MIApple Farm
This page is about wildlife, critters, snakes and the benefits of eating fruit.
Walking Fruit Salad
We had just finished a dish of fresh rabbit stewed with onions and
potato, broad beans and silverbeet all fresh from our vegie garden (the
rabbit included).
For the second course we decided to have fresh picked fruit salad on
foot. Starting with a few strawberries we then visited the vegy patch
for logan berries,
rasberries and red currants. Then on to the orchard for some very sweet
mulberries and we topped it of with a handful of cherries.
This is farmlife heaven.
Kangaroos on the farm
They can be dangerous.
Our kangaroos are Eastern Greys - the big males can be 7foot (2 metres
tall) standing up. They are not the gentle animal the tourist books
would have you
believe. They have been know to attack horses to take over a grassy
area in tough times. They attack by holding their foe with their front
legs then lift up one
of their powerful back legs while balanced on their tail and rip away with the sharp claws on the back leg.
It is common to see young male kangaroos standing up to one another,
boxing with their front legs while ripping at one another with the back
legs.
I have had a big male stand up to me in the paddock - he was not
prepared to back away from me until I picked up a club of wood for
protection.
My father had a big kangaroo dog (a cross between an alsation and a
great dane) which took on a kangaroo when dad had his sheep
property. Dad watched the
kangaroo rip the dog open from his chest to groin - dad picked up the
dog and took it back to the shearing shed in the back of his farm ute.
With a needle and
string normally used for wool bales he stitched the dogs stomach back
together and hoped for the best. The dog lay in the shed for a few days
and a week later
he was up and around as if nothing had happened.
Kangaroos drown dogs.
I have watched a big male pretend fear with my own dog Rollo and
then swim out to the middle of the dam and beckon him to an altercation
in the dam. I called Rollo
away knowing that Kangaroos will hold a dog under water until it drowns.
Farmers in my district say that it is quite common to find dogs drowned
in the dams even though the dogs are good swimmers.
Kangaroo fencing.
When building the freeway between Melbourne and Bendigo the
roadway contractors discovered that if they fence the highway with six
foot high fencing so that
the bottom half of the fence is strained tight it will prevent the
kangaroos pushing through and the top half of the fence is loosely
strained so that it gives way under
the kangaroo when it tries to bounce off and over the top and the roo
will fall back down without getting over. (Six foot is 1.8 metres)
I have followed this principle with my own orchard fencing and there is
no evidence of any kangaroos getting over my fences in the past year.
If they start getting
over the six foot fence, kangaroos need a run up to clear a six foot
fence and by building a lower fence ten feet(3 metres) outside the main
fence, they can't get
up enough speed to clear a six foot fence. The lower half of a fence
needs to be strong - I have seen young kangaroos repeatedly smash
themselves against an
older fence until the wire gives away and they get through or under the fence.
Critters on the farm
Animals and bird life
Most common are the big grey kangaroos but we also see black wallabies on occasion.
Foxes are a common sight and sometimes we see a pair of wild dogs which
appear to be a cross between the wild dingos and farm dogs.
Our rabbits don't live in warrens - they tend to hide under rocks and
in hollow logs and they will travel a long way to feed on lush grass.
We don't have any possums but our neighbours have them around their house.
The creek reveals fish fingerlings, long necked tortoises and yabbies (fresh water crayfish).
Birdlife is abundant. There are always wild ducks on the dam, magpies in the orchard and little blue wrens in the garden.
Every morning you wake to the screech of the white cockatoos, the call of the magpies and the laughter of the Kookaburras.
Our dog Rollo always has his nose in a bush or under a rock seeking out lizards and rabbits - so far nothing has bitten him.
At night the big grey owls come out and the bats fly around eating insects.
Creepy crawlies.
MIApple Farm is rather rocky with lots of slate and sandstone. I never
turn over a stone without gloves on and if the rock is big enough to
hide a snake, I use a
shovel or pick to turn the rock over until I know what is under it.
Under every rock you find either a centipede, a scorpion or a redback spider - all of them poisonous.
Around the shed, red back spiders are common - they hide under sheets of
iron, in the groove of the fridge door - I even had one on the bottom
of a plastic fuel
tank the other day.
My dog Rollo was barking excitedly down the orchard and I went to
investigate - hoping it wasn't a snake. He had bailed up a two foot
long blue tongue lizard.
Living with snakes around the house
The Australia brown snake is one of the most poisonous snakes in the
world. They can be agressive and will bite you for sure if you
mistakenly step on one.
They can slither across the ground faster than a man can run and when
they are aware of you they will lie watching you with their head up
about knee high.
I have encountered a brown snake in the garden or shed on more than 20
times in the past 8 years. They are attracted by mice in the shed or
the young rabbits
that shelter down the drain pipes and in dry times they are often
around the water troughs, the dam or the creek. They shelter
under rocks, bags, sheets of iron,
bales of hay or straw and under the fire wood pile. When it is dry and
the ground cracks open they shelter underground. Our dog Rollo is
always sniffing around
these areas and I don't know how he has avoided being bitten.
