Erin Earth

ErinEarth - Kildare Street, Wagga Wagga - Thursday 17th May 2012

Those attending: Marilyn, Vicki, Felicity, Anne, Lisa, Heather, Wendy, Donna & Lyndal

(that's a pretty good roll up for mid-cropping)

This 1 acre of land behind Mt Erin (now Kildare Catholic College), was some 10 years ago, two bitumen tennis courts.  The vision was that of Carmel Wallace (of the Presentation Sisters) to build a house and garden which "walked lightly on the earth".  The focus of ErinEarth is to have a place for reflection, a place for protecting and nurturing biodiversity, a place to experience sustainable living in an urban environment and provide an educational experience for children and adults alike.

With work on the garden beginning in 2002 it is amazing to see how resilient nature can be when given the right conditions to recover and adapt.  Funding for the project was completely outsourced through community groups, government funding, personal contributions and brought about by the willing band of volunteers who have worked hard to bring the garden to the stage it is at now. (We enjoyed morning tea with a small group of the volunteers on the day, and we both seemed to enjoy meeting each other).

ErinEarth shortly after the house was built with the garden under construction

Eight years later, ErinEarth has been transformed (Feb 2011)

Although I must say Sr Carmel must have contacts in high places to receive offers of truck loads of manure, mulch and the use of earth moving equipment for no charge, a bit different to our gardening experiences!

The site contains many small sheds which house tools, a morning tea room, the vege patch and the dog kennels.  The dogs being an ever present friend for Carmel, they being a fox, cat, and snake deterent. A small pond (dam) holds run off water which is pumped up the slope to form a small wet lands, complete with frogs.  This is allowed to dry up, as in nature, over summer.

We were amazed by the variety of hardy aussie natives used in the garden, some of which were the eremophila varieties (common named emu bush), the ground cover varieties being eremophila biserrata, subteretifolia and glabra, these possibly being Carmel's favourites. Wallaby grass, thriptomine, dianellas, kangaroo paws, aloe, bookleaf mallee, silver cassia, cut leaf daisy (brachyscomb multifida), creeping boobialla, native rosemary (westringia), and the beautiful and unusual one sided bottle brush (calothamnus varieties) and a lovely eucalypt Silver Princess.

Community open days are held the third Saturday of the month from April to November, with the garden is open from 9.30 am - 3.00 pm.

I only spotted two very small areas of 'token' lawn (one being under the clothes line) - no need for a ride on mower here, and next to no watering. 

Carmel and her friend Margaret shared their enjoyment of nature and gardening this way with us, and I'm sure we all came away inspired at how we can make a difference if we put our hearts and minds to it.

Uranquinty Power Station Visit

Wednesday 15th February 2012

Uranquinty Gas-Fired Power Station

Present: Marilyn, Maureen, Liz, Jo, Carol, Anne, Michelle, Heather, Jan, Lisa, and Donna

Q. What has no taste, no smell and can’t be seen yet makes lives easier? (not a joke just amazing)
A. Electricity

Our morning at the Uranquinty Gas-fired Power Station was extremely informative. Our host, Lisa Glastonbury, is very dedicated to her job, and very committed to the ethics and the belief in green energy that Origin Energy, who own and operate the power station, aspires to and is working towards.

Location, location! The site was chosen because of the location of proximity to:
1. A national power grid (owned by TransGrid) –a high voltage network connecting generators, distributors and major end users in New South Wales. Electricity is generated at the Uranquinty power stations then transmitted “across the fence” into the TransGrid network of high voltage transmission lines and underground cables to substations such as the one at Gregadoo. From the substations the electricity goes to homes, factories and businesses by electricity distributors such as Essential Energy. Electricity continues “to be lost” as the distance from the power station to the grid is increased.
2. The gas pipeline. Natural gas is the energy source and is piped in under pressure

The Uranquinty plant is a peaking plant and only operates at times of peak demand over winter and summer, and usually mornings and evenings. The plant is fully computerised and can be brought into operation ‘at the flick of a switch’, even from off-sight. There are four gas turbine generators but the four have rarely been operated at any one time. When it does operate at full capacity, the Uranquinty Power Station generates 640 megawatts of power and can provide power for 880,000 homes along the east coast of Australia.

