Meridie Fricker

The second video, showing a couple’s white sheets being “stripped” could have darkened the bath water not only because of their body oils, but also skin colour. Thirty rears ago, I worked with a girl who was married to a man with dark skin and she told me her husband’s side of the bed ‘darkened’ in the course of the week, so she began washing her bedding every 3-4 days instead of once a week. I’ve also noticed my husbands pillow becomes quite dark and dirty a week after changing our sheets. We’re both fair skinned, but he’s a farmer, so is very tanned on the back of his neck. The skin oils (and body creams) being stripped out of the sheets in the video may have darkened the bath water, but the melanin also contributed.  Skin colour, natural or acquired (fair/olive/tanned) may have contributed to the colour of the bath water.)

My partner has recently presented “Building Drought Resilience in Low Rainfall Environments” at the National Landcare 2022 Conference, held in Sydney, last week. Though Buckleboo Station is a large sheep station in outback Australia, with a 12” annual rainfall, the principles still apply. His 25 minute presentation is on YouTube on the Landcare channel. (He doesn’t mention the many large tanks that capture every drop of rain from the homestead and outbuildings in the home paddock, for our personal use).
During the recent 3 year drought we had water trucked in (several times a week) at huge cost.
His presentation outlines how this can be avoided in future droughts.

Australian’s wanting to try this should check their local thrift shops for woollen blankets. South Australians in particular should look for old ‘Onkaparinga’ blankets which were made from 100% Australian wool. Some have a satin ribbon edging (not sure if the edging is 100% natural, but easily removed) though older blankets have a simple blanket stitch on the edge.
Now that we’re coming into summer in the Southern Hemisphere, blankets will be more plentiful in op shops, but they’re as rare as hen’s teeth in the cooler months, which is when I usually try to find them for dog bedding.

Brrr….. no thanks - too cold!

An update on my previous post…. My partner told me this morning that a large mining company  (who’ve been drilling exploration sites on the property for the last 18months) have confirmed they’ve identified ‘ the largest accessible high grade silver deposits in Australia’ in our back pocket…. As they will probably apply to have (and pay for) the public dirt road to be moved (and possibly sealed) a few hundred metres from its present location, where it runs past our home paddock, that should solve some of our problems with intruders (including dust and our visibility from the road).
Of course this may open a new can of worms….. any ideas or comments?

Where I live in remote South Australia (halfway between the East and West coasts) we have few, but memorable intruders. There is a public (dirt) road that runs through the 250,000 acre sheep station from a popular tourist stop to the National Park. The road is used by locals heading out to their more remote properties and tourists (with many more caravans since Covid). The main issues are:
Road damage - in our arid area our roads turn to bull dust until they’re almost impassable. When we (rarely) get rain, any traffic churns the annually graded road to a corrugated, chunky mess, damage that lasts until it’s next graded. Considerate locals phone us or our neighbours to enquire about the condition of the road if they need to travel soon after rain - if we reply that we’ve had rain and the road is still wet, they will usually wait a few hours before driving on it, which can make a huge difference, as it ‘crusts up’ within 3-5 hours (depending on the amount of rain).
Theft - An old stone outbuilding which houses our 2 working kelpies is located less than 10 metres from the road (though it’s behind our fence) and is 500 metres from the main house and other outbuildings.... on Christmas Eve 3 of our 4 week old pups were stolen, leaving the runt behind. We were away at the time, so our consciencous caretaker was awakened by a distressed bitch and spent Christmas Day searching for any sign of the pups or their remains, in case they had been hidden by her, or taken by an eagle/fox.
Soon after we arrived at the property, a carload of rough looking youths showed up after dark (they had evidently been drinking for some time) and started wandering around outside the main house, claiming, when challenged, to be after directions. They may have been genuinely lost....  or not.
Our local policeman transferred to the city 6months ago, leaving us with the closest police station in Port Augusta, 200 kms away.
As we don’t have mobile (cell phone) reception or internet outside the home, we could try satellite cameras, though we’d need a lot of them and I’m not sure where we’d place them.
The drones sound like a good idea, but once again, how many and where/when to use them?
One tip I heard years ago - Don’t build stock yards near or within sight of main roads or remote corners of a property, as it’s an invitation to thieves.
Some people underestimate the danger of remote areas - My partner was driving on a rarely used dirt road at the back of the property, in summer (daily temps 36C - 42C or around 100F) when he found a man slumped under a tree, about 100m from the road. He was nearly unconscious, but when he could speak he said he took a short cut, ran out of fuel and started walking across country, toward a dam he could see in the distance. As it happened, the dam was dry, as most of the dams on the property are by mid summer). If he had not been found, he would have died within hours. All our vehicles have large water containers, basic first aid kits etc in case of breakdown. We have two way radios in vehicles and at the home and workshop.
I love living on this remote station and wouldn’t move, but it does present a few challenges.

With regard to the area of stinging nettles.... yes, save part of this area for cooking, but nettles are a valuable resource of minerals. Compost activator, nutrient rich mulch, soil builder, chicken food. Good luck with your new project.

I’ve also had a similar problem with old building rubble left over from several renovations piled under a large tree. Using a large loader to lift and remove several bucket loads looked like it was the answer until I saw roots from the tree being exposed (at waist height) so discontinued the removal. Weeded and mulched the pile with wood chips, planted small yuccas and succulents into pockets between rocks and large yuccas around the deeper soil at the edge. Though this has solved the ugly rubble eyesore, the mulch does tend to slide off the steeper sided slope (where we abruptly halted the loader action).

There are many interpretations of ‘Back to Eden’ gardening and I’ve tried various versions in many climate zones in Australia. I’ve always applied wood chips on top of the soil surface (never mixed with soil or used as a base layer). I’ve had great success blocking weeds by using wood chips over cardboard when preparing new beds and moderate success using chips without the cardboard as weed blocker.  
I have found that where I’ve used cardboard and mulch to block couch grass, the garden beds are generally weed free up to the near-edge of the couch grass, but the grass runners seem attracted to the rich soil developing under the mulch and persistently invade the border. Using a ‘spade-trench’ gutter is a high maintenance solution, that only works until my back is turned! Keeping a sharp edge by vigilant spading keeps the couch at bay, but results in an ever widening garden bed.
While gardening in a high rainfall (52” per annum) cool temperate zone in Victoria, getting quality wood chips delivered was an easy solution. I’m now in a remote semi arid zone, 55km from the nearest very small town, so wood chips are not readily available. A neighbouring farmer is chipping eucalyptus trees for distilling oil and though I’ve heard this could be allelopathic, I’ve not had a problem mulching with this mulch (so far). I’ll use these Eucalypt chips in my new food forest and ornamental beds and to define pathways in other areas.
Another point re ‘Back to Eden’:  Paul advocates using ‘whole tree’ chips, not just bark chips.

F Agricola wrote:
Envious! Yes, that would be perfect stuff to use on garden pathways and, the smaller chips could be incorporated into compost.

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Oh good, thanks for your encouragement. Will make the Eucalypt pathways in Stage One and stockpile/compost the remainder for Stages 2 & 3 (6-12 months away) a few metres away by the compost bays.