Weed

Weeds and thistles cover our  block.   There are patches of blackberries,  covered in green berries.
After a nice letter  from our new council,   Kingborough,  cleaning up the weeds and long grass has been a priority.   Apparently waist high grass and chest high thistles are a fire hazard. 
Dealing with the grass and weeds has required a three prong attack.    First I used a brush cutter - too slow.  then I hired a self propelled slasher -   too slow and repeatedly stalled on long grass.    Then came Alex on his 4wd tractor with 5ft slasher.   It worked a treat,     cutting everything with ease,  finding a number of pieces of old orchard equipment,  killing one Wallaby and one Native Hen. 
 I do wonder about the wallabies,    there are dead ones along the edges of the roads,  far more than I recall seeing in country victoria.   They aren't as big as the Kangaroos in Vic,  but I suspect that they cause significant damage to the cars that hit them.    Our new neighbour Marcus suggested that it is because it has been so dry the wallabies have come down out of the hills  for a feed.




Alex gets it done



 In recent times the risk of fire has been on peoples minds.   The Bush fires in Tas have been  down on the Tasman Peninsular,  south east of Hobart.   We are on the south western side of Hobart.   We did have a couple of days of smoke haze drifting across on a gentle easterly wind in the evenings.    There has been bushfire appeals on the tv,  it is a strange situation that I identify more with fires in victoria than I do with the Tas fires.   I guess that will change in time.

gaz