Dingoes

Often I'm kept awake at night by howling dingoes. People ask me whether I'm afraid, especially when packs of them howl near the tent. My standard answer is 'no, I'm a bit heavier than Azaria' but it can be a bit chilling.

Image pilfered from The Age

Over the summer there was a lone howler. It would belt out a tune down the hill every night about 10pm, another would reply across the valley, another up the mountain. 
I got imagining the conversation:
     'Where are you?'
          'Over here'
     'Where?'
          'O-VER heeee-Ya'
     'I'm hungry'
          'Me too. got anything?'
     'Just roo. you?'
   ...

Suddenly one day the howler was gone. Then I find a corpse hanging in the tree.

Farmers hate dingoes, they eat sheep. So do National Parks. They eat endangered critters.
Dont know who shot my howler, more than likely Rodney or Russell, maybe my neighbour Ben. Why they always hang the corpse in the tree or fence, I don't know but the dingo trappers always have. I suspect its notching up scores...

I went a browsing for the answers and found this tasty video. Delegate is about 50km, as the crow flies, away. It's a tad repetitive, you wont miss much if you truncate it.

Youtube video of Wildman dingo hunter

Interstate Feral Pig Field Day

Recently I attended a field day on controlling feral pigs. There was a series of presentations at Nungatta South followed by a bbq lunch and a tour of pig traps on my property. So well concealed I didn't know they were there.

As it turns Russell and Rodney, the local rangers form the Livestock Health and Pest Authority, are legends in trapping pigs. People, mostly from government agencies, had come far and wide to see how they do it. 

Pigs are bad. They stuff up landscapes by causing erosion through wallowing and rooting. There are estimates of over 20 million wild pigs in Australia and one of the concerns is their ability to transport diseases. Clearly they need to be controlled.

House Design

We went through two major redesigns (a luxe over the top house complete with pilates studio and library followed by a tiny yet delightful cabin with curtains separating bedrooms) before finally deciding to build three pavilions with a connecting semi-covered spine on the south. 

Lots of people think us crazy for having semi outdoor connections between rooms in a cold climate however we have visions of fox skin cloaks hanging at the doors (Brent designed a niche for such beside each door) for those bitter nights and it would be harder if we lived there all winter. Besides, what gave us the courage to take this bold step was to have excellent heating in all the house: going from a warm room to a warm room, cloaked in fur seems, if anything, damn sexy.

Takt's delightful new website has images of the house model and gives an insight into their design process.

Takt Website

The Shed

Everyone loves a shed. Ours took over a year to build in fact it is not finished but it currently provides lots of shelter (albeit a bit windy), collects and stores electricity and water for both the interim and for the finished house by underground service, will house all the farm machinery and has a fully equipped fine furniture woodworking shop. 
And, best of all, it gives me an immense amount of pride.

Designed by me. Built by me, Errol and Guy McGovern (father and son) and Pete Sands from pole and sawn timber sourced on site and galvanised iron in true Nungatta style, it is very honest and appropriate for the site.

Viewing it from across the valley is a treat, delightfully sited, it feels like it was always part of this landscape.

Last week a satellite dish was fixed to the roof to provide us with internet. Now we are getting perhaps a little too fancy.

Donald Judd Inspired Swimming Tank

When Takt delivered to us the model of our house with an open courtyard between the bedrooms and living pavilion, my instant thought was a swimming tank in this location. I plonked a roll of packing tape on the model to give them an idea of the scale and this led to what we are now building.

Long admirer of Donald Judd's swimming tank at Marfa, Texas, I think above ground pools are way cool. 

Above ground pools are particularly good if you can use the height to meet pool fencing code requirements. Accessing a 1.2m high pool off grade is clumsy and hard to make right but with our tank we will be accessing it off an adjacent deck by way of a gangplank, allowing the tank to sit quite comfortably at 1.2 m or higher.

Emus

Yambulla has always had lots of emus, living happily in their natural habitat. They are extremely curious and, like all of us, love shiny things. If you happen across a mob of them without startling them too much you can draw them right up to the car by catching something shiny in the light. This mob came up the hill from about 1 km away when I gently rotated what was on hand in the ute,  a pair of safety glasses, up to the sun.

Stephen Collins's Magnolias

My friend Stephen Collins took out the NSW Residential Design award at the 2013 Australian Interior Design Awards last month for a warehouse conversion in Surry Hills, featured in this months Vogue Living. Bravo Stephen!

Material Landscape Architecture, my previous incarnation before going bush, specified, selected and installed the beautiful saucer magnolias that feature in two separate courtyards. Without any doubt, this was one of the more successful plantings I achieved in my landscape career. Simple yet the trees, as Stephen says, made the place sing. 

Kangaroo Carpets

Last winter we culled 150 odd kangaroos and repurposed them as carpet for the bedrooms.

Yambulla - Choosing a House site

Back in early 2010 we began visiting our house site, first by chance with a gang of friends, all loaded onto the ute looking for somewhere pretty and shady to spend the afternoon, cooking lamb and telling stories.

A year later we were drawn to the same place. We loved the big skies, the rolling landscape, the relationship with Yambulla Peak, and the fact that all the land you could see was ours or National Park. 
Being high on the hill reminded George of his grandparents house in Greece; having the best outlook, they were the envy of the village.

We engaged our friends Brent and Katharina from Takt to design a house. We briefed them that we wanted a house in this location that we would be proud of in our old age. 

Yambulla Dining Table

I finally finished the Yambulla dining table. Crafted from timber we felled and milled early 2012 at Yambulla, the table is designed to be used indoors or out, seats four comfortably but can be expanded to seat  eight or twelve at a push.

See Video