The Backyard |
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| This is a view of our "Big Backyard" (Approx. 350 acres) | |||||
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| The Point Sturt - Clayton area is predominately limestone, interspersed
with ancient sand dunes, coastal salt pans and samphire wetlands.
Our land has some of each!
The climate is described as "marine" which means "windy"! Winds can come from any direction but are predominately from the South West, bringing with them salt spray from the nearby Southern Ocean beaches. Land use is mostly grazing. |
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| The Old Dairy began life in 1901 as the "new" Cheese and Butter Factory. It replaced the first factory next to the house. (Pooh!). Records existing from 1905 indicate an annual output of about 16 tons of cheese and 4 tons of butter. The factory operated until 1917, after which it became a milking shed. Dairying ceased in the 1960s. | |||||
| With a "big backyard" we needed a tractor. We got this fine petrol 1964 Massey Ferguson 35 ("Rare as rocking horse manure") from a neighbour for the cost of a decent computer. Here is Liz at the controls! | 
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 Investigating the broken windmill, with a
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| Water supply was limited to a small leaky rainwater tank at the Old House and the lake edge for stock. The old windmill, drawing from a poor quality well, had been toppled in a storm. We laid piping to bring water from the lake to the house and for stock troughs | |||||
| Four generations of Yellands and 25 years of tenants had left a large quantity of hard rubbish. Bits of fencing wire, parts of old machines, battered vehicle bodies, fallen down walls, roofing sheets and old tanks were scattered across the property. There was also encroachment of noxious weeds such as Sodom Apple and African Boxthorn. |  Taking old fencing to the rubbish hole |
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| All the fences were either very old and decrepit or almost invisible! Parts were post-and-rail from the 1860s and others used twisted tree branch posts and 6mm soft "Belgian" wire c1880. There was much cleaning up to do before we could begin the massive task of re-fencing. |  Swinging a new gate. |
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