Creepy Critters: Ticks, Leeches & Termites

I congratulated myself last week - having been here for 4 months (already! where did it go?) I had remained LEECH-FREE! Well done Tam. Of course, having patted myself suitably on the back, I then got 4 blood-sucking little leeches in as many days - one particularly yucky, being between my toes and feeling like some weird gloopy jellified matter - I couldn't get my boots off fast enough.

photo from www.treknature.com

Milly occasionally picks up leeches, and when they've had their fill, we trace a mini trail of blood across the floor or patio, to a happy, plump, soporific fat little leech which (Buddhists don't read on) I throw either into Hell Fire, or into Alternative Leech Hell: a little can of rock salt.

These small creatures (annelids to be precise) are attracted to body heat - miniature heat seeking missiles - they are relentless. Once attached, they have amazingly powerful suction pads and trying to disengage them can be a surpisingly difficult (elastic) experience. Especially if you are phobic of worms - as my poor sweet wife is. Often you don't feel a thing - the leech has already departed leaving only the tell-tale bleeding puncture.

www.treknature.com: the blood-sucking Australian Land Leech (Gnatbobdellida libbata) is found in the moist rainforests and wet eucalypt forests of eastern Australia. When conditions are suitable (moist ground conditions), these relatives of the worm come out onto bushwalking and animal tracks and wait, ‘standing’ in an upright position, clasping the ground with their posterior sucker. Chemical sensors and vibration are used to detect an approaching host, usually native mammals or humans. As the unsuspecting victim moves past they reach over and attach themselves with their anterior sucker; they make their way to a suitable vein near the surface, often around the ankle, upper foot or between your toes. Making a V-shaped incision, blood is prevented from clotting via an anticoagulant and a histamine with improves blood flow directly into the leech. Once attached the leech with fill-up with blood, perhaps tripling its size. When satisfied they drop off the victim and find a suitable niche to digest their meal.

Leeches are most active when the days are really damp. Ticks, however, are more of a constant every day battle, rain or shine. Little Millikins (fondly named by the Southern Hemisphere Martins) requires a daily tick check, despite being safeguarded with either Front Line or a tick collar. Her nether regions are a favourite hideout for these 8 legged little critters - we've never been so close to our dog and she has got used to the check up and all the extra grooming. Most ticks we've found have measured as little as 0.5mm - although the largest we've found has been 6mm. I 've heard they can get up to 20mm - whoopee.

We operate a tick kit, consisting of a jar, a pair of tweezers, and a highly effective invention called The Tick Twister, which does exactly what it says on the packet - twists the tick off, whilst not aggravating it to inject poison. The jar also contains (my) collection of ticks. Dead ticks. Nice.

We are yet to identify the infamous Paralysis tick from amongst the various local species - but I reckon there's more than one in the photo above. Incidentally, local hearsay is that aboriginal people avoided this area because of the high number of ticks. But don't let that put you off visiting...by the way insect repellents do work, we just keep forgetting to put them on. And in the long term we should build up immunity.

And as for bloody termites... 4 years ago I stored a pile of beeaauuddiful red mahogany floorboards in my parental "out-law's" metal shed, 12kms down the road - a safe bet, you'd think, from any wood munching critters. Lo and behold, what should develop in their woodstack just outside, but a dreaded termites nest. Somewhat surprisingly attracted to the metal shed, the little buggers trail in across my timber, leaving all sorts of messy bits in their wake and devour Len's soft wood stacked beneath - see photo. A lucky escape for our timber - just 4 inches of the mahogany was feasted upon - from 275 metres of the stuff. Len and Kay are surprisingly calm, given that all the aluminium joinery within their steel house is in fact fixed with termite tempting timber. Life in the bush sure keeps you on your toes...

















Len, Tam & Kay loading the mahogony onto the co-op trailer to be towed up to our house, 12km up the road.

Whales, Wollumbin, Wattles & Waterfalls

A couple of weeks ago we enjoyed a day beside the seaside with friends Tony and Lesley. A coffee at the pub overlooking Byron Bay, a leisurely stroll along the seafront, a glorious picnic on the beach and an awe-inspiring whale-watching hike around the headland.

And YES we saw whales (migrating north to breed). Most were off in the distance, visible by their fountaining blows of water - a couple were quite close up - close enough to see the patterns made by the barnicles on their huge and curvaceous black and white bodies as they serenely cut through the waves. It brought a tear to my eye, glimpsing these majestic beasts from that other watery world. Their numbers are increasing significantly every year along the Australian coast - fantastic.

