Tackling the heat, ruminants, and insects for some fresh veggies...

   Ever since we found out we were staying here for the wet season, we decided to expand the vegetable growing business outside our back door and further into the actual veggie patch across the lawn.  We’ve had some herbs outside for most of our time here, but now it’s time to venture into something more serious.  Having stocked up on seeds we ordered from a company online, plus buying the few seedlings the hardware store had in Katherine, we are going to attempt to sustain a modest wet season garden.  What’s so hard about growing during the wet season?  Well, besides the obvious risk of the entire homestead being flooded, there are frequent strong storms, high heat and humidity, and punishing sun, not to mention the thousands of insects that go mad during such a time.  All that aside, we are starting with plenty of optimism.  So far, we’ve planted capsicum, cherry tomatoes, eggplants, corn, spring onions, rock melon (cantaloupe for those of you in America), and a few other bits and pieces.  Our cucumbers were growing quite well up until a few days ago, when a buffalo somehow found its way inside the house paddock and proceeded to eat every last leaf, in addition to destroying the kale and half the radishes.  I can only imagine his reaction when faced with such a delectable smorgasbord of salads.  My only hope is that because of his indulgence he got severe constipation. 
    The green house has also been turned into a veggie prison with daily walks to check for incursions of veggie munching critters. Luckily some of the native skinks patrol in our absence and assist in keeping the area fairly pest free.... at least we are sure there are more grasshoppers on the outside than inside. 

We’ve also erected some shade cloth across the big veggie patch, hoping to dampen the suns’ rays during the heat of the day when you think to yourself, ‘why do I live on the surface of the sun?’  

   We’ll be doing our best to keep the garden going, and provide updates as we go along.  Hopefully we’ll be able to share photos of the successful harvest when the time comes, or you’ll see pictures of everything flooded up to our waists.  Either way, it should make for an interesting read.      

Employees of the Month

   We don’t mean to brag, but we’re going to nominate ourselves for employees of the month of October.  During the reptile survey last month, we managed to confirm 2 new species for the sanctuary.  These weren’t your ordinary species either—they were iconic, sexy, charismatic individuals that inspire the awe factor that is associated with so much Australian wildlife.  We even made a special email announcement from the AWC head office, highlighting our discovery.  If that doesn’t scream ‘you guys are legends’, then I don’t know what does.

   The first species we found was stumbled upon while having a look around a remote part of the property.  Tegan’s mum was here for a visit, and we decided to go for a drive and find somewhere to stick out some camera traps and see what happened.  We were originally going to find a narrow pass known as Kelly’s Pass, a track bounded by small cliffs and rocks; a perfect haven for some more unique animals.  Instead, we ended up going to a completely different place (we found out about that wrong turn later).  Wallow Hill, as it’s known, was only ‘discovered’ last year when the manager flew over it in a chopper, saw some fine beasts below and decided to try and make a road for mustering.  It’s a small bluff with sheer cliff faces on one side, petering out to a low hill on the other.  Cruising along, we decided to stop and go for a walk and see what was around the cliffs, put 6 cameras out, and see what happens.  The cliffs made for a bit of a hike, especially in the hot weather (Sorry Kathy!), but we were able easily distribute the 6 cameras (plus some peanut butter bait) in about 400 square meters of area.  There were plenty of animal droppings around and Tegan guessed they belonged to some kind of rock wallaby, but nothing to conclude that we found something new.  At one point we even stumbled upon an echidna hiding out in a little rock crevice, a significant discovery in itself since they aren’t normally seen on Wongalara with any regularity.  The plan was to collect the cameras when our reptile volunteers were here, to give them a chance to see the sights and share in our potential discovery.  Sure enough, upon collecting the cameras we found not a few rock wallabies, but TONS of rock wallabies.  Short-eared rock wallabies, to be exact.  They’re relatively widespread but have not been found here at all, nor has there been many signs of their existence.  So despite being a fairly widespread species in Australia, it’s a significant discovery for the sanctuary.  Plus, according to Tegan, they’re just too damn cute.  In addition to the rock wallabies, we got rock rats, another echidna, and a couple geckos.  They might have been the most successful cameras we’ve put out on Wongalara!

