Hi Landcarers

We had a perfect end to a busy week of Landcare activities. We were fortunate to have involvement from just about every age group over the past week, from under-fives to those who have had considerably more life experience.

On Thursday of last week we were fortunate to have local schools from the Parkes and Forbes Shires join us for Eco Day at the Central West Livestock Exchange. The weather just hung in there for us and we learnt heaps from the workshops. Thank you to all of the lovely students and school representatives for joining us and to our volunteers who helped bring the day together.

Friday brought over 500 students and teachers out to Angus Clarke Drive at Forbes to plant a tree as part of Schools National Tree Day. A magnificent effort by everyone!

Saturday and Sunday National Tree Day plantings at Parkes and Forbes were beautiful days, with over 500 trees planted over the weekend. We were fortunate to have the Forbes Neighbourhood Watch overseeing proceedings and our BBQ at Forbes and the RFS overseeing the BBQ at Parkes. What a fantastic group of volunteers we are lucky to have in our communities!

As part of our commitment to our Landcare members and a wider commitment to improving soil health in our area, Central West Lachlan Landcare (CWLL) are offering a series of free or discounted workshops with specialists in this field.

We hope that through the Rebalancing our Landscapes series that we will be outlaying over the next 12 months we can provide a huge benefit to our farming community. To kick this off, we are helping to bring composting workshops to our area, providing an opportunity to take advantage of a free trial compost offer.

If you are interested in building soil health and increasing production you are invited to take advantage of these workshops aimed at promoting the use of compost in grazing and cropping systems.

Through this program you will learn more about using compost on your property and have the opportunity to talk with industry experts, compost producers, rural advisors and farmers who are already using compost.

The Compost on the Farm Project is funded by the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) through the Waste Less, Recycle More program funded by the NSW waste levy.

If this is something that you would like to be involved in, please contact me and I will keep you in the loop. The workshop will be held on Tuesday 23 August. I will have more details for your next week.

Walkers, put this date in your diary……The National Parks Association will be holding their next walk on Wednesday, 31 August at Black Range, West Cookies Plains National Park. Walkers are to meet at Bushman’s Dam at 0900.

If you are intending to walk, please contact Peter Canon on 02 6866 1225 the evening before the walk.

All walks are subject to there being no adverse RFS fire warnings at the time and no closure of the relevant State Forest due to Hunting Permits etc.

Walkers are reminded to bring along enough food and water for the entire day as well as suitable clothing, footwear, hat and sunscreen. A pair of good binoculars and a fold up chair is recommended. A $2.00 donation for each walker is appreciated.

As usual, links to items in this article are available on facebook or on our website at centralwestlachlanlandcare.org and I can be contacted at our office on 02 6862 4914 or email me at cwllpo@hotmail.com

Until next week, happy Landcaring!