The Gorse Munchers

This morning after I dropped the girls off at school I sat in my car for a while and watched a Mother and her three year old son watching some council workers digging a hole in the road.

As they stood there and watched oblivious to the cold and the wind I couldn't help but think about how different my life is as the mother of three girls.

It was only a few minutes later when I got home that I realised that perhaps some of the stuff that goes on here at Daylesford Organics is wasted on little girls. That little boy would have loved to come home and spend the day with these two machines.

The one above is a excavator with a mulching head and the one below is a skid steer also with a mulching head attached.

These two monstrous machines are here for the next few days to get rid of as much gorse as they can mulch through.

Gorse was introduced to Australia as on ornamental plant or hedge.
It is classified as a weed because it is very difficult to eradicate and because of its aggressive seed dispersal.

As organic farmers the way we try to get rid of this spiky plant that has totally invaded some areas of our farm is to cut it and burn the small areas and then have these big machines mulch the larger areas.

A property near here poisons their gorse but it seems to have little effect at all.

So the beasts will be here for the next few days beeping and eating away at the gorse and my girls won't pay them any attention. Perhaps if they were pink and covered with sparkles it would be a different story.