June update

It has been a very odd beginning to the winter this year. A month of mucky weather before finally turning on a week of beautiful skies and cold nights. Finally it is cold enough to have a fire at night and snuggle up under the doona. The rain, out of season, was hard as it mucked up my work schedule.
In a fit of desperation I tried to clear an old garden bed of a noxious vine (I always understood it to be called Brazilian Passion vine but a search has yielded no results). It is a rampantly growing vine that strongly resembles domestic passion fruit vines in every way except it bears no edible fruit. It is also a strong grower and will readily smother whole trees if left unchecked. The vine was well entangled in the undergrowth and had climbed up into the trees above. So in a fit of either brilliance, stupidity or possibly desperation I took a long length of one inch rope and tied it around the middle of the vine. My intention was to use the tractor to pull the vine free of the garden bed in one mass. I have done this successfully several times before on a smaller scale. Unfortunately the vine was well anchored at both ends. The tractor ended up snapping the rope several times and then gouged deep ruts into the orchard lawn.
This gave me the "Irrits" so I fetched my trusty chainsaw and cut away everything the vine was attached to. This meant felling every tree in the garden as well. I then cut it all up and burned it off as much as I could. The bigger stuff will need more time to dry yet so I will have a bonfire towards the end of winter.

It is a pity I don't have a before and after shot as the effect would be quite dramatic. I also intend to fell most of the trees in the foreground leaving a rather handsome Tibouchina. My wife was rather taken aback at the extent of my glorious victory over the rampant vine hordes. Apparently I was just supposed to be "neatening up the garden beds". Oh well.
On the plus side I think we have found a good site for my new potting shed.