Goulds Country – House Sitting Update

July 20, 2019

Above – last week’s rainbow as the rain cleared away after 65mm of rain for the week.

Here we are with only about 6 weeks left of our house sitting, our owner, Gregor, returns from his Cape York (Portland Roads) property on August 30th.  We have certainly had all of Tasmania’s Winter variations (except snow as we are only 120m above sea level); May was mild and dry, June was definitely frosty month and July has been rain month to date.

Frosty morning towards the neighbours house

The frosty mornings did usually lead in to the classic clear blue sky Winter days that Tasmania often offers up and on one of our returns from the Blue Tier this is a view of the centre of Goulds Country as you descend into the valley; after taking the view I turned around to find I was being scrutinised by this great specimen of a horned bovine!

Our location here is at the Southern extremity of what is officially Goulds Country with the Groom River on our boundary marking the end of the district; the other side of the River is State forest.  With the dry May and wetter July we have seen the river rise as the following images show.

Groom River in May before rain[/caption]

More views of the groom River at the boundary:

We have not had a lot to do at the property here, mostly it has been to make sure that around 80+ newly planted trees did not suffer from a lack of water in a dry period; we were watering until mid June bu the last month has had good rainfall, we may have to water again by next weekend if it stays dry.  The trees are about half between the caravan and the neighbour the other half on the open side of the house, views in varies directions below:

We are not without wildlife here either, there are Possums, Pademelons and Wallabies around the house and paddocks at night but too elusive to photograph so far!  Birdlife is also varied, but not in big numbers, being Winter. So far we have had Black Cockatoos, Crows (of course!), Honeyeaters, Eastern Rosella, Wattle Birds, Kookaburras, Robins, Fairy Wrens and Sparrows (inevitably)  Let’s not forget the insects and the good old Bumblebee: