Can you spot two black swans and a flock of wood ducks and moorhens?
Stretching a temporary fence across an adjacent paddock in the warm winter sun, I was captivated by the scene through the tussocks. Two black swans were gliding across the water, a mob of moorhens were stretching their long orange legs, while a dozen or so wood ducks gathered a little way off.
It wasn’t always this way. This is, or was, paddock 17. One of the lowest parts of the farm, paddock 17 was often under water and when we investigated the soil, we found it was a potential acid sulphate soil (PASS) with high levels of salinity. The safest thing to do was leave it alone, so we fenced it off and, one November, planted 800 moisture-loving plants with the help of a Landcare grant and the hard work of the Victorian Mobile Landcare Group volunteers.
The next two seasons were the wettest on record and I thought we’d lost the lot. We moved the fence out further and the Wellington Shire offered some extra money to replant the margins. Well, it’s all taken off – even some of the first plantings I’d given up on – and we now can boast a magical on-farm ephemeral wetland habitat.
Put yourself in the paddock with me for a few seconds and listen to this:
The Milk Maid Marian 
Ripper! Nice little movie too!
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Thanks George. The frogs were in full song!
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Fantastic Marian! So good to see!
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Thanks for planting so many trees for us, Julie! Your hard yakka (along with that charming hubby of yours and VMLG friends) has made a real difference! You’ll have to come down and have a look at what you achieved a couple of years on!
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Awesome! Love the sound of frogs! Well done for being so proactive in caring for your environment.
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Beautiful.
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Good to hear of our (VMLCG) sucess’s, And especially the exceptional ones. We will need to come and visit both you and the Parkes homestead soon. A Grand tour of south Gippy.
Need more trees planted just give a hoi.
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I am so grateful to you all for getting this wetland going. Look forward to seeing you again soon, David!
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