mega pixels and 10X optical zoom) -
and I am an even humbler photographer
(for this read ignorant and unskilled).

If I were clever,
I could probably customise settings
but I am not clever enough to figure all that.
Given these limitations,
I was rather pleased with this photograph.
I was a great distance from the water,
and I couldn't tell how well the zoom
was handling what I was asking of it.
I consider myself fortunate to have
recorded not only the water
but the dam wall and, somehow, the CBD in the distance.

Once I discovered this back part (well I think it was the back part of the reservoir), I followed a road which ran alongside the high Melbourne Water perimeter fence. So you don't lay awake at night wondering, I have to tell you that there is a fair degree of security around our water storages.  I went past all sorts of signs and many, many locked gates.  And after this journey, I eventually came to a half-open gate.

In spite of warnings to trespassers, I - lost in search of a pre-flood experience - entered.  I went down a bitumen driveway and came to a large concrete area.  At one end of this was a multi-story building.  But I couldn't resist walking across to the fenced off section at the other side of the concrete apron.  And there I was - high above the Yering Gorge.  And the water was rushing and gushing.

Camera was quickly put into action and, just as I had taken these, a man came to see what I was doing.  I explained to him about looking for Sugarloaf, the poor signage, seeing the Yarra in flood, etc.  And he gave me directions....

....and I did make it to the Sugarloaf Reservoir Park....

and here is some explanatory signage

Click the above photos (3) to enlarge and make legible.

The picture below is of a section of a narrow peninsula jutting into the reservoir

which is covered in low blooming wattle.

and then there was the getting out -

and, if the getting in was a mystery, so was the getting out.

And it had its adventures too...

.... I found a castle in the hills.

A modern version - but, I think, a castle nonetheless.

One finds all sorts of things on roadsides in the bush.

The quaintest are usually letter boxes.

This is the most curious.

One can imagine baskets left there

to receive the bread, the parcels.

But...what is the story with the picture frame?

Hopefully this is a successful partnership.

Bush flora.

Driving down the bush road,

I spotted the beautifully rusty wheelbarrow.

I could not resist.

Pulled up the car right in the middle of the road,

because - with the Kodak zoom lens - I thought 

I could get a picture from the road.

Next thing, a woman came into view.

I walked over and explained how I had found the wheelbarrow -

or it had found me.

Introductions done -  she is Deirdre.

Her cottage garden is small.

She would like to plant her favourite daphnes

but there is no room.

Nillumbik Shire Council has some tight controls.

The amount of land given to non-indigenous plants is limited.

Deirdre has planted out a number of wattles -

but these are wattles indigenous to the area.

As well, the shire dictates the height of houses.

Deirdre's house fits well into the landscape -

almost hugging the ground in comparison

with the bush around.

I told Deirdre about my Yering Gorge adventure,

and she told me how her Bend of Islands home

overlooked the gorge and took me to the verandah

so I could photograph her view.

Yering Gorge in the Bend of Islands -

photographed from Deirdre's verandah.

And, across the old white bridge above,
I exited the Bend of Islands
through some beautiful green Victorian bush.

The story continues to-morrow

with the rushing, gushing Yarra River

at Warrandyte.

Seasons of the Soul: Ash Wednesday 2008

THE LONG WATCH

I draw aside to-day:
into the quiet, the reflection
of the pool of life.

I watch the disturbance,
the stone of my being
cast into the timeless pool…

ripples moving outward
from the centre
of the sunken stone…

circular disturbances
of small circumference
enlarging to a fading edge.

The rippling of my life
is energy into stillness
moving beyond its entry point.

The ripples, equilibrium disturbed.
The still centre sinks
under the surface.

Rippling circular to centre.
Never a straight line,
never trajectory altered.

The disturbance continues
outward…
Until, far from its centre,
it ceases.

Brigid O’Carroll Walsh
Ash Wednesday 2008
6 February 2008
© 2008

Water for beer but it's a drought in the garden

I reckon Miss Eagle can say without fear of contradiction that Denise Gadd is hopping mad. Denise blogs at The Age where she is also the gardening editor. Now the blog is in a bit of a hiatus for the silly season. Denise burst into the Opinion Pages of The Age with this piece to-day. Almost a year ago to the day, Denise was having her say with this piece.

You will have noted, dear Reader, that Miss Eagle is promoting the petition, to which Denise refers, on her blogs. Go for it Denise, I say. Anyway can we send Tim Holding a ticket to a Permaculture design course for a New Year pressie? He clearly is not a gardener and has no sympathy for those who garden. I get mad when I think of all the water that it takes to make beer - and I don't drink a drop. I presume that Tim drinks his fair share - so how about giving me some leeway with my veges, Tim!

Water, water everywhere in the Outer East.

The previous post was talking about our lack of water and water restrictions. Clearly, a day is a long time in weather and climate. This afternoon, there was no shortage of water in the Outer Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Huge downpours this afternoon and flash flooding all over the place.

For the first time in three years, the creek in front of our house is full and flowing: flowing fast, in fact.