   The second in our run of cool animals came in large part due to the fact that one of our volunteers had done a lot of work with File Snakes (we found one a Pungalina, remember?).  She thought there would be a good chance of finding some out the back of the homestead, in the river where we get our water.  One night, we decided to brave the crocs and buffalo, and go have a look.  After about 20 minutes of spotlighting, finding plenty of crocs AND a couple buffalo, we were about to turn around and go home when something caught my eye near the riverbank.  I followed the movement from its origin in the weeds and saw the tail of a big File Snake floating in the water!  The only problem was, it was down a relatively steep embankment and there were plenty of croc eyes watching.  I was ready to look at it from a distance a go home with a win, but Tegan had other ideas when she arrived.  Nearly jumping into the water, she slid down the bank and just about couldn’t get back up.  I held her by the waist while one of the

volunteers held on to me.  She plucked the snake out of the water in no time, handed it to someone else, and after a momentary struggle to get back on to dry land emerged victorious and a little bit wet.  The excitement in the air was palpable, since we couldn’t actually catch one of the other species we recently found (risks: falling off cliffs, getting kicked in the guts).  Everybody got to hold the harmless little snake, and we all went to bed pleased with ourselves.

  So there you have it, yet another addition to the species inventory here at Wongalara, and all it took was a few cameras and an explorers spirit.  Who knows, maybe we’ll get something even better in the future.           

The Wet Season Slaps us in the Face.

The kitchen building, with lakes forming.

   In one of our previous entries, we detailed our weather woes in the time leading up to the real wet season.  It was hot, it was dry, and it was dusty.  The land was parched, and streambeds were so desolate that you didn’t know water had once flowed there.  Then it rained.  The showers started coming fairly regularly in mid-November, and we were getting a good amount nearly every day.  In the afternoon, the clouds would roll in and block out an otherwise scorching sun, the wind would pick up, and by 5pm there would be some rain.  If it wasn’t at the homestead, it was somewhere else on the property, but nonetheless, the rain and clouds cooled everything off to the point of being cold.  I’m not kidding, sometimes we wore long-sleeved shirts.  We even made beef stew one night to warm up.  Then it rained more, and more, and more, and then Darwin got hit by a cyclone; only the 4^th one in the month of November since records began.  Suddenly we were packing up our house and planning for a quick getaway should the river rise and flood us all out.  What did someone say about too much of a good thing?  We were checking the river everyday to see how far it had risen, and watching the radar like it was some kind of fortune-telling machine that would quickly decide our fates.  How serious was it?  Well, the managers left for a weekend and couldn’t get back in because some of the main access road was so water logged that they would’ve gotten stuck in the mud.  They had to be flown in by chopper, along with the groceries and other goods from town.  What started as a hot, dry month, ended up being the wet season announcing itself rather loudly (and quite impolitely at that).

The kitchen and front of our house, dry.

  In the end, we probably got somewhere between 200-400mm of rain in November (8-16 inches, depending on where you were on the property).  The unique thing about the terrain here is its impermeability.  There’s a lot of rock and clay-based soils, which require a nice gentle rain in order to get wet.  Instead, we were getting a lot of downpours, something typical of this time of year.  That means that in a lot of areas, when it rains, it gushes over the rocky hills, runs into the little creeks, and finds its way to the rivers in no time at all.  One of the bigger creeks that you cross on your way to the homestead was full and running in a couple days after being dry since May. 

Along the back of our house, dry.

Along the back of our house, wet.

   In between the downpours and frantic packing of our possessions, we managed to get out and swim in the now-flowing waterholes, and observe the vast changes that take place here when you just add water.  Trees turned the brightest shade of green, grasses that you thought were brown tufts of nothing quickly sprouted green shoots, and the frogs began a chorus that would make the three tenors sound like three drunk college students shouting ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’.  It really is quite something to see such a change in the land and animals. 
   Since the November rains, things have started to dry up a little around here.  We haven’t gotten much rain in the past couple weeks, and the weather has gone from ‘really hot but don’t worry there’s rain coming’ to ‘holy shit it’s so hot and there’s not a cloud in the sky’.  One day we’ll have to put a thermometer in the sun and post a picture of what we’re talking about.  Until then, we’ll keep watching the sky and hoping for a welcome shower, but not too much.