Edition 323 | May 2021
Featured
The 2021 football season kicked off on April 10th with a home game for our club. It was our inaugural Indigenous Round, and we made a day of it with the full program of games and before the A Grade game, Jack Buckskin did a welcome to country and smoking ceremony which was great.
The Cherry Gardens Memorial Hall is available for hire at very reasonable rates, with full kitchen facilities available + Laughing Llama Dance and Drama group is holding classes at the hall.
With the fire season coming to an end the Cherry Gardens CFS brigade has had a chance to recoup and recover after a busy and stressful season. With the days shortening and the temperature dropping our training shifts from bushfire related activities to the many other incident types we’re likely to get called out to over winter, such as road accidents and structure fires.
There were a number of grassfires requiring Water Bomber activity at various places across South Australia during the month but only one – at Craigburn Farm on 22nd March – in our Response Zone. Although they are commonly known as “Water Bombers”, in fact the aircraft are loaded with a mixture of water and certain additives.
Next meeting will be Monday 10th May when Henry Digance will talk about Landcare and maybe a bit about growing garlic + Read March meeting notes and George’s gardening suggestions for May.
By now many of you will be putting rugs on horses as the cold nights set in. It is handy to always have a spare rug or two from previous years just in case the present one gets a tear or whatever. Especially by the time we get into July/August, there’s nothing worse than having to rush out to replace a rug on a foul day, only to find that there isn’t a spare interim rug.
The heritage of the church building and headstones is part of a rich fabric that makes Cherry Gardens such a special place. Most precious in that heritage, though, is the fact that the church has been used for Christian worship since its opening, in March 1849, 172 years ago. Services held on Sundays at 9.30am – and all are welcome.
Since the January fires that were deliberately lit around the local area, and which burnt out the eastern 500 hectares of Scott Creek CP, there has been much activity, mostly behind the scenes, planning for the recovery task ahead of us in the Friends group. While the bushland will recover, there are a number of weeds that will benefit from the fire and compete with the regenerating native plants.
Over the last decade, Cherry Gardens residents may have seen white vehicles marked with reflective green and gold checkerband and logos travelling through the area. These are the SA Veterinary Emergency Management (SAVEM Inc) 4WD’s and teams deploying to fire grounds. We rarely appear in the pages of Cherry Chatter - even though our Command Centre is based in Cherry Gardens – because we operate State-wide. SAVEM is a 100% volunteer organisation with no paid staff.
There are some amazing dry stone walls around Willunga (mainly slate and including some very modern creations) and from Strathalbyn, up through Highland Valley (mainly historic, telling us a lot about early European settlement). I've done quite a bit of homework on these structures made from nothing but rock.
Sunday 28/3/21 was the second event training day under our new committee on our grounds in Working Equitation with Michele Meijer. There was an enthusiastic attendance of 17 horses/riders. Included various breeds, heights and abilities. The club plans to follow this up with more structured days in smaller groups and focussing on fewer obstacles and techniques. For more information please follow our Facebook page!
Rainfall for March 2021 32.0 mm
Rainfall for March 2020 8.0 mm
Average rainfall for March 37.5 mm