Justin's new metal work

Time for change

29.1.2013

It rained a little last night, and when we woke the dry, bleached grass was a stronger gold colour and all the trees seemed to be sighing with relief. It was Edd’s first day of off farm work since the fires so we got going a bit earlier than usual and as I could miss out on the vegetable morning watering work it was more peaceful than usual here. Beni and I milked the goats and fed the animals before separating to tackle other issues. For myself I had a mountain of washing to sort and iron and Bernie went off looking for a job.

It was Australia day on Saturday and we hosted a party for the members of Edd’s Welsh choir and their wives. Luckily the day was slightly over cast, so although it was dry it was not too hot. The ruins are a perfect venue under these conditions and I think between fifty and sixty guests shared the day with us. Bo did the catering and that left Edd and I free to work on the venue. Everyone was interested to look round the underground house so that had to be cleaned up too. It was all very possible and went as well as I could hope for.

This concludes all the festivities around the turn of the year and we can now get back to sorting out farm issues. Edd fixed the fence between the hill and us yesterday so that we can move the horses there for the next half-year. It is a good place for them with a hill for exercise and shelter in the ti-tree thicket around the dam. I checked last week and there is very little grazing left. Kangaroos, rabbits and wombats seem to have eaten everything low growing. One day I even spotted a herd of about a dozen deer up there! The horses are still fat and a little hay each day keeps them going through the colder months.

Once we move the horses we can start feeding the sheep barley, if we tried now the horses would chase the sheep away and make themselves sick on it. We are waiting for John to do the shed wall foundations so that we can get a wall up to protect the hay and fire wood before the weather changes. A change has already started. The goat’s milk has dropped enormously this week and it is time to wean the kids and make sure the bucks cannot get near the does.

Justin came today with the metal screen door for our only west-facing window. It is designed to reduce the light if needed and give some protection from fire. Once again he has used a bull rush design and it is a wonderful artwork even when pulled back to the open position. He really is a very talented young man.

India phoned yesterday asking if I could pick her up from Alexandra and give her a lift down to the Yarra Valley. She first said Friday, then Thursday, but today I hear from Bo that she really meant Wednesday, which is tomorrow! I am not sure if her car will be ready by then, Edd is checking tonight. It has needed a lot of work doing to get it in good running order. Once I have sorted the ironing and packed away all the party table clothes.  I now need to concentrate on the accounts. I do not feel like starting new jobs or doing any art until everything is ship shape.

India safe

21.1.2013

India phoned tonight. She has been taken out of the camp and is away from where the fires are heading. The relief for everyone here is enormous.

My biggest worry is that I myself may have been part of the problem. We have all tried to keep going after the fires here and stay optimistic. What we have not done is clearly communicate exactly what it is really like to be in a fire storm. Perhaps we should have stressed how bad it was instead of focussing on how we coped. I say this because even now we hear people on the radio stating the sort of mythology that we trusted before we had the experience. I am pretty sure that they have never faced a tsunami of fire approaching with the noise and apparent speed of a jet plane.

Have they struggled to find their way in air that is so thick it blankets out all light and totally disorients you whilst you struggle to breathe? Have they discovered that in a valley a fire front may pass over, but that you will still be bombarded with fire bombs for hours after all your water pumps have run out of fuel or died for lack of oxygen. Have they known what it feels like when is neighbour is burning to death just down the road because they made a wrong choice at a critical moment?

It does not end there either. Problems with health, mental and physical continue in our valley even after four years. The climate has changed. The problems have increased and I applaud our PM for acknowledging this.

Now that this drama seems resolved we have to try and remember where we were at before we dropped everything except our concern for India.

The ground water table seems to have dropped suddenly in a way it did not even do at the end of the drought and we are having a battle to keep even the established fruit trees alive. The feed is also burnt off in the paddocks and because the fences are not yet all replaced after the 2009 fire we have limits on usable space. We have all the materials now to build new stockyards but the ground is rock hard and friends report that if they try to knock in posts they just shatter. This job might have to wait.