The walk over the headland took us through a grove of cabbage palms and a forest of cycads, which was almost as incredible as seeing the whales, but then I've got a thing about unusual trees! The photo above shows Lesley, Tony and Tam standing beside a couple of cycads with crows-nest ferns growing within them. What a lovely day, and good to be off the cold mountain and beside the glorious Pacific ocean.

Here's me half way up Wollumbin (Cloud Catcher) aka Mt Warning on my 40th birthday, photo c/o Dad. The tip of this ancient volcanic plug is allegedly the first bit of Australia to get sunlight in the morning and is just around the corner, by Aussie standards, from where we live. We had a lovely time. Sadly, I didn't quite make it to the top after witnessing a young lad of about 10 scrambling down at break neck speed (almost literally) losing his footing and nearly falling over the steep drop to the side right in front of me. I completely lost my nerve at this point and decided to wait out the last 100m upward stretch to the summit whilst Dad (at the tender age of 74) made it to the top. I've done it before and so knew what I was missing. Its 4km up and 4km down and I have to say I was crippled for the next three days. Hmmmm, more exercise definitely required.

And here's Dad in fine fettle at a recent garden club visit to Bamboo Oasis designing new ways of making use of excess dried out bamboo shoot bits! Moments later the bishop-style head-gear was inverted and placed over the groin - I was laughing so much I forgot to take a photo. I love a bloke with a sense of humour!

Spot the difference between the following two photos? If you look carefully you'll find Tam making the first cut whilst felling a 40' Sally Wattle, with guidance from Grant. The wattle wasn't there in 2004 - which just goes to show how fast a tree can grow here - and how quickly they can be felled!



MISSON ACCOMPLISHED!

Tam cordless drill in hand, up on roof, preparing a batton for the ladder to lie against so that I can fix the leak along the 5' sloping edge of the chimney - ooh, we know how to have fun up here at Blue Knob! The roof is now fixed, and yes it was me, although there's no photo as usual! No more pools of water beside the fireplace after heavy rain. Well, hopefully not, yet to be tested, endless blue skies at the moment. What a hardship, but still very cold nights.

Hell's Bells - here's Tam standing precariously at the top of the rather dramatically named Hell Hole Falls, deep within Mt Jerusalem National Park - a recent hike with Nimbin Bush Walkers on yet another sunny day.

More tales of intrepid adventures and near-death experiences soon....

Elemental my dear Jennifer: Water, Wellies & Mud!

Its late on Monday evening and we notice that the water pressure in our taps has reduced dramatically. Hmm? This can only mean one thing - somewhere along the 200m pipe between our 20,000 litre water tank and our house is a dreaded LEAK. Its dark and raining, so for now we can only hope the leak isn't immediately adjacent to the house and take ourselves off to bed for a night of apocalyptic dreaming - flood, famine, drought....

Tuesday dawns chilly yet thankfully sunny. Tam checks the route of the pipe to the water tank - and when she gets to the tank finds it completely empty. That's a BIG leak somewhere along the pipe - but with all the rain, everything is soaked, so no obviously wet areas. We turn off the supply from the tank to our house - at least the tank can fill up again. So for the time being no water from the taps, no washing up, no washing machine, no showers, no flushing loo and no idea where the leak is....by this time Jenny is in a particularly grumpy mood and has completely lost sight of her pioneering spirit - in fact, she's not sure if she ever had one....

Once the tank is half filled again via the 1km pipe from the creek (currently leak free!), we turn the supply to the house back on and walk the route of the pipe - and there, thankfully, in the middle of the paddock below a tap, is an obviously gushing and gurgling leak. The pipe the tap is mounted on comes away in our hands - we've found the problem. Jenny's mood lifts, much to Tam's relief. We're back in control. Feeling very relieved that it was so easy to locate the leak (this time!), we get on with fixing things and getting our precious water supply back.

Firstly we have to dig down about a foot into the heavy water-logged clay without causing further damage to the pipes and find the problem - at least its sunny, imagine having to do this in the rain! We then flush out the pipes before replacing the joiner - this requires advanced communication techniques - Jenny (at the tank) whistles thrice when she turns the water on, Tam (down at the leak) whistles thrice to request the water is turned off again - ooh its all mod cons up at Blue Knob!

