Rain and lots of it

Been house bound for a few days now because of over 140ml of rain falling intermittantly from overcast skies. Dam is still full from the last big rain event, which means it was in danger of doing again what it did then and going over the top.  This is not good for dams, it erodes their walls and the worst case scenario is that it fails altogether and you lose your dam wall and your water. The dam has already had quite a bit of work done on it and is in far better shape than it had been when we bought the place. But the last rains showed more work needed to be done.

So David has been digging the dam overflow channel deeper, so that excess water can get away fast enough. Additionally, the dam wall has been raised a little and the land bridge connecting the dam to the rest of the garden has been lowered, so that as well as flowing under it, the water can flow over it in an emergency, instead of overfilling the dam. Sound complicated? It's beyond me. Apart from heavy labour, all this has involved a certain amount of calculating and measuring, consulting the rainfall records and getting expert help. Forest scientist friend Chris has been an enormous resource. In fact, his dire warnings have been what has prompted all this activity to make it right.

The dam wall has been mended and mulched. Here David looks like he's divining, but actually he has just been measuring and is putting the rule away.

John and his bobcat finessed the land bridge and put the excess dirt on the lowest section of dam wall and smoothed it all out. Would have taken days to do all that manually.

 The following day, the rains started. Here is the dam overflow in full operation, water pouring out of it, down the new creek bed we constructed and going under the land bridge through pipes.

(Above) Here's the other side of the land bridge, with Sue's Creek in flood.

Sue's Creek flowing into Billy's pond. Named for Billy the new dog next door. A labrador who was the first dog to go into this new body of water. From here the water goes into a culvert under the road. Eventually it finds its way to the creek beyond and thence to the sea.

This is Dave's Creek, upstream of the dam and pouring water into it from properties higher up. If you look on Google maps, this creek is shown. But it only runs after rain.

We have stopped slashing the area adjacent to Dave's Creek and it is beginning to revegetate with some lovely native ferns and other plants. A lot of introduced weeds too that eventually will be eradicated and hopefully it will end up looking suitably riparian.

This shot gives an alternative meaning to the words "cricket ball". You see, a favourite meal for butcher birds is crickets, of which there are plenty round here. So when the birds come and sit on the table on the deck to get out of the rain, they periodically hack up one of these. If you look closely, it is full of undigested cricket legs and eyeballs. Charming.

We are off to Canberra the day after tomorrow, for Mae's final chemotherapy cycle. She's pretty knocked around by it all so we are all hoping there will be a gradual recovery to health and fitness so that when she and Nick get married in May, they can both enjoy their day. At the moment, still very tough going for both of them. What a year it's been. Keep those health giving healing thought waves coming.

After Canberra, we spend a day and night in Sydney, then fly to Melbourne, where we will be for about 3 weeks. I am so looking forward to Melbourne. It's been too long. I just love it down there. It will be wonderful to spend some time with Lian and Wim, who are actually sharing a flat in Fitzroy at present. Soon as we get back, its all systems go for the launch of my new psychological practice at Hallidays Point. Lots happening.