On the hill overlooking Rocklands Reservoir, the locals have set up several pieces of agricultural equipment for permanent display. This one is a stump jump plough, originally invented 1876 in South Australia by Richard Bowyer Smith (1837-1919).

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An ordinary plough couldn’t cope with constantly hitting rocks or stumps from recently cleared fields, so Mr Smith came up with a blade system that kicked up out of the way when it hit an obstacle, and which could be dropped down again, by hand.

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Rough sketch of the first single furrow stump jumping plough known as ‘the Vixen’ made by Mr. R. B. Smith of Kalkabury in June 1876.
Image: State Library of South Australia [B 64256]

In the following years, others manufactured the stump jump ploughs, some having as many as 12 blades. The flexibility was added to other types, including disc harrowers.

Fallowing with a stump jump mold board plough on S.J.Venning’s property near Pinnaroo. Image: State Library of South Australia [B 20498]

It would’ve been informative if these pieces of machinery at Rocklands had little plaques, saying what they were, but I was able to find out easily enough.

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Thanks for looking.

🙂

Agricultural

An Aussie invention: Stump Jump Plough

On our final day at Rocklands Reservoir, this mother kangaroo finally let me see her joey.

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Thanks for looking.
🙂

kangaroos

A Joey

I rarely see a Scarlet Robin around here, so I was stoked to see a few at Rocklands Reservoir. They were hard to photograph. Fortunately, this one decided to keep still.

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The Scarlet Robin frequents southern Australia and Norfolk Island, but they can also be seen in other parts of the south-western Pacific – from Bougainville and the Solomon Islands to Vanuatu, Fiji and Western Samoa. We see them most during winter as they favour open farmland and urban areas that time of the year. The female is less showy. We usually call them Robin Red Breasts, and I see they are far brighter than their counterparts in the Northern Hemisphere.

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