After the bushfires - 14 November

 Looking across to the hills from near Lancefield - it's easy to see where the fires were now as the tree canopy dies and drops leaves.

 Most trees have now lost more than half of their leaves, but there is a fuzz of new bracken in patches here and there.

 This area probably has the most bracken right now.

 In other places it's just a few plants. In most areas it's still bare. The north side of the property is the only place where grass is growing well, and at the bottom of a couple of gullies. More rain would be good.

Very happy to see several of these on the south side - vanilla lilies!

7 November

It doesn't matter how optimistic I try to be, when I go for a walk and all I see is this, it's hard.

 With no undergrowth, I've been finding small rubbish dumps from previous owners. Some relics go back more than 50 years.

 Yes, the bracken is fighting back.

 Heavy rain over the past week has washed a lot of ash and leaves into great heaps and lumps everywhere. I'm not sure if this is good or bad. We'll see.

 Today I saw a lot of this in different places. I think it's a form of fungus. The orange stuff is spongy and fungus-like.
Not sure if this is normal after a bush fire?

A large tree that has fallen in the past couple of weeks, burned out inside.

This is lovely to see - one of the microclimates of spongy grass and mossy underneath. It's at the base of a gully that funnels a lot of rain through, and when it's really wet, you can see the water running. This is the only area that survived the fire, and is now the first to come back and look really green. Most of the other gullies are also showing signs of green along their bottom areas.

31 October

 A roo comes close to the house but not game to venture as far as the remaining grass.

 Some animal desperate enough to eat the few fungi that have popped up through the ash.

 Bracken starting to emerge.

A couple of small areas have the beginnings of grass coming back.
Good rain this weekend so we'll see what effect it has.

25 October

 Burned out trees falling.

 Burned-dry leaves falling.

 Mat-rush trying to start a come-back.

Some trees burned to the bottom of their roots.