My experience and rules for living with snakes.
Snakes are out and about once the weather warms up. When you walk about
they usually sense the vibration of you walking and will keep out of
your way
unless it is mating season and you are near their mate.
Install draught excluders at the bottom of all doors and cover any
floor level drain or water service overflow outlets with quarter inch
stainless mesh - if a mouse
can enter your house so can a snake that is after the mouse.
Install quarter inch mesh over the downpipe of all house water tanks -
snakes have been known to climb up the inside of the downpipe after
water then they drown and
putrify the drinking water.
When you go out of the house close the door - while you are outside the snake may go inside looking for water or mice.
Never turn over a large rock with your hands - use a pick or mattock to
roll it towards yourself until you know what is underneath. Zofia
turned over a big flat
rock in the garden and guess what she found curled up underneath.
If you pick up a bale of hay or straw always roll it towards yourself
first - the theory is that the snake will go out the other side when
you move the bale.
When digging a trench with a backhoe, keep well back. When we dug the
trenches for our septic/sewerage system we dug up three angry brown
snakes as
part of the excercise.
Always look where you are going to walk particularly when stepping out
of a shed, a house door or a car. Snakes don't feel the vibration of
you walking when
the car wheels roll or when you walk on the floor of a house or shed.
My most recent encounter was when I nearly stepped on a 2 metre (7
foot) brown as I left by the shed door. He saw me first and shot like a
rocket down
to the carport thirty metres away in about two second flat. He then sat
there with his head up watching me agressively while I held Rollo by
the collar to keep
the dog out of harms way.
When I cut long grass with the heavy-cut mower/slasher I always wear
heavy leather knee high leggings above my boots. Three times I have
mowed over the
top of a big brown and then encountered a very angry brown under my feet after the mower has passed over him.
When working with orchard or vineyard bird netting alway be vigilant
for a snake trapped in the netting. The snake can pass through the net
head first until his
body is too thick to go any further and he can't back out because the snake skin scales won't let him go backwards.
Never intentionally run over a snake with your car - they are just as
likely to move up into the engine bay or around the back axle and
attack you later when
you get out of the car.
The Green lobby among our polititions have made it illegal to kill a
snake in Australia - next time I find an angry snake caught in a net I
plan to deliver it to the
front door of one of these city dwellers an let him try to work out what to do with it.
The local farmers tell me that you never try to kill a brown snake with
anything less than a shot gun - they are too fast. If you try to hit
him with a stick and don't
strike with a mortal blow the first time he will get you. If you chop
him in half with a shovel the front half of the snake will still attack
you.
If you have a choice never get closer to a brown than 30 feet (9
metres) and position yourself on the uphill side. An attacking brown
moves fastest straight
ahead or directly behind by turning back over himself. He is slower to reach you when you are to his side.
A brown on he move will travel quickly, he may not know you are there
and if you stand still, he is quite likely to pass nearby and not
notice you.
And what if you get bitten.
A human has about an hour to get to a hospital for anti-venine
treatment. I phone my local hospital each season to ensure thay have
serum in stock.
I phoned my local vet (half an hour away) to ask what if the dog gets
bitten - he said give the dog a cuddle and say goodbye - the dog will
die within
20 minutes.
One of my neighbours had his boot bitten so that the snake venom was
inside the boot but there was no bite mark on his foot. The venom was
absorbed
through the skin and was enough to make him very sick in hospital.
If bitten don't clean up the venom from around the wound - the
hospital needs to take a swab of the venom to positively identify the
snake. Bind the
bitten limb with an elastic bandage and keep movement to a minimum
while heading for hospital - movement helps spread the venom in the
body.
Apples are full of healthy
nutrition
The old adage "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" is quite true.
Researchers are consistently finding new benefits from the eating of apples.
Do a search with your Google or other search engine into health and nutrition
of apples and you will be surprised at the outcome.
Apples on average contain 7mg/100g of Vitamin C but some cultivars like
Calville Blanc d'Hiver, Golden Noble and Sturmer Pippin contain
up to four times the average.
Apples for Cholesterol
An old doctor friend of mine who once worked at the famous Mayo Clinic in the
USA often tells the story of the unhealthy fisherman who lived
on a diet of meat pies and beer. The fisherman came to his surgery because of
the white lumps (cholesterol) that had developed under his skin.
After the second blood test (they did not believe the first test)
the fisherman's cholesterol was found to be a life threatening reading of
90.
The Doc put his patient on a diet of nothing but apples, apple juice and
cooked apples for a fortnight which brought the patient's cholesterol
down to an acceptable level - and no doubt saved his life.
I have had my own experience with apples and cholesterol when my medical GP
prescribed horrible lipoid reduction tablets to reduce my
unhealthy cholesterol reading of 8.5. The drugs gave me constant muscle
cramps and I mentioned it to my old doctor friend. He suggested
that I eat a green skinned apple every day like a Granny Smith or a Golden
Delicious instead of taking the drugs. The outcome has been
that my average cholesterol reading is a healthy 4.5.