We have wildlife (not all welcome)

So Dave saw a snake when he was clearing the long grass in the olive grove. We knew they were around but I wish they would just stay hidden. It ran away from him into the forest so at least it wasn't mean.

On the plus side though, in the olive grove he also saw a stumpy tailed lizard. These are cute in a monster-ish sort of way. They are harmless but they have a bad temper and if you come near them they will stick their tongue out and hiss. Like in this photo. Unfortunately they are also stupid and so unlike snakes that run away, these guys just stay fixed in position meaning you have to be ultra-careful when mowing.

More interestingly in the dam we have yabbies (a kind of freshwater crayfish). As I will never be able to get rid of them, I am now thinking I may adopt them as a kind of low maintenance pet.



Dave has a yabbie net - he throws it in with bait to catch them so he can see how big they are. He swears he lets them go... and indeed in this case I have proof that at least one escaped the pot. I never knew yabbies swam backwards before!

Keeping bees

Sometimes things just all fall into place.

We plan to keep bees at Amherst to help with pollinating the orchard as well as for honey and beeswax.

But neither of us know the first thing about bee-keeping.

I'd been expecting it would be a hassle to find somewhere local to learn and thus we'd be better starting over here in the UK despite the climate and bee strain differences. But it turns out that couldn't be further from the truth.

The Central Goldfields region of which we're smack bang in the middle is apparently a centre for the Honey Bee industry in Australia!!!! Who knew???

Because of this, the local TAFE has multiple courses all about bee keeping. The one that sounds perfect for us is a 7 week course, 1 evening per week plus 2 weekend day practical sessions.

So bees can wait. Thank goodness, 'cos I wasn't looking forward to attempting it here in urban London. :-)