Electricity is traded on a daily basis with traders such as Origin, AGL, Snowy Hydro and Delta selling power to bidders such as Essential Energy.

The power station employs 12 permanent employees who are fully employed even when the plant is not operating – including the daily safety walk around the site and continuous safety and maintenance checks. The staff is proud of clocking up 1000 consecutive days of being accident free.

Origin aims to minimise environmental impact, and so, the Uranquinty Power Station recycles all waste water produced. The recycled water is used on site to water the thousands of trees planted around the 50 acre perimeter fence and also around the larger buffer zone area of about 1000+ acres.

We enjoyed the day so much that it was thought that our 2013 trip be based around the Cullerin Range Wind Power Station.

Garden Viewing - 20th October 2011

Marrar Ag n Chat Garden Day at "Raywood", "Caloola" and "Inglewood"

Present – Donna , Lisa, Kim , Anne , Debbie , Felicity , Heather , Vicki , Maureen , Jan , Cathie , Liz , Marilyn , Carol and Wendy

Apologies – Lyndal and Barb

We had a lovely group of ladies and everyone started at Marilyn’s garden “Raywood” and no doubt everyone was inspired with the Art in the Garden. Thank you Marilyn for volunteering your garden.

Then everyone arrived here at “Caloola” and morning tea was on the agenda and lots of chat! We had a brief talk about the garden and everyone had a wander around. A large lawn area dominants the back garden with gums and garden beds all filled with cuttings from family and friends. An avenue of plane trees are planted on the northern side. On the western side is a bark area which is outlined with agapathus and dietes and filled with scrubs and trees. These all need to be hardy as being on the western side it gets fairly hot. A few cuttings were taken and Lisa wins the most organised – cuttings taken and then pots and potting mix in car and all potted up! Wow!

From “Caloola” we then travelled to Carol’s place “Inglewood” and had a lovely wander around. A beautiful Albertine (I think I have got it right) climbing rose greeted us at the front mixed with ground covers and established trees including a Chinese Tallowood and a Chinese Elm. Then we wandered out the back and the garden has been extended out the back gate! Carol has used her creative talent and built a wooden fence around a lawn area and predominantly agapathus have been planted. Thank you Carol for volunteering your garden.

I’m sure everyone appreciated the time and effort Marilyn, Carol and Wendy put in to make the morning an enjoyable one!

Narrandera Fisheries

17th February 2011

Today we visited the Narrandera Fisheries. Our guide Dexter gave us a very informative talk about the native freshwater fish species in Australia and also the fish pests such as Carp and Redfin.

The centre was opened in 1962 as a research centre to study the biology and ecology of inland aquatic systems. It is also now a productive hatchery which releases millions of fingerlings of Murray Cod, Golden Perch, Silver Perch and Trout Cod into waterways in our area. The centre is also an educational centre for children to learn about fishing and preserving the fish environment.

This is "Agro", a 20 year old Murray Cod who has a very easy life floating around all day getting fed twice a week. He is also one of the "stud" males used for reproduction.

Woomargama Station Trip

October 19th 2006

The Marrar Ag-n-Chat group enjoyed a bus trip to the Holbrook district for their October meeting. Eighteen passengers were in the hands of Cathie as bus captain and Matt from Westpac, as navigator.

Our first stop and morning tea was at the Vintage Tree Nursery at "Binginwarri", Holbrook which has a large range of ornamental trees. The nursery has been in its present location for three years and has allowed the owners to add to their production base. The garden at "Binginwarri" is the result of 10 years of planning, planting and building of structures, and now provides a garden to be enjoyed – which we did.

After "Binginwarri", it was on to the historic Woomargama Station where satellite technology is an important management tool. This property is watered by a spring, and has three creeks running through it. At present, there is an extensive program to remove and burn the willows which have been choking these creeks. Originally, the property covered 26,000 acres and included the township of Woomargama. Today it is approx. 7,000 acres. The homestead was built in 1909 and restored in 1970. The restoration of the garden followed with the aim being to provide a suitable and manageable setting for the homestead.

The group had a wonderfully relaxing and informative day and thank Westpac for sponsoring the bus.