​Greetings fellow Foxies,
Being a volunteer has its challenges, but sometimes there is great pleasure and achievement.
I had one of these moments today in the marri picnic area in the form of a primrose spider orchid, which has volunteered in one of the most degraded areas when the Friends of Foxes Lair was formed (1999). Two donkey orchids and a brown-banded greenhood orchid have also popped up.In recent years I have planted mallees and shrubs and look forward to them prospering. Stink bugs killing seedling growing points is an ongoing problem, which I am managing by using flyscreen covers.

In 2003 the marri picnic area was a bogan's paradise. A crowd gathered in the centre with booze and bonfire while cars took turns doing burnouts around them. Vandalism and rubbish were rife and the concrete picnic table shown in image 1 was destroyed by sledge hammer.  Trees were chopped down for firewood. The yellow arrow marks the same tree to use as a reference point when comparing images.

In 2004 a laterite boulder and telephone pole barrier was created to stop vandalism and keep vehicles out of newly established walk trails that lead from this point. Alas, the telephone poles were dragged out to make a fine bonfire. The insecticide drenched logs may have shortened a few lifespans.

In 2005 more laterite boulders were brought in to replace telephone poles. This was a turning point for the picnic area. apart from a few minor vehicle incursions there was no more vandalism. Bogans don't like walking much.

By 2011 a Lotterywest grant funded a new picnic table and an information bay

By 2019 Narrogin shire a covered and uncovered picnic table

During this time the walking trails were being continuously upgraded and marked. Hopefully there will be more grants to instal interpretive panels along walk trails and to mark out the dual-use cycle trails.
By 2024 I hope to be still around to post an image showing healthy flowering mallees and shrubs here.

​Greetings fellow Foxies,
Over the years, the Claypit has been a labour of love and source of frustration. The reason for the existence of the twin excavations is unknown, with possibilities being a brick clay quarry (unlikely as it is poor quality clay, borrow pit for adjoining Bottle Creek dam or as a soak. The initial name, Beavers Dam was also a mystery until several years after I renamed it Claypit for brevity. Guy Maley told me that he and other kids used to throw sticks in the water, which were were blown by wind into one end to resemble a beaver’s dam.
 Images below show changes from 2011 to 2019

 The Claypit was a favoured place for tadpole collecting, a cycle circuit, trail bike jumps and 4WD enthusiasts. After many years of vandalism, and trail bike and 4WD incursions on walk trails and through the bush, I realised that Foxes Lair would never be a good place for walkers while the Claypit remained a magnet for undesirable activity exponents
Tony and Deb Hughes-Owen donated bridge timbers that were placed by the Central South Naturalist Club to create a picnic area. In a battle of attrition over several years, 4WD drivers would breach the barriers and trash facilities and I would repair them and cart in tonnes of rocks, logs, soil for landscaping, barrier reinforcements, and stepping stones. Images below show a 2016 incident 

​The famous “Claypit Challenge” arose after I scabbed rocks, logs, and limestone blocks from a range of sources to create a stepping stone circuit for the young and young at heart.
Recently the shire’s insurance assessor cast an eye over and (justifiably) insisted that the logs and rocks were a safety hazard and had to go. 

Narrogin shire donated 8 one metre long reconstituted limestone blocks, and will hopefully cut them in half .
 However more blocks are needed. Suitable limestone blocks would be gratefully accepted by yours truly

​Greetings fellow Foxies,
                                     When the Friends of Foxes Lair group formed in 1999, Foxes Lair was much neglected. Numerous tracks were used as a rally circuit for trail bikes, 4WD and other vehicles, and it was used for dumping rubbish, and fireside drinking parties.
The group developed a management plan and got to work. A few years later when 30 years of regrowth was cut out to restore the arboretum, I realised that we had no before and after photos to record the tremendous progress that we had made.
I have set up a reference sites throughout Foxes Lair that are photographed regularly.
Progress over the years has been 2 steps forward and one step back.
Despite this, images of the Marri picnic area below indicate significant progress. The yellow arrow shows the same tree in each image.
In 2003 the picnic area was an evening speedway circle with spectators in the centre. Roads radiated out in four directions. The concrete picnic table was then destroyed by someone using a sledge hammer.

​With shire assistance we designed and built a car park using boulders and telephone pole bases to separate vehicles from the picnic area and used converted roads into the three walking trails. One night a group used the poles for a bonfire (and got a good dose of arsenic from the wood preservative).

​More boulders were brought in to create the barrier that you see now. 

​In 2010 we obtained a Lotteries Commission grant for an information bay and a new picnic table (far left) 

​In recent years Narrogin Shire has installed two new picnic tables (one under cover)

​The Narrogin shire is in the final stage of producing a trails master plan, which will provide a blueprint for future upgrades to Foxes Lair trails. A long overdue replacement map poster should be in place by June.

​Greetings fellow Foxies, 
The arboretum is a great place to see how diverse eucalypts can be, with one feature being whether/how they shed their bark each summer.
Eucalyptus leptopoda; Merredin mallee (formerly Tammin mallee, pegs 194 to 199) is common on gravel and sandplain kwongan soils in the eastern wheatbelt. These soils have just a few eucalypts because of an unpenetrable silcrete hardpan in the deep subsoil. Merredin mallees occur in spots where their roots have gone through cracks in the hardpan. They have grey/white smooth bark with darker strips of old bark. Long shreds of shed bark up to 3 metres long hang down from upper branches of plants in the arboretum, to reveal light-copper new bark that gradually turns grey-white.
Mallees are adapted to cope with regular fires by regenerating from a large lignotuber root. The ones herehave yet to develop these.They have shaggy-bark stem bases and long spindly stems.
In February/March profuse white flowers attract bees and flower wasps.
For more information on eucalypts you can’t go past the brilliant book "Eucalypts of Western Australia’s wheatbelt" by Malcolm French.