7.10.2009
This week has been too much. The hail yesterday was at totally the wrong time. Karl, the vet and I were trying to treat Edd’s horse who has a slight nasal discharge and Steve and Johno were struggling to set the scaffolding in place by the machinery shed frame. We have declared a day of recovery today and licked our wounds.
At the weekend Patsy rang us from Alice Springs to tell us that a lady who we first met at her out station in 1990 has died. She was one of the people that one feels privileged to have known and was our neighbour when we lived in Yuendumu. Edd and I have been feeling that it was time to visit our friends in The NT and this has given us a reason. Last night we booked air tickets we hope will get us there for the funeral. Now all we have to do is find someone willing to take over here.
5.10.2009
This is really scary stuff! Just out side of the donga there is an enormous crane lifting the massive steel skeletons of the sheds into position. Steve, Edd and Johno have the job of bolting them to their footings and then bracing them with wood so they stay upright. It seems to me an exercise where there is so much that could go wrong.
Firstly the bolts are set into the concrete footings so if they are even slightly out of place there is no way the rigid steel could fit on. Secondly they are all enormous and extremely heavy. Then, they also go up way above reaching height so even getting the chain of the crane unhooked is ghastly. I am being a total coward and have hidden in the donga with the dog.
My attempt to be useful consists of baking bread and pizzas but even this is challenging. It is the first time I have used my new equipment. I have lost all the old scoops and measures that I used for years and I have never cooked bread in a gas oven before. This is the big test. It is too hot to use a wood oven here in summer and Al tells me that electric ovens use too much power. Some how I have to adapt to gas or be totally unethical!
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Dot has babies
17.9.2009
Things are really happening now. Steve has arrived and marked out the sheds and Mike is digging out the footing trenches with one machine whilst his mate is making massive round holes for the big shed foundations with Craig’s digger. Apparently Edd’s friend Trevor and his son are coming down today to do the concreting.
I have my eldest grandson, Arden, staying this week because he has school holidays. Josh has let him sleep in his donga and Arden is putting up with Josh working nights and keeping funny hours. His main aim is to catch the huge gold fish he is sure are in the big dam. So far he just keeps loosing his bait. He thinks he has seen big black eels who are the suspected culprits here. This takes up a lot of his time but he has also done some helpful jobs in the garden and feeding animals.
We have three new babies. Dot had triplets last week; two does and one buck kid, all sable coloured. Fortunately they are all polls so we have no dehorning to do this year. Mum and kids are thriving well and have their own private pen in the polyhouse. The chooks are laying more eggs too. Someone must have told them spring is here.
The first days of the week were beautiful. Warm, calm, sunny, weather totally suitable for the enjoyment of garden work. Mike has transported some topsoil left over from the shed site to replenish the soil around the old house site. I also raked down the topsoil onto the excavation cut, as instructed by Mike who likes things to end up looking right.
29.9.2009
The happy spring weather did not last long. We have had about the worst time for the whole winter. It has been windy, cold and has poured down with day after day of rain. Any normal year I would be in my nice cosy home looking at all this water with joy but as there are no roofs to catch it, and no cosy home it is hard to be anything but miserable. The only thing stopping me feeling very sorry for myself is that our neighbours on the hill have the rain as well as the wind blowing through the shed they are living in. Luckily our dongas are dry so I have to admit that by comparison we are well off.
The poly house floor is now a black swamp. Luckily the goats have built up enough deep litter to be on a dry island but getting to them is a bad experience. I do the morning milking and at last Edd’s leg has healed enough so that he can do the evening feeds. At least this way we only face the horror once a day each. The other good thing is that Mike put the stone down on the new road so we can still drive close to the dongas .
