25.7.2009
Al’s birthday today so we are off to his place this afternoon. We caught up with Al at the talks given by Michael Reynolds (the garbage warrior). This guy has arrived from America on a crusade to promote the building of “Earthships”. These are totally sustainable living structures that produce their own energy, deal with waste productively and harvest water and food. A man after my own heart. He can build these things using mostly recycled products just about anywhere.

He even wants someone to put one up in Australia so we people can visit and check it out. This offcourse was exactly what we intended to do anyway Suddenly I am feeling very blessed. I have land, money from my insurance, and an established tourist business. My eldest son, Al, is an architect who specialises in sustainable buildings and we have already got the skills to grow and process our own food.

Our old house had many alternate systems. Our toilets could be flushed with dam water down a gravity feed line. The farm buildings collected plenty of water that was stored in tanks at various heights to make as best use possible of gravity and we had solar / wood water heating. But, the house was built 30 years ago and many things have moved on. We now feel that it is more or less essential to be at least partly underground because of fires as well as temperature considerations.
My mind is now spinning with possibilities.

I enjoyed having a car for a day but then I gave it up to Josh who’s car is will not be repaired until next week. He and I did two days getting up early and driving to Lilydale station so he could get to Dandenong on the train but one day he was late for work and people are getting the sack for that sort of offence at his place. Also the Townsville friend actually did come. I had thought that any suitably self preserving young lady would have avoided staying in a mud surrounded Donga in sub zero temperatures that lacked both a shower and toilet. I was wrong. This lady turned up and has stuck it out for three days already! I am rather glad I bothered with the flowers.

Chris came yesterday and tackled some of the dead and dangerous trees. He has moved the ones likely to fall across the power line and trimmed the thick dead branches from the garden gum tree. It is sad to see its new, reduced form. A ray of hope is that it has new buds forming off the main trunk so there is still a possibility it could return to its former glory. The other gums had self seeded and have driven me mad for years by acting as ladders for possums intent on committing suicide by shorting out our power supply. We had two such episodes in one week once. Of course they short out the whole valley, as well as us, so I don’t think they will be greatly missed.
It looks terribly bare at present but I see it as a blank canvas. My paint consists of all the lovely trees and plants I have waiting in pots. We are going to have a garden to die for once we get sorted.

22.7.2009
I now have a car! Not quite as up market as my poor x-trail who perished in the fires, but still what I hope will be a perfectly adequate way of getting myself around. My new chariot is a small, old, white hatch back of the Toyota family. It was very clean when I picked it up today. How on earth do detailers get cars that clean? For that matter how do most Australians keep their eskies so clean? It is not that I don’t try for similar results. I do, and I fail.

My first stop was at Chirnside to buy bedding for youngest son, Josh. He has a friend from Uni days who might visit this week and suddenly decided that a total make over of his donga was required. Ha! I have been hoping he would become a bit more aware of the need to make an effort on the domestic front. Actually, he has been working such long hours and under such stress that I have been ignoring the growing chaos in his donga.

The free shop set up by the community for fire victims is still open in Yarra Glen and I was lucky enough to find a double and single bed and a futon in there together with two nice blankets and two very flash bed spreads. All totally free. This shop has been fantastic. You can get just about anything there from wheelbarrows to socks. You just look around and walk out with anything you need. The good bit is that it means you can choose things in colours you like or things that remind you of lost possessions. No one makes you feel as if you are a charity case who should be happy with anything they choose to give you.

The people who work there also give out information, often better than our caseworkers, and they listen if you want a good whinge. I may be a migrant with a grubby esky but Yarra Glen people make me feel really proud to be Australian.
Back to the Josh clean up. Last night when he asked me to buy him bedding his only request was that it would be flower free. Why do most cheap doona covers have flowers on? Or things that a suspicious mind could interpret as flower like? Getting a single doona cover and double doona cover to match presented another degree of challenge.

I hate shopping but I can be very persistent, so I hope he will like what I have chosen. No flowers any way, and everything from bed spreads to blankets co-ordinates satisfyingly. His floor is washed and I have installed real flowers and a nicely scented plant to do something about the unwashed sock smell. When all this work was completed I shut the donga door with more than my usual enthusiasm, and horror of horrors it actually shut properly and stuck! Normally it rests in a half shut position so this was quite alarming. It would be awful if after all my efforts Josh, (and possible friend), were shut out for the night! Once again I decided not to be defeated did battle with a crow bar until the wretched door gave in and opened.

Meanwhile, back at the farm Mick and mate are still shuffling vast amounts of soil round in circles. Our new loop road starts at the old brewery entrance gate, goes past the donga complex, through the middle of the land excavated for sheds and curves under the big blue gum to end at the ménage gate. The idea is that it will pass through the ménage and then loop back to meet up with its self just before crossing the swale that steers water along the top of the sheds and heads it towards the dam. Mick has put a large pipe under the road for the run off to travel in. However he did not have time to put the rock we had delivered on the road so with tonight’s rain we are back surrounded by the sea of mud.

20.7.2009
Wow ! It is so windy. With no leafy trees to moderate things we are regularly attacked by quite worrying winds. I have decided to have a blitz on dead and dangerous trees around the area where we are living as a precaution against accidents.
Actually things are gradually looking much better. Today Mick and his machinery are back. (At least the wind has dried out the land rapidly), and all the old fence posts have been pulled out and carefully put aside for reuse. It does look better with them gone and less clutter around.

The other big improvement is in the vegetable garden. Heather, Andrew, Graeme, Bo, Edd and I all put in a mornings work and achieved miracles. Bo and I had started to evict the weeds but with the extra help and the fact that Graeme brought the better half of a vegetable garden in pots ready to put in things progressed fast. The celery has survived and Heather even found a bit of parsley. This pleased me enormously because we have grown that parsley from its own seed for about 15 years now. Finding it was like discovering that an old friend we thought was dead had actually survived!
Bo did comment that Graeme, s lettuces looked ready to eat now but she settled for taking home potatoes and silverbeat.

One odd thing is that the potatoes and one tomato plant are still alive. Most years the frosts have killed them off by this stage.
The first sheep has lambed. One of the moorit ewes, called Pellaton, has given birth to a little white son, who is now called Lance. We do not usually give sheep names but with so few left it is almost unavoidable. I tended to keep the ones I had bottle reared and they had names so we had better name the rest to make things fair. The sheep are now in the paddock with the big dam but I would prefer them to be on fresher ground. We let them in to the land around the big polyhouse on dry days so they can eat the fresher grass there.

Al and family were over on Sunday and we have begun to talk seriously about the new domestic buildings. We are definitely going for an earth covered building by the big dam and are looking at some fairly radical designs. I can see no point in putting back buildings unless we are happy that defending them in fire events is possible.