We spent the day with a one time colleague, Don Urquhart and his family on their 25 acres in the hills above Milton.
The property is beautiful with four paddocks running down a small valley to a creek. Each paddock has its own dam and many trees. The bottom paddock is almost entirely uncleared with lots of old gum trees and black wattle. Don hates the black wattle because they starve the gums for water and he knocks them down whenever he can. I guess that the ecosystem is not in balance as the wattle trees are very short lived while the eucalypts are much older. This might be a demonstration of beneficial human intervention, but I doubt it.
They have three horses, one thirty year old mare who came with the property and is now too old to ride, a young gelding and a recently acquired young mare. This last is not in favour at the moment because she had recently given the old mare a bad kicking in the barn. New arrangements are now in preparation to keep them apart. Such little dramas fill the lives of the rural property owner.
Laundry day and beautiful with it.