The men all worked last week despite the rain. Ben and his father, Trevor, (Edd’s friend), poured the slab for the machinery shed last Friday in appalling conditions. The forecast suggested Friday would be the best day for the week but this was wrong and instead it was the worst day we have had for years. We decided to keep going because all the plastic and reinforcing was in place ready to go and the thought of it all filling with water was worse than a rough floor finish. Craig lent us a pump to pump the water out of the footings that had filled up. That worked OK. How would we manage without Craig? He is always willing to lend us the right piece of equipment to overcome our latest insurmountable hurdle. Ben is the sort of young man that one would rather like to keep. He seems capable of doing a brilliant job against all odds and at the same time, behaves charmingly. Up to now I have not found a concrete specialist who does not have to be avoided during and after work. Because of this I have had all my small concrete jobs done by Gary or Andrew from Merrie’s clan. It is not really their speciality but at least they are pleasant to have around. Gary seems capable of doing any practical job if one is really stuck
Saturday, September 5, 2009
2.9.2009
Spring has arrived bitter sweet this year. There are wattles in flower but usually at this time we have clouds of golden flowers. This year these yellow covered trees are few and far between. The plums are blooming. White blossom covers the trees before even leaves arrive. About half our plums have survived and there are still plum trees down the steels creek road but sadly so few. When my children were young we sent them out with the horse and cart to pick the small wild plums that lined the road. We used the abundant free fruit for jam before our own trees were old enough to produce enough.
But amid all the new blossom the silent bud less trees stand out. The oak by the house shows no sign of life now. The honey loquat trees we took thirty years to grow remain leafless skeletons. There is a terrible sadness in having to walk past these trees each day but we leave them just hoping a miracle might happen. Of the goats , only Dot is pregnant to give us young kids to join the three lambs. I am usually so busy at this time with the weakest babies in the house for extra care and so many births to supervise. This year we avoided pregnancies knowing that the conditions would be so tough .
Looking out over the surrounding hills the damage is all apparent. In some areas the gum trees have a green coating of leaves all over their trunks but in many places there are just bare blackened sticks. They stand out even more now all the dead leaves have blown away. Moss has colonized the ground beneath them and stands out as patches of vivid creamy green.
We are having problems with the vegetables. Hungry cockatoos have destroyed lots of young plants so Edd has tied red and white tape over head to try and frighten them away. The potatoes and even one tomato plant have survived the winter . Usually the winter frost has killed off all their leaves by now. It has definitely been a very different winter to the winters we have had for the last thirty years.
Not all is gloom. The Steel for the sheds was delivered today and we can now use the road past the dongas in all weathers since Mike put down the stone on it. The chooks have recovered from the flying shed episode and are laying more eggs than before. Josh has started working night shifts installing smart card machines in buses. At least he doesn’t have to get up before six and drive to Dandedong every day.Unfortunately , Edd hurt his leg unloading the shed steel and is finding walking hard now.
I have finally thought up a plan for a house we would like to live in. We have decided it is probably best to build our own home first and the guest accommodation afterwards when we see how much money we have left. We are really worried that we might start a project that goes over budget and be left in a situation we can’t get out of. We have an official appointment to talk to our eldest son, Al, in his new role as our architect.
28.8.2009
There were horrific winds yesterday. They blew right through our donga walls and took every bit of warmth the heaters could generate with them. I went to bed early to keep warm but as soon as I fell asleep I dreampt the donga had blown off its mountings and woke yelling for Edd to check he was OK! Actually the donga swayed a bit but stayed in place. The chook shed was less lucky and blew right over killing one poor chook. We struggled in the wet and dark to get it back upright and lashed it in place as best we could with ropes.
Things are not working well. For unknown reasons we are unable to get onto the internet. Even are supplier can’t get on! Also the computer key board has stopped working. This I could fix. In fact with the cold winds still blowing I was glad to drive into Melbourne and get a new one. Edd got some help from our neighbour , Brian , and worked on the fence lines. Brian has machinery that makes putting in the fence post a possible job.
