A few months ago we were asked to host a Practical Soils & Dung Beetle Field Day. Today was the day, and what a great opportunity it was to bring experts in their fields down to “our field” to share information, ask questions and apply this to our neck of the woods.

The day started with a slideshow in our dining room. This tickled the kids fancy as they dragged their pillows out, lay on the floor and viewed pictures of dung beetles in action. John Feehan, all the way from Canberra, had a great display of both native and introduced beetles and spoke to us all about their value in the paddock. When he pulled the live display out of his suitcase the kids forgot all about classroom learning….

 Bruce Radford went on to explain the role of soil in our business. While soil chemistry isn’t my strong suit, his information was so pertinent to how we profit in a grazing business. 

Stuart Cannon then took the helm out in the paddock.

With maps in hand, and a 1200mm pit in the ground, we all listened intently to a soil appraisal. Well, some of us listened…..

The pH Test kit came out as did the water bottles. Unlike much of eastern Qld, we didn’t receive any reprieve from the heat with a storm.

As you can see, not a lot of school happened in our schoolroom other than Lachlan’s English lesson on-air.  However the opportunity to take the science curriculum into the real world is priceless, I’m sure.

While out in the paddock, we went on a dung enviro beetle hunt. 

Sharp eyes, nimble knees and quick fingers made spotting “Roley Poley”, “Dirty Harry” and “Smelly Sam” light work.

Once collected, these little critters were identified by species and population strength. We look forward to adding further diversification to our enviro beetle population.

For me, it was great to get out in the field. Well, as far as Eliza would let me go…

Now with Andrew heading off on school camp tomorrow and Tess home (YIPPEE!!) we made the most of daylight and the meagre moonlight to yard a couple hundred head of cows to keep some of us busy tomorrow. Others will be back to the schoolroom for the countdown…

Here is a snippet of Tess’s first day back!

There are 3 comments on this article:

• On 19/11/2012 sharon said:

  my husband would have loved that field day. And that hat of yours is a classic.

  And LOL at Tess…once upon a time we finished drafting a mob of bullocks just on dark, and decided to walk them the 5km back to the paddock that night – its a full moon! The moon did not come up until AFTER we had gotten there, and before then it was PITCH dark. Its such a strange feeling to not see anything (especially on the open downs) bar the odd lighter coloured beast and a white shirt or hat. And lucky my favourite old mare could see, she kept the stragglers coming on the tail…Far easier I think taking them BACK in the dark than YARDING in the dark!

• On 19/11/2012 Trudy said:

  An interesting and informative day by the looks, good to see some familiar faces there!

• On 20/11/2012 Helena Salmon said:

  I remember setting up dung beetle traps when they were doing the Queensland wide project to see where the different species were and how many. It wasn’t terribly sucessful for us as we were in drought so even finding the required bait at the right consistancy could be a bit hard at times! We still get excited though now when you see where they have been working.