Wilyun Pools Farm; Sylvia Leighton & Peter Mckenzie | Brand
Wilyun Pools Farm; Sylvia Leighton & Peter Mckenzie
Phone: +61 427 991 085
Reviews
to load big map
21.01.2022 We still get excited to see water puddles on our driveway as every bit of rain is very precious this year...........but...........we forgot you have to be more careful driving tractors in low lying areas. Whoops!!!.
18.01.2022 Purple Pea Perfection A treat today. A Gompholobium scabrum native pea bush was in flower on the edge of the farm bushland. A visual delight with rain droplets delicately poised on its petals. #WilyunPoolsFarm; #honeypossumhabitat, #southcoastwa, #landforwildlife, #wellstead, #abetterworld
16.01.2022 We have just experienced some timely ‘drought breaking’ rainfall this week!! By the end of July we had only received 24% of our annual average rainfall. Many native plants had delayed or aborted their flowering. Even some of our hardy grass trees (Xanthorrhoea) had their green fronds turn brown and proceeded to die. Then on Monday and Tuesday we got 130mm from a very strange and freaky low weather system. We now have over 50% of our annual average rainfall and a very changed landscape. This has spurred us into action and this weekend we will be hand planting 6000 Banksias and Hakea seedlings to provide nectar rich food for animals like the honey-possums. Yay!!!
16.01.2022 Tricksty Albany Swamp Daisies Our stunning pink centered swamp daisies (Actinodium cunninghamii) are in full bloom. Local people know this endemic plant looks superficially like a daisy but is actually a member of the Myrtle family. The genera of Darwinia, Verticordia and Chamelaucium (wax flowers) are its closest relatives. The flower head is around 30mm across. Magnifying the pink coloured ‘daisy center’ reveals a cluster of exquisite compact small pink flowers with tall central flower styles. The similarity to Chamelaucium is unmistakable.
15.01.2022 Snakey Sunday We found this dead tiger snake outside Pepper's pen this morning. The warm spring weather has already triggered snakes to get out and about. Unfortunately any snakes that venture into our farm garden have to contend with Pepper the blue-heeler. She sniff's them out. Maybe it is the dingo component in her breeding that makes her very efficient at shaking snakes and breaking their back bones. Last year she killed eight snakes in our garden. Poor snake....they are beautiful creatures.
13.01.2022 Shearing Bashie Just following on with the study on whether shearing is painful for sheep. We had to shear our pet ram called Bashie who is just over one year old. We know him pretty well and watched him closely as he went through the process. At first he was a bit indignant because he was turned upside down and dragged across the floor boards on his woolly bottom.........but he actually didn't mind particularly much. When the noisy hand piece started he got a bit anxious wit...h his eyes widening and his breathing becoming more rapid. However he appeared to be quite happy when the wool was removed from his belly and legs. It was a bit more scary for him when the hand piece was going up over his head and past his ears. However - overall he wasn't that stressed from the experience. As soon as he was released from the shearing shed he was off feeding and carrying on as usual. Sheep in general live very much in the moment. He looked very handsome with his new hair cut. See more
12.01.2022 Pottiputki Planting We spent all day out planting about 1000 Banksia's and Hakea's today. It was super chilly and wet........but that's the winter planting conditions we have been waiting for. It's so late in the year to be planting.......it feels like the first true day of winter for us. Luckily there was a warm fire on inside to dry wet clothes and warm up. #RegenerativeFarming, #HoneyPossumHabitat, #LandForWildlife, #Gondwanalink, #Revegetation, #WildlifeCorridors, #SouthcoastWA, #Mettler, #Wellstead, #ABetterWorld
12.01.2022 The Distinctive Fan Leaved Hakea One of our favourite plants in the local bush is the distinctive Hakea baxteri (Fan Leaved Hakea). It is easily spotted in the bush with it's dark green rigid fan shaped leaves with a toothed upper margin. It grows in small sporadic clusters with the next cluster possibly 2 km's away. Their nuts are very difficult to detach from the adult plant but once harvested the seed is extremely fertile. We grow a few trays in the farm nursery every year to put into our wildlife corridor plantings. Here is a new seedling out of the tray and into the ground and a pic of one that was planted last year. #HoneyPossumHabitat, #WilyunPoolsFarm, #southcoastwa, #LandForWildlife, #Mettler, #JacobCrowe, #ABetterWorld, #RegenerativeFarming, #PreservingBiodiversity,
12.01.2022 Does it hurt? A question we often get asked is whether the shearing of the wool hurts the sheep? Here are a few pics of our merino rams being shorn. Yes the sound of the shearing hand piece probably scares the sheep a little bit BUT the older sheep definitely remember the experience and know it is a pretty quick process (only 2 - 3 minutes) and then they are happily back outside, bouncing around feeling like 'a new younger sheep' being 4.5 - 5kg's lighter with their fleece re...moved. Shearers are pretty amazing people. A good shearer works quietly and calmly and actually establishes a 'working relationship' with each sheep. It is a very physically demanding job but almost unique in the kind of animal/human engagement that occurs. Each sheep is different and requires the shearer to 'read' the sheep's 'disposition'. The shearer is hyper vigilant on keeping the sheep comfortable whilst trying to remove the