It is hard to stay positive in these conditions but last week we had some wonderful sunny days and I was able to continue the work of clearing up in the garden. I am laying the broken bricks as paths around the flower beds. I am a bit disheartened about the vegetables. The cockatoos arrived one day and wrecked most of the work we have done so far. They don’t even eat the vegetables , they just break them off and leave them lying on the ground. I suppose they are hungry enough to try anything.
Edd went off on Sunday to visit his friend up at Dookie. A very generous farmer up there gave us a ton of oats so Edd had to collect them. He was also able to see the man who is making the iron frames for the sheds. It will be good when we can start to rebuild something here. There is now one, new, house being built in Steels Creek but the rest of us are still struggling to put up sheds and fences and clear up fallen trees.
The best news is that Simon is brewing beer again in his new brewery in Lilydale. There were a few teething problems but now the new equipment seems to be working well. Brewing has moved up to a bigger scale now and the large stainless steel vats look very impressive. Bo has struggled to keep her restaurant going. She has been trying all sorts of ideas. On Monday we went to her ‘industry night’. Beni and Graeme did a talk about their new wines and all the group shared a meal afterwards. It was great fun .
Spring has arrived bitter sweet this year. There are wattles in flower but usually at this time we have clouds of golden flowers. This year these yellow covered trees are few and far between. The plums are blooming. White blossom covers the trees before even leaves arrive. About half our plums have survived and there are still plum trees down the steels creek road but sadly so few. When my children were young we sent them out with the horse and cart to pick the small wild plums that lined the road. We used the abundant free fruit for jam before our own trees were old enough to produce enough.
But amid all the new blossom the silent bud less trees stand out. The oak by the house shows no sign of life now. The honey loquat trees we took thirty years to grow remain leafless skeletons. There is a terrible sadness in having to walk past these trees each day but we leave them just hoping a miracle might happen. Of the goats , only Dot is pregnant to give us young kids to join the three lambs. I am usually so busy at this time with the weakest babies in the house for extra care and so many births to supervise. This year we avoided pregnancies knowing that the conditions would be so tough .
Looking out over the surrounding hills the damage is all apparent. In some areas the gum trees have a green coating of leaves all over their trunks but in many places there are just bare blackened sticks. They stand out even more now all the dead leaves have blown away. Moss has colonized the ground beneath them and stands out as patches of vivid creamy green.
We are having problems with the vegetables. Hungry cockatoos have destroyed lots of young plants so Edd has tied red and white tape over head to try and frighten them away. The potatoes and even one tomato plant have survived the winter . Usually the winter frost has killed off all their leaves by now. It has definitely been a very different winter to the winters we have had for the last thirty years.
Not all is gloom. The Steel for the sheds was delivered today and we can now use the road past the dongas in all weathers since Mike put down the stone on it. The chooks have recovered from the flying shed episode and are laying more eggs than before. Josh has started working night shifts installing smart card machines in buses. At least he doesn’t have to get up before six and drive to Dandedong every day.Unfortunately , Edd hurt his leg unloading the shed steel and is finding walking hard now.
I have finally thought up a plan for a house we would like to live in. We have decided it is probably best to build our own home first and the guest accommodation afterwards when we see how much money we have left. We are really worried that we might start a project that goes over budget and be left in a situation we can’t get out of. We have an official appointment to talk to our eldest son, Al, in his new role as our architect.
28.8.2009
There were horrific winds yesterday. They blew right through our donga walls and took every bit of warmth the heaters could generate with them. I went to bed early to keep warm but as soon as I fell asleep I dreampt the donga had blown off its mountings and woke yelling for Edd to check he was OK! Actually the donga swayed a bit but stayed in place. The chook shed was less lucky and blew right over killing one poor chook. We struggled in the wet and dark to get it back upright and lashed it in place as best we could with ropes.
Things are not working well. For unknown reasons we are unable to get onto the internet. Even are supplier can’t get on! Also the computer key board has stopped working. This I could fix. In fact with the cold winds still blowing I was glad to drive into Melbourne and get a new one. Edd got some help from our neighbour , Brian , and worked on the fence lines. Brian has machinery that makes putting in the fence post a possible job.
