After the fire....

Two weeks ago we experienced a very scary fire which almost burnt down our office. We are so grateful for the community which come around to assist us. You know who you are...heroes who have the experience, wisdom (and guts) to know what to do. Fires in gale force winds are terrifying and it could have been so much worse. Look at Alberta at the moment! Fire is a very scary thing and sometimes rain is the only hope. It was in our case and the heavens opened just in time for us.

 The rain came just in time to save the office and the damage is minimal.  The  rain was not enough to put it out and it continued to burn for a further week but the rain helped to save buildings and infrastructure. Finally, a week later it was calm so we could think about the next steps.

There is always a silver lining and the fire took out large area of invasive vegetation that needed to burn and which we would never have tried to burn in a controlled burn because of the risks. Last week before the next rain fall we planted almost 200kg of indigenous grass seed on the burnt areas. We threw the seed late into the night and then the  rains came again! The seed is an indigenous seed mix of 

• Smutsvinger
• Blue buffalo
• White buffalo
• Cynodon
• Teff (Eragrostis)
• Borseltjie (bottlebrush)

We also added some winter rye grass  

But what is amazing to see is just how quickly the wattle seeds have germinated and are coming up like a solid wall of roots. Years and years of seed just waiting for a fire to germinate. The ground was lifting up in places as we walked through. As we cleared away the ground to scatter the seed, a dense mat of wattle roots lay there waiting to emerge. Now we have to wait and see. We'll spray the wattle when its a bit older and we hope that the grass seed will take root and bring back some indigenous grasses. Thanks to advance seed for their great service in getting us the seed so quickly.