wool as quickly as possible to reduce the handling time. The shearers are usually in a deeply concentrated state and 'when in the zone' the smooth movements of their wrists and hands comes automatically as they curve the hand piece around the sheep's body. It is like a body memory 'dance'. If the cutting blades get blunt then there is increased friction and this can pull on the wool and can cause the hand piece to heats up. A hot hand piece gets increasingly uncomfortable for the shearer and the sheep. That is why shearers are constantly changing their cutting blades all day long. It keeps the hand piece cool and they can shear faster. Our conclusion - If the sheep is shorn with sharp cutting shears and the shearer and sheep work well together - we don't think it hurts them. That is why we like to have experienced, highly skilled shearers in our shed, #regenerativefarmingwa, #wilyunpoolsfarm, #southcoastwa, #shearing. #farmfun, #happysheep, #wool, #naturalfibres, #australianwool, #healthyfutures, #australianshearer, #goodshepherd
11.01.2022 Always fun to go out into the paddock where 'the pets' are residing and say 'hello'. They have been down in the back paddock for about 4 months so we haven't seen them for a while. They can be a bit naughty pushing in for some attention when we are trying to do some work ........but they always make us laugh and we delight in their friendly, gentle, inquisitive nature. The main character in these pics is 'Albo' who we hand fed as an orphan lamb two years ago. #WilyunPoolsFarm, #SouthCoastWA, #ABetterWorld, #regenerativefarmingWA, #HappySheep, #BlackFacedSuffolks, #OrphanLambs
06.01.2022 Thank you to Glen Stephens from Greening Australia for dropping into Wilyun Pools Farm with their direct seeding machine to sow our provenance native seed into the new 6 ha wildlife corridor area. It will change the bare sand of the post bluegum site to a healthy native veg site within 2 years. The birds start using the new corridor within 18 months. It is a late sowing but it has been a very late rain year. We still have only received 50% of our average annual rainfall by September. This won't bother the indigenous seed too much.......it can cope with these kind of diverse weather conditions quite happily. Yay........new alive spaces sown and beginning its regenerative journey! #regenerativefarmingwa, #wilyunpoolsfarm, #GreeningAustralia, #southcoastwa, #abetterworld
06.01.2022 Plentiful Potatoes Today we dug up half the potato patch so we could sow the first of our pumpkin crop. There was lots of 'littlies' .......... a bit of a reflection on our dry winter. They should be delicious!!
06.01.2022 The Sweetness of a Lamb We never forget that we are privileged to have the opportunity to live closely with animals. We always ensure they are cared for properly with enough food, water and shelter..and sometimes they are given a bit of a helping hand if they are feeling a bit too tired to walk back to their paddock
05.01.2022 Full Moon Wonder Always something to trigger the emotional response of 'wonder' and take us beyond ourselves into the expansive realm of the universe. Interesting clouds in front of the full moon with a silhouetted gum tree two nights ago #wilyunpoolsfarm, #southcoastwa, #ThePowerOfWonder, #abetterworld
03.01.2022 Old Man’s Beard I call this plant ‘Old Mans Beard’ because when the white fluffy seed mass droops down off the plant it looks like a big white beard (some people call another plant species by this common name). The plant I am referring to is Clematis pubescens. It is a perennial woody creeper endemic to southwestern WA plant with a strikingly bright white cross shaped flower. On Wilyun Pools Farm it grows on the clay soils in under the coastal silver mallee (Euc. ecostata) an...d flowers in Aug./Sept. The flowers do not have petals - they are composed of 4 long bright white sepals (4- 5 cm’s long), many stamens and many styles. Once fertilised the styles become feathery and are long, white and persistent. The fruit matures as an achene in the feathery clump and eventually the mature seed with its feathery attachment blows away from ‘the beard’ in the wind. Birds often collect the feathery soft seed mass to line their nests. There is always something interesting to see, touch and feel in the bush. #wilyunpoolsfarm, #southcoastwa, #thepowerofwonder, #clematispubescens, #wildflowerseason, #wildflowerswa, #wildflowersofinstagram
01.01.2022 Summer Proofing the Vegie Patch After watching our vegie patch wilt and succumb to hot dry summer conditions each year we have finally decided to 'redesign'. We will move all 14 raised beds (That's 28 m2 of soil to hand dig). 10 will be put under retractable shade cloth with overhead sprinklers. The 4 other beds will be upgraded to wicking beds and left out under full sunshine. Hopefully this reduces water loss and stops the soil drying out. It is pretty devastating to cause such destruction to our beloved vegie growing zone but hopefully we will be rewarded with functional beds over summertime. And so it begins. #wilyunpoolsfarm, #veggiegarden, #wickingbeds, #regenerativefarmingwa, #healthyfutures
01.01.2022 Daily Ducky Doings Our Cayuga/Saxony farm ducks usually do a daily 200 metre waddle across to the house dam, spend the day swimming, sleeping and chatting to the wild ducks then they waddle back home......exhausting!! But at this time of the year they start to behave very differently roaming much further afield across the paddocks. They even go and chat to the sheep. We think they actually have to put a bit of 'work into life' at this time of the year to get enough proteins for egg production. Oh its a ducks life!!