It is hard to stay positive in these conditions but last week we had some wonderful sunny days and I was able to continue the work of clearing up in the garden. I am laying the broken bricks as paths around the flower beds. I am a bit disheartened about the vegetables. The cockatoos arrived one day and wrecked most of the work we have done so far. They don’t even eat the vegetables , they just break them off and leave them lying on the ground. I suppose they are hungry enough to try anything.
Edd went off on Sunday to visit his friend up at Dookie. A very generous farmer up there gave us a ton of oats so Edd had to collect them. He was also able to see the man who is making the iron frames for the sheds. It will be good when we can start to rebuild something here. There is now one, new, house being built in Steels Creek but the rest of us are still struggling to put up sheds and fences and clear up fallen trees.
The best news is that Simon is brewing beer again in his new brewery in Lilydale. There were a few teething problems but now the new equipment seems to be working well. Brewing has moved up to a bigger scale now and the large stainless steel vats look very impressive. Bo has struggled to keep her restaurant going. She has been trying all sorts of ideas. On Monday we went to her ‘industry night’. Beni and Graeme did a talk about their new wines and all the group shared a meal afterwards. It was great fun .
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Community get togethers bust winter blues
7.8.2009
Heavy showers, high winds and the return of mud. Not a recipe for easy living. Mike has still not put stones on our new drive, so we continue to wade across the mud flats every time we want to get to the cars, our animals or the toilet. Edd has replaced some of the fencing round the chooks and vegetable garden but it has been too wet to get gear up to the boundary fence on the hill and complete the work there. Today we stayed indoors and worked on the endless paper work that is needed for trying to reclaim as much as possible.
Yesterday was more interesting. The Governor of Victoria came to visit the community centre where I go to do art one afternoon a week. We provided rather better food than we usually do for afternoon tea and various community members joined us to do the greeting bit. As far as I could make out it all went without a hitch. We did not get much art done, but the stitchers who joined us got me up to date with all their family news. We have past connections with most long-term residents here because our children all went to school together once upon a time. I always feel embarrassed because there are so many names that I should remember but never can.
The general dreariness of the season was relieved last weekend when all the locals at our end of the valley were invited to Erin and JB’s donga for a party. Their house and vineyards were totally destroyed by the fires so friends and neighbours joined them that day for a working B on the remaining vines. In the evening tables and chairs were set up in the donga and fabulous food appeared along with wine and even candles. Everyone chipped in to make a great community party. It reminded us long-term residents how years ago we all lived in sheds and make shift places, all getting together and laughing.
We are so lucky that all these younger people have been able to move into the valley, and that they want to stay here despite the horrors of last year. There is now a new house being built by the Steel’s Creek road on the way into Yarra Glen. Someone told me about two thirds of the houses were lost in the fire so it is good to see that someone has started to replace them. It is a worry that it is going to be a wood frame house on stumps , but perhaps they will add fire proofing features later.
A third lamb has been born. A tiny ewe for the Finn sheep. We now have three lambs, Lance, Alberto and Paris! I am rather hoping that the last two ewes are not pregnant. They are a little young to have lambs but we had no chance to separate them from the rams after the fires. The sheep are still in the paddock with the big dam. It is pretty well grazed but at least they have room to move around and seek sheltered corners when the weather is bad.
The swales Mike made across the paddock channel excess run off into the big dam which has started to fill up a bit. The idea is that light rainwater stays in the channels and slowly soaks into the land. This does seem to have started to happen but it is too soon to assess the results yet.
Heavy showers, high winds and the return of mud. Not a recipe for easy living. Mike has still not put stones on our new drive, so we continue to wade across the mud flats every time we want to get to the cars, our animals or the toilet. Edd has replaced some of the fencing round the chooks and vegetable garden but it has been too wet to get gear up to the boundary fence on the hill and complete the work there. Today we stayed indoors and worked on the endless paper work that is needed for trying to reclaim as much as possible.
