Eight Acres

Every time I share a book review I include Amazon affiliate links, and if you use those links to buy things I gradually build up Amazon credit.  Earlier this year I used my credit to order a couple of books, which I finished reading ages ago, but haven't had a chance to share with you until now.  I just wanted to say again, thanks for using my affiliate links because it does help me to buy more books! One of the books that I bought was  The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from a Secret World .  I had heard an interview with the author of this book on ABC radio national  which had really caught my interest.  We own a lot of trees, as you can see in the image below.  Our property was on the market for a long time before we bought it because it has so many trees (about 100 acres of our 258 acres) and most are protected under QLD vegetation management laws , so they can't be cleared.  Farmers around here b...

I love the gum trees on our property, but I only recently realised that so many of the trees ARE gum trees.  I was lucky enough to pick up a book called Gum: the story of eucalypts and their champions  by Ashley Hay (affiliate link), that our local library was selling off, so I only paid $2 for it, but its a great little book.  I was hoping to learn about gum trees and how to identify the different types, but instead I learnt about the complicated history of the taxonomy of gum trees.  Its a fascinating story, with chapters about Cook's botanist Joseph Banks, to Ferdinand Muller who continued Joseph's work and then May Gibbs, author of the gum tree baby comics and books.  Apparently there are hundreds of types of gum trees in Australia (and millions of gum trees) and they are all hardwood. They are great for firewood if the wood is split and allowed to dry out.  Some gum trees grow straight and tall, perfect for fence posts and building mate...