Google Earth/Maps Imagery Update

After about 3 years of no updates, including requests by government, Google has finally updated the imagery in the great Brisbane for Google Earth and Google Maps. So now instead of seeing shipping containers where our veggie garden is, you actually see the veggie garden.

The big white shed can still be clearly seen to south of the property. At the south eastern side of the shed, the new off-white rainwater tank is now visible. The veggie garden, banana pit, and possible makings of the chook house are also visible to the east of the shed.

To the north west of the shed, the citrus grove can just been seen bordered by other trees to the south and north. One can also see that some of the grass to the west is a bit brown. This is because it has been allowed to go wild. Although the grass in the north eastern paddock was cut by a neighbour.

The pond is not present in this photo, nor is the swale. I also think that the chook house was not completed at this stage. So I figure that the picture was taken around the mid June to July timeframe (EDIT: as it turns out it was taken on 2009-07-27).

Hopefully we will not have to wait another few years until we can see an aerial view of the pond.

A Hazy Shade of Sepia

The weather forecast for today was dry and windy with a haze developing. Well the dust from central Australia certainly did envelope, most of the Australian east coast for that matter. We lost site of Clear Mountain (how ironic) and Mount Samson, as the first two pictures show. The landscape was visually surreal, as the colour was stripped from the background but present in the foreground. It was almost as if some Photoshop whiz was exercising their artistic flair on a grand scale.

The wind and heat over the weeks has been sucking the soil dry. This has required more water from our household water tanks to keep the main food gardens alive. We still have a good supply of water for the house, probably around 19000 L. This is mainly due to sound water conservation practices which attempts to utilise our water multiple times. For instance, we bucket the water from our daughter's bath into the cistern of the toilet. And after we flush, the underground treated effluent irrigation from the waste treatment plant waters our citrus grove.

Tomorrow I hope to get a new pump up and running, so with that in operation we will be able to start irrigating more of the food gardens using the water from the pond. This will hopefully keep plants such as the asparagus and passionfruit quite contented until the rainy season.

Getting tanked

In a previous blog entry, I made reference wanting to get additional water storage capacity. Well last week a new 5000 gallon Nylex tank was delivered. We had to hold off on the delivery by about one week as the recent rain had made the ground soft. Even with the delay the truck still caused significant impressions in the lawn.

As I do not like to waste anything, I moved all the good top soil from where the tank was to be located. The soil has been relocated throughout the food gardens. This included the creation of two new beds in the main vegetable garden section, bringing the total to 14 beds in the area.

I was also able to use the deco underneath the water tank, which had previously been mined from the banana pit. So nothing was wasted (as it should be). We have also been using rocks from the soil on the property around the water tanks to suppress weeds.

Until the dam is built, all water collected in the tanks will be utilised inside the shed as well as for irrigating the food gardens. Now that we are entering the dry period for the year it is vital to collect every bit of water. So now all that is needed, is to some rain to fill the new vessel.