Spring at last!

The spring fairy passed by NSW on Saturday and just like that the winter chill disappeared and the gentle warmth of spring arrived. It is still wet and windy but it thankfully is no longer cold. In preparation for the warmth of the coming months, the spring flowers have been nudging their way upwards and outwards to grace their surroundings. With the warmth the ants and spiders have also multiplied almost overnight, whilst the cat now shelters in the semi-shade of the garden bushes rather than exposing herself completely to the midday sun. The spring flowers were also out on-mass in South Australia when I managed to squeeze in a couple of bushwalks and tours of the vineyards of the McClaren Vale and the Barrosa Valley during a recent trip to a Adelaide for a bushfire conference. It was an excellent conference. Lots of interesting talks and people – those ‘fiery’ folks sure know how to throw a good party! As nature is busy shedding its winter coat, I am busy getting ready for interviews with landholders in my study areas. There are several hoops to jump through before these interviews can take place – receiving approval from the University’s ethics committee is always a bit of a rigmarole and lining up landholders for convenient interview times is almost like herding cats. But I’ll get there. In the mean time I took the opportune moment to catch-up with a few of the wonderful landholders in my Windellama study area, by taking a group of students down to work with the local LandCare group on a riverbank erosion project. There’s nothing like getting your hands dirty, whilst talking about everything under the moon with likeminded people.