Posts from — July 2007

By Fred Baker | Water — Facts, issues, problems and solutions is not an easy book — but then water isn’t easy to understand. In fact, it’s downright weird.

Geologist David Leaman says if you want to understand how liquids behave, don’t study water.

The scope of the book is limited mostly to Tasmania, which is not noted in as suffering much of a water problem. Actually, it suffers from almost all the problems driving the catastrophe on the mainland and, given its small size, Tasmania is an ideal case study because of its geological and hydrological variety. It’s the Australian canary, warning us of dangers before we can smell them.

[Read more →]

Horse-powered farming is experiencing a rebirth in Tasmania, according to Rural Online, ABC, and the price of fuel may have something to do with it.

A heavy horse association has just been formed to help share the dwindling knowledge of how to train and work horses on farms.

More than 100 people turned out to the association’s first field day at Kindred on July 17.

Field day host, Brad Saunders, says people are interested in keeping heavy horses for a number of uses, not just farm work.

Brad says he uses his Clydesdales for 80 per cent of his farm work.

This delightful study of a Tasmanian echidna comes from the camera of a Flickr poster with the moniker Sir Francis Canker Jones.

We found it interspersed between shots of his wedding, breaching whales in Sydney Harbour, and sheep in New Zealand!

[Read more →]

The Deck

Devonport

Tom Yum Broth with Poached Tasmanian Seafood, Glass Noodles and Asian Greens

[Read more →]

New research has shown that an endangered species of worm is thriving after last year’s bushfires on Tasmania’s east coast. The Giant Velvet Worm found exclusively in Eastern Tasmania is hundreds of millions of years old and lives in decaying logs.

The powerful Tourism Industry Council Tasmania has entered the pulp-mill debate and criticised Gunns boss John Gay over his lack of respect for Tamar Valley tourism operators. The TICT advised Mr Gay to stop making “trite” public comments and start listening to legitimate concerns.

Dean Preston, a sound engineer from Sydney, obviously enjoyed his trip to Tasmania. Here’s his contribution ‘Spring in Tasmania’, courtesy of YouTube:

Seagulls gorging themselves on greasy junk food in Hobart are so fat it is affecting their reproduction. University of Tasmania researcher Heidi Auman has found that silver gulls feeding on fatty scraps being thrown to them from seaside cafes has caused them to become obese.

Police hold grave fears for a Danish tourist missing on Tasmania’s snow-covered Cradle Mountain. A backpack containing a tent, camping equipment and a Danish passport in the name of Kasper Kataoka Sorensen, 21, was found on top of Cradle Mountain yesterday.

In 2003, the Devonport Regional Gallery established a commission program that sought to provide emerging Tasmanian artists with the support to develop a solo exhibition. Hobart-based Richard Wastell was the first artist invited to participate in the program.

Not far from here was the outcome — an exhibition of paintings that capture the essence of the Tasmanian wilderness, its extraordinary beauty and also its vulnerability and the desecration wrought upon it by man.

The exhibition was shown at the Devonport Regional Gallery, and then the Bett Gallery Hobart, in March 2005. It was a sell-out.

And a tribute to the young Richard Wastell’s determination to live by his art once he had graduated with a degree in Fine Arts (Honours) from the University of Tasmania in 1996. As Jane Stewart, director of the Devonport Regional Gallery wrote, after his recent exhibition in Sydney and enthusiastic national reviews, he is now getting the recognition he deserves.

The works in Not far from here are oil and marble dust on linen.