Once the joiner is cleared of mud and replaced to our satisfaction, we set about designing and making a makeshift inspection pit, so that we don't have to dig this all up again in the future. Utilising our ready supply of spare breeze blocks from recent demolition work (read earlier blogs) and with further messing around in gloopy mud, voila:

Its certainly not pretty, and possibly not cow-proof (we do have occassional cattle randomly taking a wander through our garden probably from our neighbours farm!) but WE FIXED THE LEAK AND made the inspection chamber ourselves! So we're quite proud. And whilst we are entirely responsible for our own water supply, we don't pay ANY water rates, so inspecting pipelines and fixing leaks is all part of living the dream! I am my very own Water Board.

Suffice to say, we are delighted to turn on taps and see fresh mountain spring water gushing forth and we have an immensely increased appreciation of the basic stuff of life, be it earth, air, fire or water. Which reminds me, must get on with collecting firewood, its pretty chilly these mid-winter nights.

Green-Eyed Spaniel and the Birthday Blues

Milly managed to damage her one remaining eye a couple of days ago whilst rummaging in the undergrowth in our gully. And so yesterday saw our first visit to the Nimbin vet clinic. The very patient vet finally, after much struggling on Milly's part, got the anaesthetic into her eye, then green luminous liquid which dramatically revealed to minor ulcerations on the front of her eyeball. After further struggles, anti-biotics were adminstered directly into damaged the eye. The photo left shows Milly at home after the vets, looking thoroughly sorry for herself and distinctly Hulk-like in the eye region. Tam has since successfully applied further antibiotics to the eye, with great patience, and the eye is looking good - panic over and all traces of luminous green have gone. We are now looking at how we can fence a safe area off for Milly. (STOP PRESS: a week later, July 7th, and Milly's eye has healed well).

July is here already and our birthdays are over for another year. Yes we over-indulged, particularly as it was Tam's 40th - having birthdays 10 days apart is a bit like Christmas and New Year, a roller-coaster of seemingly unavoidable over-indulgence - and now, with some relief, its time to clean up my act and get on with sensible, productive stuff. Talking of sensible and productive, it must be mentioned that Tam impressively spent a good portion of her birthday making us a sofa - or rather a base for the foam mattresses that now serve as a sofa. Uncle Bob's saw came out for the first time since arriving in Aus and got the job done nicely.
My birthday began with this huge and divine bunch of flowers being presented to me, all picked by Tam from our garden in the early hours. I then spent the day walking up Mt Warning with my ever-so fit parents (Mum 69 and Dad 74), and the next four days recovering. My leg muscles have never ached so much!

My nephew Connor and his dad Ian (he who lent us his car for six weeks) came to stay for a few days - we took full advantage of the extra muscle power - they cleared a huge swathe of lantana from around the lower damn, enabling us to walk all around the pond for the first time ever. Connor enjoyed thrashing around with two machetes which proved very effective as long as no one else was within swiping distance and no emerging saplings were in the way! Connor managed to do all this and still not get any leaches or ticks on him! Ian and Tam spent hours clearing and resetting our blocked water supply to our water tank - given that inlet into the pipe is 1km away through bush/unmanaged woodlands, this was no mean feat. BIG THANK YOU to Ian and Connor for all their fantastic efforts AND the beer!

Today we saw four dark green and red parrots at the top of the drive - we think they were female King Parrots, but are not entirely sure. We also pruned a Tippocina. I haven't a clue how that should be spelt, but suffice to say the fantastic display of large purple flowers that greeted us on our arrival three months ago are now over and it was time to get that tree in shape - the over-grown branches were about 20' tall and we had to be careful not to damage the neighbouring flowering magnolia.

If its mild and dry tomorrow we can either fix the leak in the roof or poison weed trees, both activities require no rain. Poisoning in particular requires no rain AND no wind. We live on the edge of a national park and so minimising the number of invasive 'weeds' on our little patch is a basic and legal responsibility. And after 4 years of tenants who were not particularly interested in the impact of weeds, and with the rapid sub-tropical growth, we have rather a lot of weeding to do - and some are 20' trees requiring felling and poisoning! So leaking roof or invasive weeds? Or both?! Watch this space.

Candy, you may recognise a few items in this photo, taken late into the night last night!