the big storm

Yesterday Penny went for one of her favourite walks, along the Yarra River at Warburton.

But what was this? A big mess at the entrance!

But no worries. Someone had been very busy clearing up the fallen trees after the big storm last weekend, so we could get through easily.

Many of the fallen trees were enormous. They must have been many decades old.

'Come away from this one,' I said to her, because it looked ready to fall the next time the wind blows.

Every fallen tree we saw was a eucalypt. Here's Penny examining the roots of one of them. This one had fallen across the river.

But here's something interesting... That tree was right beside a stand of Californian redwoods planted early last century. Not a one of them had fallen. (Can you see the fallen eucalypt across the path in the distance?)

I searched for references to this little glade of redwoods in Warburton township, but most sites direct to the bigger forest of redwoods in East Warburton,

Yarra Views Blog is the only site I could find that has information about the trees beside the Yarra River in Warburton itself. The writer says these trees were planted by a group of American Seventh Day Adventists. I recall from a previous blog post of my own that they were planted about 1922, which makes them older than the ones at East Warburton, I think. (I'm not sure about that.)

I think this site, about the forests ofWarburton, is fascinating.

watch out for falling branches, Penny!

Yesterday was lovely and cool, but we went back to Willsmere Park where Penny gets lots of exercise swimming and running around - because we felt so stonkered by the recent heat that we didn't want to walk far.

As Penny was racing after her toy, having had a cooling swim first, we were a bit apprehensive when she ran near this tree. (Silly me for throwing the toy near a dangerous tree.)

But it wasn't a super hot day, so we thought no more limbs would fall from the tree.

It must have been scary when this branch snapped in the recent heat wave!

walking at Yarra Bend on a lovely Spring day

When I arrived home this afternoon I was told that Penny had gone to Yarra Bend Park with one of her humans, so I jumped in my car to join them.
I parked partway along the path I thought they would take, and had the pleasure of seeing Penny realise I had arrived. Watching her race towards me was pure joy!



After walking on the flat for a while, we headed up a hill, which is good exercise for Penny to strengthen her left rear leg, the one that was operated on for a cruciate tear, almost exactly a year ago.



There were birds perched on a rock half-way up the hill, but they didn't seem to mind us walking towards them, until we got too close.





Walking past one of the eucalypts, we had a lesson in why the Australian bush burns so well. Just look at all those strips of flammable bark hanging down. Eucalypts need to burn to regenerate, and the strips of bark have the effect of allowing a grass fire to run up them and set the foliage on fire. (I'm not quite clear about this process, but I do make a point of clearing away all the hanging bark at my place in the hills.)



By the time we arrived back at the cars, nature had turned on a gorgeous sunset to make our walk complete.

eucalypts drop branches when you don't expect it

When we were in Darebin Parklands the other day, we met some people at the big pool in the bend of the creek and stood discussing the recent floods.

Crack! A branch dropped straight down from one of the trees around the edge of the pool. No warning except that infamous sound.

A young boy and his pup had been standing there only moments before.



Of course, inquisitive Penny (and her humans) went over to have closer look. Probably not too intelligent, but we were working on the theory that lightning doesn't strike twice in the same spot.



It seems that it's not known why some trees (not just eucalypts) unexpectedly drop limbs.I haven't found any information on the internet about the actual process of dropping the limb but here is an interesting article. I took a couple of closeups of the end of the branch, and I don't know if it looks as if there is any particular disease at that spot.





And a shot of the place it dropped from, high up the trunk.



As we wandered further through the park, we came across an even bigger branch that had dropped previously.