Yesterday was more interesting. The Governor of Victoria came to visit the community centre where I go to do art one afternoon a week. We provided rather better food than we usually do for afternoon tea and various community members joined us to do the greeting bit. As far as I could make out it all went without a hitch. We did not get much art done, but the stitchers who joined us got me up to date with all their family news. We have past connections with most long-term residents here because our children all went to school together once upon a time. I always feel embarrassed because there are so many names that I should remember but never can.
The general dreariness of the season was relieved last weekend when all the locals at our end of the valley were invited to Erin and JB’s donga for a party. Their house and vineyards were totally destroyed by the fires so friends and neighbours joined them that day for a working B on the remaining vines. In the evening tables and chairs were set up in the donga and fabulous food appeared along with wine and even candles. Everyone chipped in to make a great community party. It reminded us long-term residents how years ago we all lived in sheds and make shift places, all getting together and laughing.
We are so lucky that all these younger people have been able to move into the valley, and that they want to stay here despite the horrors of last year. There is now a new house being built by the Steel’s Creek road on the way into Yarra Glen. Someone told me about two thirds of the houses were lost in the fire so it is good to see that someone has started to replace them. It is a worry that it is going to be a wood frame house on stumps , but perhaps they will add fire proofing features later.
A third lamb has been born. A tiny ewe for the Finn sheep. We now have three lambs, Lance, Alberto and Paris! I am rather hoping that the last two ewes are not pregnant. They are a little young to have lambs but we had no chance to separate them from the rams after the fires. The sheep are still in the paddock with the big dam. It is pretty well grazed but at least they have room to move around and seek sheltered corners when the weather is bad.
The swales Mike made across the paddock channel excess run off into the big dam which has started to fill up a bit. The idea is that light rainwater stays in the channels and slowly soaks into the land. This does seem to have started to happen but it is too soon to assess the results yet.
Friday, July 24, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Winter sun shines over the sea of mud
7.7.2009
At last the sun is shining again. We have just endured a week of cold wet misery that has resulted in us being surrounded on all sides by vast seas of yellow clay mud. Thank goodness for all the volunteers who cleaned bricks and helped us lay paths between our dongas. I wish I had a path all the way to the toilet. A trip to the loo now involves gumboots and a good sense of balance!
We are still getting lots of booking requests . This is heartening, but sad, as we have not even got the plans for rebuilding started yet. We are still trying to organise sheds. We need the roofs to catch water. All this latest rain has annoyingly avoided the dam and run off in the already eroded gullies. The dam is still very low. This is a huge problem because not having enough water to keep things green around the house was one of the factors that has increased our vunerability to bush fire .
The first few years of drought were OK because on threatening days everything could be hosed down as an early precaution. As the drought continued and the stored water decreased this was not a sustainable practice. The new policies for dams make it very difficult to get permission to dam anywhere that could possibly catch water efficiently so we are stuck with a big problem. What it really means is we have to design a house that is defensible with out much water because the drought could well continue.
Another plan is to reorganise our land a bit so that run off lines channel water away from the house , sheds and gully towards the dam. Looking at the old house site this would be difficult but as we have not started replanting yet it would be still a possibility. I would need to make an artificial creel bed across the old visitors garden and break down the wall of the sump pond at the base of the water fall so the water could reverse it’s course.
The news we are hearing from The Royal commission about the fires is not reassuring. What we would like is to be told that in future years the warning systems would be reliable. Radio warnings on the ABC would be good enough. In past years they used a siron to alert people if there might be any danger in their region and this worked fine. With satellites, fire towers and modern communications this would obviously be possible.
