Cemetery view

This is the sight which greets you when you walk to the back of the cemetery at the top of the hill above the village. The Kakanui Range is in the background, and closer to us are kilometres of rolling farmland, much of it cleared of shelter-belts and native bush so that giant pivot irrigators can cross the pasture unhindered. All for the benefit of dairying.

At this time of year it is easy to see where the land is irrigated and where the farms are 'dry' (i.e. no irrigation). The greenest paddocks are irrigated. The brown paddocks haven't yet started much spring growth. 

The tracks crossing the hillsides aren't roads, but farm tracks along which the cattle are moved every day to and from the milking sheds. They are well-constructed gravel tracks which are created, extended and repaired through the winter months when there are fewer cattle moving around the farms (most cows are dried off). As a result the tracks look sparkly new in August and stand out sharply against the paddocks. Where they converge is the milking shed.

There are some exotic pine plantations in the landscape which offer little except another income for the farmers. They hold next to no ecological value here. They denude the soil of nutrients and moisture and leave it useless for any other use but replanting after the trees are felled. 

The village is near the foreground of the photo. The flour mill at the end of my road is the large building bottom-ish right.

The thumbnail includes a tiny bit of Chez Mima: most of my place is hidden from view.

There endeth today's lesson.