Killer heat wave

January 15. 2014

The temperature is up above 40 degrees       (probably just below 110 if you are in F). This makes life pretty challenging. Yesterday despite all our efforts we lost one of the chickens to heat stroke and all the young trees had to have a bucket of water each, which kept them alive. Bo came over with her kids and my eldest Grand daughter and we all worked for two days to empty and clean the swimming pool. It was dark green and thick but at least it was a place to get relief from the heat.

All the grandkids worked long and hard and Edd rigged up a system so we could refill the pool with water from the shed tank. I had to add three new patches. In places it is more patch than liner but that works at keeping the water in. The pool was damaged in the 2009 fires and some of the liner melted onto the metal walls, it would be a very hard job replacing it because the top joints are plastic and they have melted on!  However, today we have a nice blue pool of water and the grand kids have been swimming.

Our house is staying at a reasonable temperature, which is good because even at night it stayed above 30 degrees outside. Cave living has lots of advantages in extreme weather. Yesterday there was a fire about 15 kilometres away, but we all felt safe with our cave to retreat to. Today we have retreated indoors for the afternoon as it really is too hot outside to do all the things we should do, like get the hay in. We got the first forty bales in with help from Bo and Simon but the rest is still lying in the paddocks. This year we made most into round bales so they will act as mini haystacks and resist some of the weather.

A is back from the UK and is trying to get going again with his work. This must be hard. Last night he said it was 38 degrees in his little house and he was feeling pretty sick. We think Wayne is flying home at the weekend. On Friday we have arranged a pool party as a send off for our eldest grandchild and he will probably miss that. She is off to Canberra to live because she has an opportunity to train for work taking out horses on trail rides.

The news about my mother is not good and she is no longer able to have any conversation with me over the phone.  My sister says that cousin Judy is coming down from Yorkshire so that the family can spend more time with mother giving her support at this difficult stage.  I am glad I was able to live with her for three weeks last year and help her after her stroke when she was well enough for us to talk about everything. I am incredibly grateful to Pip and A for all the time they gave her over Xmas.