25.6.2009 It is still so mild, and dry. Our case worker has just informed me that the bush fire season officially starts again in just a few weeks. Well, we are now going passed the low point of the light. The sun has officially been through it’s three day death and it is now starting to rise again , setting a tiny bit later each day and moving west as it does so. It is not noticeable yet but the jonquils are flowering again with their wonderful scent. I wonder what will happen to the wattle. I know the next season as yellow time because it is dominated by wattle and daffodils. The wattles on our property were killed by the fires and although young seedlings are shooting up they will not be old enough to flower this year.
A very sad event happened today. A young ewe died. It is the first death we have had of an animal since the fires. We have found new homes for most of our stock but have kept a few sheep and goats to breed from. Edd has worked really hard and completed the fencing of two paddocks and we were able to move stock out of the pens yesterday . It was just too late for this girl who was pregnant and had stopped eating. We thought she was getting better because she could stand up and had started to nibble straw but she died suddenly when Edd went to treat her this morning. Living under these conditions with out grazing has been very stressful to all the animals.
I have tried to place as many as possible away from here in new homes but sometimes they do worse away than they do here. We have some happy stories from goats that have settled well and are loved by their new owners and this in turn makes us happy.
At last the sun is shining again. We have just endured a week of cold wet misery that has resulted in us being surrounded on all sides by vast seas of yellow clay mud. Thank goodness for all the volunteers who cleaned bricks and helped us lay paths between our dongas. I wish I had a path all the way to the toilet. A trip to the loo now involves gumboots and a good sense of balance!
We are still getting lots of booking requests . This is heartening, but sad, as we have not even got the plans for rebuilding started yet. We are still trying to organise sheds. We need the roofs to catch water. All this latest rain has annoyingly avoided the dam and run off in the already eroded gullies. The dam is still very low. This is a huge problem because not having enough water to keep things green around the house was one of the factors that has increased our vunerability to bush fire .
The first few years of drought were OK because on threatening days everything could be hosed down as an early precaution. As the drought continued and the stored water decreased this was not a sustainable practice. The new policies for dams make it very difficult to get permission to dam anywhere that could possibly catch water efficiently so we are stuck with a big problem. What it really means is we have to design a house that is defensible with out much water because the drought could well continue.
Another plan is to reorganise our land a bit so that run off lines channel water away from the house , sheds and gully towards the dam. Looking at the old house site this would be difficult but as we have not started replanting yet it would be still a possibility. I would need to make an artificial creel bed across the old visitors garden and break down the wall of the sump pond at the base of the water fall so the water could reverse it’s course.
The news we are hearing from The Royal commission about the fires is not reassuring. What we would like is to be told that in future years the warning systems would be reliable. Radio warnings on the ABC would be good enough. In past years they used a siron to alert people if there might be any danger in their region and this worked fine. With satellites, fire towers and modern communications this would obviously be possible.
25.6.2009 It is still so mild, and dry. Our case worker has just informed me that the bush fire season officially starts again in just a few weeks. Well, we are now going passed the low point of the light. The sun has officially been through it’s three day death and it is now starting to rise again , setting a tiny bit later each day and moving west as it does so. It is not noticeable yet but the jonquils are flowering again with their wonderful scent. I wonder what will happen to the wattle. I know the next season as yellow time because it is dominated by wattle and daffodils. The wattles on our property were killed by the fires and although young seedlings are shooting up they will not be old enough to flower this year.
A very sad event happened today. A young ewe died. It is the first death we have had of an animal since the fires. We have found new homes for most of our stock but have kept a few sheep and goats to breed from. Edd has worked really hard and completed the fencing of two paddocks and we were able to move stock out of the pens yesterday . It was just too late for this girl who was pregnant and had stopped eating. We thought she was getting better because she could stand up and had started to nibble straw but she died suddenly when Edd went to treat her this morning. Living under these conditions with out grazing has been very stressful to all the animals.
I have tried to place as many as possible away from here in new homes but sometimes they do worse away than they do here. We have some happy stories from goats that have settled well and are loved by their new owners and this in turn makes us happy.
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