Meet Barry

The train shed, man cave call it what you like sits on one corner of the block well away from the house, so the wife can't hear the carrying on from running nights and other times when the train whistle blows on my new sound loco NA's.
The original shed stood out like the proverbial sore thumb, being probably an asbestos shed covered in corrugated iron with  no attempt to blend it into the surroundings or hide it from view from the house. Eventually I planted a few trees around the shed, and like watching your kids grow up they have become huge. Not really a problem as the rainforest is my favourite type of garden style. Now to have trees hanging over the roof does create problems with falling leaves which increase proportionately to the amount of rainfall. As we have had a dry spell lately there were quite a few up there. There are a couple of ways to fix this problem. Take up a broom/hose/blower or get someone else to do it for you. It was yet another one of those jobs that was on my gunnadoo list that seems to be getting larger rather than smaller. The leaves all seem to gather together at the lowest point on a roof, that being the gutters which doesn't help the water get away.
Last year in the garden I was unlucky enough to receive a visit from one of the local wildlife one of those brush turkeys, that should normally be residing in the 150 square kilometre Kuring-gai National Park that the state government has provided for them to be happy in and not annoy anyone. There is no shooting allowed there so no bullets for them to dodge. Their No 1 enemy the fox has been nearly eliminated by setting out 1080 poison (yes full resolution) so their numbers have increased. The park is beautiful, with many valleys, varied vegetation, and boat hire for them at Bobbin Head if they so desire.
But no, not being satisfied with this wonderfull playground the taxpayers have provided for them, one of them decided to start their famous mound amongst my garden I was trying to establish. All the leaves through out the garden which Don Burke has told me was natures blanket to nurture growth were now all in one corner in a mound. Why did he pick my place when there was all this parkland out there just a few houses away? I must say I was impressed with his workload, for while I was busy sleeping through the night he must have been raking all my leaves into a pile. So the next day armed with my garden rake I thought I would show him who was boss and raked all the leaves back where they had come from. I think he eventually won the battle as it became tiring battling nature.
Now this year was a different matter. If it was the same brush turkey he wisely moved onto my neighbours back yard and had a go there. I don't think they are as garden proud as me and for them he probably did them a favour. All around the fenceline he managed to skitch all the weeds,wandering jew vines, sticks etc into his huge mound they are famous for. This was a wise move for him as he was able to build this mound fairly quickly without interruption. There must be a cutoff point in the bird world where the weight of the bird becomes too much for the branch and it breaks. So then the bird decides it is safer to build a ground level nest. This is probably what happened long ago to the brush turkey. But why so flaming big? It can be up to a few metres across and up to a metre and a half high.
This is a bit of a long story but we now get back to the bit about the leaves on the roof. I still knew I needed to get up there and clean it all off, but one day while modelling away I could hear this noise on the roof. There goes the wind again blowing the branches over the roof. But it was a different sound. Getting out the ladder, I climbed up to see the brush turkey 
 

Barry in action

(now named Barry) raking the leaves off the roof. He was doing a brilliant job even to the extent of raking the leaves back with his feet towards the gutter. Hey this was brilliant, one minute my enemy and next my best friend cleaning my roof for me!!. This has been going on for over a week, I don't know if he suffers from OCD but he seems to be up there every day.
 

Barry realises he has been spotted

I haven't had the heart to tell him but when he rakes these leaves back off the roof they are falling on my land and his 'mound' is over the 'fence'. The fence is wire mesh and he can see his love nest from my place, maybe he should have gone to SpecSavers?

Barrys' workload with intended target in the background

 Eventually when Barry leaves for places beyond I will add his good work to the rest of my garden as mulch.

Barrys mound

So if you ever need your backyard raked clear just get in a brush turkey for a while. Costs you nothing. Reader of this blog will remember the troubles I had with the possums in the shed and they clearly fell in to 'pest' category, but with the brush turkey now that he has cleaned off my roof for me I might have to put him into the 'friend' category. How quickly things can change.
Please note that at no time during the production of this blog were any brush turkeys harmed. 
And I really promise that I will be back to 'model railway' items next blog.