Adelaide Hills and the Big Wet

trees that fell like dominoes

More trees down this morning which means 5 separate events have brought trees down from our neighbour’s scrub onto our chestnut orchard. The trees fell like dominos down the hill mostly roots and all falling on other trees creating a cascade of stringy barks piling on top of each other, spilling out and coming to rest into our orchard and some as far as the valley raspberries.

more trees to clean up

The weather has certainly been challenging with unusually strong winds and rain. This has come after 10 years of below average rainfall which saw our valley and springs dry up earlier this year for the first time in our 33 years here.

Our Spring in March this year

It was just mud

In the last 48hours we have had another 39mm of rain and it’s still falling. This year’s rain fall figures

Jan 73mm Feb 32mm March 57mm April 21mm May 190mm June: 228mm July:276mm August:121mm Sept:337mm . So far in October 181.5 mm in 18 days.

While our valley is used to being wet in late winter/spring –this year it’s impossible to get any work done in the berries as it is so wet any activity would damage the soil profile. So it’s best to leave it with as much vegetation to protect the soil and keep evaporation rates up. The valley is designed with several barrage ponds that slow down the water and many drains going to the main creek. These are all working well but the water keeps falling from the sky! The tree crops should benefit from the rain getting down well into the B horizon. (Except those crushed by falling stringybarks)

As we can’t get out into the orchards, not even to begin the cleanup of fallen trees, I have been kept busy creating works for my Fringe exhibition in February and Quentin busy with fixing chainsaws, generators and now mowers for the local population.