Technology and toilets

22.2.2010
My God. I am not sure I can keep up with technology. The builder’s phones just started to mate, or pair, or something like that! Johno was showing us his blue ant and explaining how you use the phone with it in the car no avoid the fines for holding a mobile to your ear whilst driving. We got that bit. We even got the fact that it uses blue tooth wireless technology. Steve did not know if his mobile phone had blue tooth so Johnny had a look and then explained it was trying to pair with his phone. Apparently the blue ant and the mobiles are designed to seek out a mate. Goodness only knows what they get up to then!
We are back to work and conditions are a bit easier because the temperature has dropped into the twenties and a light rain has settled all the dust blowing from the new excavations. We have had a hot and difficult weekend as all our topsoil set off to the neighbour’s property and it was so hot and sweaty that doing anything was challenging. I did manage to sort out all my paper work and Edd retrieved the sheep from Craig’s block and mended the new fence. The storms last week had caused enough flooding to allow the tie downs over the gully to come out so the sheep could just walk underneath.

I am having yet more problems with toilets. This time because I seem unable to buy the ones I like. They are in the catalogue but when I phone up they are no longer available. There some pretty silly toilets in fashion this year. They are all white, which is not so good with dam water, and they have seats that look as if they have shrunk once you lift the lid because the seat does not cover the porcelain toilet rim totally. I think the idea is that the lid and the bowl come together to make a continuous line but as everyone is in a hurry round here our lids are rarely shut.

I found some basins cheap at a bargain outlet but I seem unable to find where the sensible toilets have been dumped. This must have a sensor block on the Internet because I have tried hard enough and surely the outdated models did not just vanish. I would really like a wall-backed toilet as this must cut out all that bending down to clean in awkward corners behind the thing.

Toilets should definitely be designed by toilet cleaners. Whilst I am on the subject I did try out one of the automatic public toilets. Never again. It was the most stressful experience imaginable. I felt as if I was too slow at understanding the instructions I would be washed down and exposed or permanently trapped inside!

Now all you friends with houses will think me nuts for my toilet obsessions but you try managing with out those sort of amenities for a year and they will become more important than hair does or what you wear.

Hope returns

17.2.2010
For the first time it is possible to see some hope that order will one day be restored here. The new drive is in place with the stones on it that Craig rescued from the pipeline waste materials. The drive circles around the edge of the flat area above the dams that will form the new house site. The topsoil has been replaced and it is possible to image it green with grass. Steve and Johno are now putting up walls on Edd’s tool shed, and David is tackling the weeds on the bank in the old house site.

I have felt quite ill this week but with so much achieved my spirits are rising. The electricians connected up the new meter yesterday so we have been able to move the dodgy temporary overhead line. I have contacted the electricity ombudswoman and begun the process of trying to sort out the mess over the last years none existent bills. There is plenty more to tackle but knocking off one item feels very good.

The first of the fire babies has arrived. Almost on the anniversary of the fires too. Erin has a little boy, much to our relief they are well but I have not seen him yet and have my news second hand through Bo. I am so happy to have babies in Steels Creek again. It is not a happy situation when pretty countryside becomes too valuable to be brought by young families and the spirit of the place declines. We need these lovely new community members.

The remains of our old garden continues to feed us. This year we had good crops of apples, plums and nashi pears. I am having big rabbit problems but the silver beet fights on. We ate most of the lettuce in the hot weather beating the rabbits too it. We are now also eating the self-seed yellow tomatoes. This is a triumph; I was pretty sure that after years of drought and the fire we had finally lost them all. Apparently they are really tough survivors.

I have ordered sleepers because my longer-term plan is to make raised (rabbit proof) beds in the old house site garden so that all the watering is condensed into a small area. The old garden will eventually become an orchard area with chicken grazing. It should really have a netting roof as well as sides to keep birds off the fruit. My poor chooks have been very neglected and look very much worse for wear.

