Summer is finally here and fruits are starting to ripen on the trees. Time to go apple foraging. Around Korumburra there are hundreds of fruit laden trees just waiting for you to come and harvest. Ruby and I decided to go and see what we could find and we were certainly rewarded. Not only did we pick some apples but right there were also the juiciest blackberries you could imagine, and incredibly sweet. Might need to make some jam to store these amazing berries and a store-cupboard full of dehydrated apples is a treat for winter. Catching and storing energy is a permaculture principle. Preserving food is a great example of this principle in action.
Once again continued on splitting wood. It’s taking me ages but I’m getting there. This was nearly three years of accumulated wood, collected from the property or along my road, which I had just dumped as I had no way to process it. Well I actually did get myself a manual splitter and gave that a go. Split a total of three logs before decided that that may just kill me if I continued. While my petrol driven log splitter that I have now uses fossil fuels it does mean that I can harvest wood from the local environment and not have to have it harvested from forests unknown and have it transported long distances. Has to be better I think. My longer term goal is to grow a wood lot for tree harvesting when they are smaller. Less fuel costs in processing and I should be able to get away with just using my battery chainsaw, which I can charge with my solar panels.
Another benefit of processing these logs yourself is that you get the bark and wood chips which I can use in my food forest to mulch some trees. One of my little almond trees is needing some love so I shipped a wheelbarrow load out to it, to give it a boost. I did find a little, well rather large, bug, I think it was a grasshopper hiding on the leaves. Looks like it has been having a feast!
I was out in the veggie garden just pottering around when I heard a loud buzz - louder than your average bee - and I knew it was most likely a blue banded bee. These little bees are native and are quite cute. Wasted a lot of time trying to get a good photo. Alas, not a great photo but I think you can make out the beautiful blue bands. I love having time to observe all the life in my garden 😊
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