The Rocks, Berridale

11/08/2025

Well welm well! The Spring is here!
How do we know? The birds are telling us.
We are sitting on thw balcony havin lunch and the profusion of bird calks today is notably on the up and up.
This dantaztic news, days are warmer and longer (ignore this mornings bitey big frost), so the plants will atarr growing and then the spring flowers will appear. 😁

05/07/2025

This mornings visitor hopping through the Frost 🥶

26/05/2024

A hard day at the office

02/02/2024

Solar installed and working, yay!

04/01/2024

26/03/2023

On our walk with Lucy the wonder Dog and Manda Lynne Plowright we came across another apple tree by the creek. Lucy caught Mr Foxes scent and raced down the creek bank. Sure enough, one minute later that handsome fox went sprinting past having out foxed Lucy, leaving her behind! 🤣

30/11/2022

The unusually high rainfall over the past year has encouraged many dormant seeds to germinate and we are seeing plants and grasses that have not been obvious for years! I have become obsessed with the huge variety of grasses. Some are hard to tell apart until their seed heads develop... who knew grasses could be so fascinating and varied and beautiful! Some grasses and plants here are considered noxious weeds and we have to try to control and eradicate them. Now that they are developing their seed heads we have been able to dig up quite a few African love grass, serrated tussocks and St John's wort, all considered noxious weeds. Fortunately there are not too many on our property, as we have regularly dug up or poisoned any we have come across over the years.
Some pictures, so much grass!

23/07/2022

UPDATE: The tank level is now much better and no water is being lost. I have charged up the house lines and have the electric house pump operating as it should. Now looking forward to a shower- a wet flannel only does so much😉🤭

Well, we have been experiencing problems with keeping the water in the house flowing. At first we thought it was an issue with the house pump and air in the pipes as the pump error light was lit up.
We sorted that out and had it running for a day and then it tripped again. The tank level was low but viable so with a bit of fiddling got things going again, this time it only lasted a few hours.
The tank level seemed like it was lower so it was decided to pump up some more water from the creek.
All the while resident handyman is away trying to teach apprentices to be electricians, so chief admin has to step in. Luckily a friend is visiting and was able to help take the pump down to the creek, though there was only enough fuel to do do 1 pump(about an hour) we need a bit more. Friend then went skiing, not due back until today.
Admin (Manda) grabbed a couple of fuel cans and headed into Berridale in the work truck for fuel. It's amazing how you never forget how to drive a manual gear shift!
Filled the fuel cans and then Admin realised she couldn't lift the bigger one up onto the back of the truck😮 luckily she wrangled someone passing by to help😀
Drove back and drove down to the pump at the creek, filled pump fuel tank and repeated an hour later, by this time it was getting dark. Decided to leave thing until the morning, Admin can survive with a bucket of water from the extra tank (not connected to house).
This morning checked the water level on tank.... doesn't seem to have risen?? So back to the creek to run the pump again.
Once the pump was doing its job, went up to the main storage tank, can hear water being pumped in👍Decided to do a reccy around all the lines, checked the trough again, no overflow on other leaks. Then started towards a riser in the paddock and......! There is water pouring out! Closed it off quickly, the resident lawn mower Bandit probably rubbed against it and opened the valve. By the looks we have been losing water for a couple of days or more.
Problem not completely fixed, back down to run the pump again (3rd time today) the tank level should be higher now!
A good thing Admin is multi skilled and a fantastic problem solver!😎👏🤠

30/03/2022

We have decided not to host airbnb guests again this year. We are very busy with work and future changes, small renovation projects, tree planting and general maintenance. Family and friends, of course are welcome.

23/08/2021

Last nights snow, already melting