Our plan is to put up a flash new chook palace on the concrete floor of the old studio cottage so that the roof can collect water for the big concrete tank still in position up there. Then we can expand and fence in the old tree run so that the chooks have a shady safe area up there too. Most of my trees in the orchard survived the fires because the chooks had cleared down to bare earth underneath them. Really fruit trees and chooks make a good firebreak that is useful and looks good.
It is so frustrating having a broken finger because I get so little achieved personally. I have caught the paper work up to date and keep food up top all the men working here but I would like to be more active.

Tropical weather and floods

12.2.2010

One of our neighbours lost her chooks in the floods. They had survived the fires but were washed away in their chook tractor and drowned. We met her when we drove down to check the bridge on Hargreaves road. The water came right over it and has done a fair amount of damage but it is still possible to drive across.

The excavation work on the site has come to a halt due to mud but Steve and Johno are building steadily. The new dairy is coming along well and I have ordered a washing machine to put in there next week!. It will be such a relief not to be forced to drive to Yarra Glen to do the washing. It is still raining and everything is wet or damp. I have books spread out to dry on the floor in here and Josh’s donga is still flooded across the floor.

Our neighbours on the hill have serious damage to all their dams. My answer to all this has been to devour more wine and chocolate but they plan to buy white peacocks. I think we are all desperately looking for something to raise our spirits. The hospital decided that my finger is dislocated and that I should not use my right hand for a month! I am pretty useless on the farm so I am driving round checking out goods and materials for the new house. I have fallen in love with an esse wood stove. It looks like a miniature Aga but it is designed for wood use.

10.2.2010

Today was worse than yesterday. The morning was stinking hot and another thunderstorm hit this afternoon. This time even more rain fell and everything was flooded. The cellar is ankle deep in water and the goat’s pens and drive became creeks. The main creek has once again become a raging river, wider even than it was straight after the fires! At least this time we had some idea what we were in for and got all the windows shut.

On the plus side the dams are full to overflowing and the pumpkins grew from tennis ball to football size just over night! The odd thing is that this time of year is always dry which is why we planned to do our excavations and footings now. Well, that it going to have to wait. Steve and Johno are trying to finish the dairy but this weather is not helping them either. David H came on Monday and Tuesday but he managed o get away before the storm. Apparently it is a very local storm and Lilydale 25 k away had no rain at all!

I am beginning to wonder which god I have offended this time.

9.2.2010

The tropics have relocated here! It has been at least 35 degrees all day but we also had a massive thunderstorm in the afternoon. High winds caused mayhem everywhere and they were accompanied by mega rain and even hail stones. Tonight everything is hot, sweaty and wet. The creeks have become raging torrents again and the winds blew the water through every opening so that our couch, carpet and books are wet.

Amazingly, the excavation cut has drained perfectly and the big dam is almost ready to overflow. Our water tanks have filled again but some of the huge metal tank mould segments blew over. The rooves all stay on the new sheds but the gutters over flowed. The path from the donga to the toilet became a little creek and we are back to thick clay mud in some places. I have not yet been down the road to Yarra Glen to check how everything else has faired.

Anniverery whinge time

7.2.2010
Today is the one-year anniversary of the big fires that claimed so many lives and destroyed our home and business. Memorial services and community parties are organised in the affected communities but we are not in party mood and have only the dogs to mourn. As a special privilege to myself I will allow myself one day of whinging.

Firstly we are sore. Edd’s dislocated shoulder is a lot better and he can now use his left arm but his collar bone is still bulging out above his shoulder line and he rarely gets a comfortable nights sleep. My hands are injured. On my left hand the first and second finger joints got damaged whilst struggling to cope with heavy materials and I fell a couple of weeks ago and the ring finger on my right hand was damaged so that the top digit bent alarmingly towards my thumb. After a week it was just as bad so I went to the doctor and had it X-rayed.

The doctor wrote on my notes that he wanted” a non urgent appointment “ for a weeks time but eventually I phoned and got hold of one of the nurses who said that the X-rays were inconclusive but indicated a possible break and tendon damage. Now this might be non urgent to some people but not me! I decided to do just what I would do for an animal so I straightened the finger as much as possible and then cut the ends off a small sample bottle to make a finger brace and hold everything in alignment. It might work, and at least all the redness has gone. I can even pad the brace with comfrey leaves, which are growing well this wet year.

