lookANDsee

Today was the day for the weekend stroll around part of our block of land (it’s a 100 acres so the stroll takes a while). What follows are some of the wildflowers found in the woodland and in the open grasslands.

An audioBlog accompanies these photographs [3.8 Mbytes, 7 min 28 sec duration]. The audio commentary is also distributed as a podcast. You need to subscribe to my RSS2 feed towards the bottom of the right hand column on this page and you need to use aggregator software capable of utilising this. The photographs are also included within the .mp3 file. View them via Apple’s iTunes artwork function on a PC or Mac, for example.

Goodenias are currently the most common flower on the property. They occur with one or two flowers per plant, with the plants being solitary, or clumping to form larger masses of yellow. The flower is about 2.5 cm (1 inch) across.

The Hyacinth Orchid, Dipodium, is not uncommon around the property. The most common by far is the dark stemmed variety (left hand side photograph). It’s probably Dipodium punctatum. The orchid on the right hand side is more rare. I’ve only seen a handful of specimens. It’s probably Dipodium variegatum. I’ll have a better idea once they’ve flowered (if they survive that long; rabbits or hares appear to enjoy eating just the flower heads, or the entire plant). The orchids here are about 40cm (16 inches) tall.

A common member of the pea family. The flower is about 1 cm (4/10 of an inch) across.

Another pea family member. The flower is slighly smaller than the previous specimen.

This unknown plant, with waxy looking petals, is now flowering. It’s about 1.5 cm (6/10 of an inch) tall.

A small plant with flowers just a few millimetres (1/10 inch) across.

It’s Dorrigo’s annual Show this weekend, so we drove across to visit. Dorrigo is about 110 km (70 miles) east of here. It has a much higher rainfall than us and is a rich, lush agricultural area. Dairy farming is more commonplace than here (we have sheep/wool as a major industry).

An audioBlog accompanies these photographs [4 Mbytes, 8 min 0 sec duration]. The audio commentary is also distributed as a podcast. You need to subscribe to my RSS2 feed towards the bottom of the right hand column on this page and you need to use aggregator software capable of utilising this. The photographs are also included within the .mp3 file. View them via iTunes artwork, for example.

At this time of year, and especially where there are lots on animals around, the flies are thick and annoying. This horse certainly had plenty to say on the matter - it’s tail flicking left and right.

Just how quickly can you chop a solid wooden block into two parts? Not very long at all - especially if the axe is sharp.

Horse jumping. You’d never get me up in one of those things!

There were several classes of cattle being judged. The animals and handlers waited patiently for the judges to get around to them.

Two onlookers. The sun was strong so just about everybody was hugging the shade. Those that weren’t in the shade were already an unpleasant shade of pink.

At the drinks booth, two oldtimers catch up on each other’s news.