Monday, August 1, 2011

What's happening in the environment where you live?

As part of the initial concepts and introduction to permaculture, keeping an observation journal is very important to begin to understand the natural patterns that you will either attempt to work within or modify once understood.

Things that I have noticed around my place over the last few weeks:

  • the molasses grass has seeded and started to die off now
  • the weather is extremely dry
  • days are starting to get warmer during the middle of the day (t-shirt weather at midday)
  • still have chilly mornings
  • blue billygoat weed is flowering
  • acacias (wattles) both planted and naturally occurring are flowering. This started back in June and various species have flowered over this time, but the beautiful yellow flowers are still prevalent around my area
  • magpie babies have grown up and some have dispersed from their parental territory
  • strawberries are in full production in my area
  • increased numbers of roadkill around my area, mostly feral animals, but have noticed a number of dead bandicoots on the side of the road (guess it is the beginning of their breeding season or dispersal of juveniles).
Another interesting thing that occurred in my neighbourhood is that the neighbour on the either side of the creek has decided to clear fell an entire paddock. Thankfully the creek line has government protection and he has abided by this protection, but I now notice there is increased sunlight levels glimmering through the vegetation which was not visible before he cleared. To me that is a little sad because the vegetation is predominantly wet eucalpyt and rainforest and the increased light levels are likely to encourage the growth of weeds in this community and along the drainage line. There will also be changes to the microclimate for the animals and plants that have occupied this area up until now. Pin It

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