I also have a prolapse and Edd has a massively swollen knee joint and bad leg. In other words we are struggling with physical problems acquired whilst trying to sort out the mess here. I imagine that people who tried to dig friends and family out of the rubble in the Haiti earthquakes got similar damage. At the time minor injuries are easy to over look. Now camping can be fun but after a year of living in a small cramped room with no proper bathroom and a toilet some distance away down muddy banks one would much prefer to deal with wounds next year in something closer to the average western home.

There is little reason to feel sorry for ones self. Most of our neighbours who lost their homes are even worse off. Some are now struggling with serious diseases, some did not get enough insurance to rebuild and some are still not in a mental space where they can discuss whether to return and rebuild or not. Meanwhile, and wait for it…this is my real whinge, community members who did not loose their houses are spouting inane platitudes on radio and in the local papers. They discuss the recovery of the community and how amazing one of the local sports club was to continue to compete whilst neighbours were isolated without even the simplest basic need as drinking water.

There are wonderful people who, knowing that farming families might still stay and care for their stock, drove around to check how everyone was doing. Beni and Jo still keep checking and have been a massive support but not many of the self appointed spoke persons have ever spoken with victim families unless it has been to complain about the un aesthetic nature of our portable homes or the dust on the roads caused by trucks bringing in building materials!

my garden

At the top -my garden today and below my garden the week after the fires. It is my little bit of sanity between an unformed future and a past that moved over night into an unreachable former reality .

The earth moves

30.1.2010
Big changes. This week the huge earth moving equipment arrived and began to scrape away the soil to prepare a site for our new domestic buildings. Dust rose in clouds but they moved the earth with amazing speed. I was expecting that I would hate the new scar on the land but to my surprise it just looks like a ploughed paddock. I think this is because they have levelled out lumps and bumps and the profile is smoother and flatter.

Luckily Al and family are back from holiday so Al was available to explain his plans to the men with the excavators. Whilst we were doing this all the grand children escaped and went for a swim, which was fine, but they took Arden’s dog with them, which was not. Luckily they did not do any damage. I think at this stage it is a good thing that school starts again next week.

It will be a big year for education. My daughter-in-law starts a degree course at Latrobe. Bo’s second son, Ollie, starts school for the first time and Al’s kids Ti and India both change to new (different) schools. Edd has signed on to work full time in term two when the other science teacher goes on leave. Josh has now reached Perth and begun his masters’ degree course at the university of Western Australia.

He was out of mobile range when he drove across the Nullabor but phoned us on Thursday morning as he approached Perth. Our neighbour, Craig, had set him up with temporary accommodation with his sister who lives near the university so at least he had somewhere to go. Once again I am cleaning out his donga so that we have a spare room if anyone wants to stay. It is 37 degrees in our donga at the moment but I actually find it quite pleasant. Give me heat before cold any day!

Josh leaves home

26.1.2010
The sun is dipping lower over Christmas hills but the image in my minds eye is of an earnest young man is a small white car driving westward. Josh’s shirt is still draped over the bench by the door and his towel hangs over the chair but this morning he loaded a few essentials into his car and set off on the long trek to Perth.

The last few days have been an emotional roller coaster whilst Josh prepared for the telephone interview that could offer him an escape from his present unsatisfactory existence. He really had to put himself on the line in front of all his family and friends and he gave it his all. The interview yesterday afternoon was not easy, but the university rang back and offered him a place. I cannot think why not. They charge an absolute fortune for the course and it was not full so what do they have to loose?

We are thrilled and scared for him but also feel terribly sad. It is such a long way away and I will miss him so much. I am also totally exhausted. And with all this emotional drama it has been hard to relax let alone sleep. I will still be worried until he has crossed the Nullarbor and arrives at his destination. I felt at a total loss over what to do with myself today but fortunately our friends Caroline and Mark arrived and we talked about other issues.