I will deal with it all tomorrow.

map

• This map shows the black hatched area where the fire has burnt and the first red line to the north shows this morning where the fire was, the second red line shows were the fire is expected to reach in the next 24 hours. India is just to the left of where the second  red dotted line crosses the road and river .

We imagine that everyone will be very busy there now and do not expect to hear much over the next few hours.

worry

20.1.2013

It is 2pm now. We woke to find our valley smelling of fire and very smoky. We are told on the internet that this is from the fires where India is. Al spoke to the CFA there this morning and the fire is moving towards the camp but fairly slowly in the cooler conditions. They hope it will stay at this rate as it moves through the camp at some time before tomorrow morning.

A wind and the return of the catastrophic conditions are predicted to return around Thursday but we hope that by then they will be in the black or evacuated. So far there has been no reports of them on the news but the fact that 10 people have remained at the little town of Licola up road to  the north of them is widely reported. I have decided that if I am not sure that India is safe by Tuesday I will get involved, and then the media will know.

The road access is very difficult from the south but it would be very possible to get a helicopter in. Some of our neighbours were rescued by helicopter in 2009 , One of their children chartered some one to go in during the fires which was very risky. Luckily the rescue was successful so we know it is possible. For now we are all in communication and just waiting hoping for better news.

India this morning

19.1.2013

The weather is cooler today and the winds have died down. The CFA in Licola sent someone in to the camp where India is last night and everyone was safe though they are still aware that the fire could go through any time. I think we can relax a bit today as the situation is less dangerous.

We have been in e-mail correspondence with some members of the camp committee. They feel that it was OK not to evacuate everyone because they have done all the right measures for fire action.  According to Al no one even knew there were people left in there until last night. Beni had informed everyone in the morning but maybe the message failed to get through.

The good preparations do not actually reassure us very much as both Beni and I had well prepared friends who were in the CFA and died in fires.  Beni was part of the CFA team who went up into the country around Licola during the 2006 bush fires so she knows what it is like. We both think that the only people who should stay to defend property are those who own the property or business and will suffer enormous loss if they are burnt out.

Edd and I had to fight our guests to get them to leave in 2009. We asked them to evacuate before there was much sign of danger and I remember talking to our woofer from Germany and explaining to him that his duty was not to risk his life trying to save our buildings but to think of his own family and friends and not take chances.

It is now four years after the big fires here but I have spent this year trying to get help from people still struggling. If you face death or have to wait for hours not knowing if your loved ones are alive or dead you release adrenalin through your body. This can persist for several months and can actually make people ill in ways that seem unrelated to anything.

It has been hard for us loosing our business, our stuff, and our home, but I am so glad that I put other peoples’ lives as the priority and I would make the same decision again if the need arose. I can understand India being willing to stay and fight and would probably have done the same myself as a young person in that situation. Basically young people do not understand the effect their actions have on others in the same way people do who are parents or partners.

Bo went through a terrible time in 2009 until she knew that we were still alive. The first week after the fires it was awful as we struggled to find out which friends and neighbours had perished. Normally I would have grieved more for the dogs but with such huge loss of human life it seemed insignificant.  We all love India so much and it is pretty terrible having to go through all that again.

5pm fire update

18.1.2013

5pm

So far the fires have not reached Wollangarra.

We are, of course, terribly worried about India but at least for now we know she is still O K. They are still very much threatened by the fires around them. This has been a day of sitting by the phone and trying to make sense of the generalised reports on the CFA web site and TV news. Luckily some one from the Wolangarra team is still up dating their own web site. They thought the fires were 3 kilometres away and expected them at any time mid way through the afternoon but we here that they are waiting.

Beni has found out that tomorrow Jimmy from Steel Creek is going up there with the fire fighting team and has briefed him to send back news. Right now we just have to sit and wait. It is interesting to discover that in my experience it is much harder to be on the outside wondering what is going on than actually being in the fires.

I think Al has had more stress than any normal person could possibly cope with over the last few years and I am as worried about him as I am about India.