No, we still have not made any progress on our building due to rain. Instead I will subject you to a rant about trees.
I have gone on quite a journey about what trees mean to me since
buying a block of land which is covered with them. I am more familiar
with species of exotic trees since I used to be a bush regenerator
and that involved me learning about 'weeds'. In comparison Australian
native trees are a bit trickier to accurately identify. It is usually
fairly easy to identify the genus, and I can mostly pick out a 'gum'
tree - only sometimes being caught out with the Tristanias, which
often look very similar to the gums.
For example, it is pretty easy
to spot an acacia tree, otherwise known as a wattle. But figuring out
which wattle it is exactly, is much more difficult, since there are
about 100 species in Australia alone. And telling the difference
between the different gum trees is also very difficult. I have had
people try to explain it to me in the past, but no-one couldn't come
up with a better explanation than 'it just LOOKS like a such-and-such
gum' - not very helpful!
So when I
looked at some Australian bush, I used to just go 'Ooh! Trees!' I
have since discovered - by asking various local people who have
visited our block - what most of the tree species here are. We
primarily have spotted gum, stringy-bark, iron-bark, and grey gum.
This is along with the acacias and casuarinas, and another tree known
as a brush-box (which used to be known as a Tristania but then got
re-classified. No wonder I get confused!). So then I progressed to
going 'Ooh! It's a such-and-such tree!' and congratulated myself on
learning identification skills.
When I asked
people for more information about these trees, I received a lot of
conflicting advice. The first person who identified the spotted gum
told me that the timber was 'shit' and not even very good for
firewood because it burns quite 'cold'. I was disappointed to hear
this since spotted gum is the dominant species on our block, and I
was hoping that we could make good use of the timber after the trees
had been cleared for the bushfire break around the house area.
I have
since learned that the spotted gum is actually a very good timber for
a lot of uses, which includes making fantastic electricity poles (due
to its habit of growing very straight with no side branches for a
significant height), making good fence posts, and making great timber
for internal use - such as for furniture and for lining the internal
walls of your house. The only thing that you do not want to do with
them - is put them untreated into the ground, as they are quite
susceptible to termites and wood borers. This we have seen for
ourselves in the shed rafters, which are pretty much eaten hollow
from the wood borers flying up, and the termites making mud tunnels
up there too.
On the other hand, the posts which were made from
stringy-bark are still completely solid. I have also
been advised that stringy-bark and iron-bark are very desirable
timbers, with very hard wood that is difficult to cut, but great to
use for lots of things. Apparently iron-bark can actually burn TOO
hot in a wood stove, so combining it with spotted gum sounds like a
perfect solution.
This education about species means that now when I
look at trees I see something completely different. I think 'Ooh that
tree would make good timber for such-and-such' instead. Of course I
cannot forget that these trees are at their highest value while alive
and growing, providing food for insects, animals and birds, shelter
for creatures, and oxygen for everyone.
But I do now
understand that old saying 'Tim-ber!' when a tree is felled - the
tree changes from being a living thing, to being something which
humans can chop up and use. I still feel immense happiness when
looking at trees, but now that happiness has some added details and
information.
