Fire danger day

Smoke from the fires in the valley Monday 10 feb

Last weeks storm clouds that passed over without rain

January 10. 2014

It is still hot and dry. Yesterday was a danger day and fires started all over the place. There was one over A ‘s way near Powelltown and a bad one half way to Melbourne in Warrandyte. Some houses have been lost but no one has died. We are all relieved but there are still communities in danger today and we may have to wait for Thursday to get any change in the weather.  I am watering the young trees twice a day and so far they all look good.

Josh phoned to say that he and Robbie have now reached Townsville and he has located his temporary accommodation. Robbie had to fly back to Brisbane to work but at least they are much closer now than when Josh worked in Albany. We are all hoping that he likes his new position, but I suppose the first week of any new job is always a bit if a stretch.  Bo has struggled to keep the restaurant going in difficult conditions. She brought all her family over last night for the usual Sunday night BBQ.  I shall remember this year as the summer of the pool party BBQ’s because I have enjoyed them immensely.

We have another sick goat, Quetta, has diarrhoea this time. We are trying her on some medicine we got from the vet. Today we moved all the goats into the old brewery paddock. This is now possible because the fencer has put up the drive fence. He also did some of the fence by our neighbours so we will be already to start our tree plantation and hide their activities. We have had years of total privacy and been unobserved by neighbours and we would like to keep it this way.

BBQ in the ruins

family week end

January 3. 2014

We have just survived
another week of extreme heat. Yesterday was well over 40 degrees so we all
retired into the house, where, although the temp has risen now to 25 it feels
cool. Josh arrived home on Friday after travelling all night. The flight from Albany
was delayed so that they missed the next flight from Perth to Melbourne. Josh
is used to this sort of thing now and found ways round the problem so that he
arrived in Melbourne just a few hours late.

Today he left again in
the car that we have organised for him to buy. He had to stay longer than he
had planned to wait for his luggage to catch up with him and to arrange to have
the car transferred into his name. This was surprisingly hard, mostly because
he is between addresses and states. He is now on the road on his way to see
Robbie in Queensland. I have just spoken to him and he says the car is going
well and the temperature outside has dropped to 38. It had been 46 most of the
day.  Last night he joined us for
one of our hot summer night BBQ’s in the ruins. Edd has now got the pool filter
working so the kids continue to have nice blue water to swim in. They do their
best to splash it all out of the pool, though.

The animals have
managed well this week. Imogen, the goat with a white belt round her tum
developed watery blood stained diarrhoea and we suspect coccidiousis. We shut
her in a small hospital pen with fresh water and hay to eat and fed her two
teaspoons of sulphur a day. She is now back to normal but I have no way of
knowing what aspect of the treatment worked.

Keeping the plants
alive has also been hard and involved a lot of time spent watering. I am
rewarded with zucchinis, cos lettuce and tomatoes. I worry most about the young
trees. Today I had to pump water from the dam to the little pool above the
ruin. The water lily in there was not going to manage another day without help.
Last night Bo’s golden retriever wallowed in the muddy bottom of the pool and
came out black and muddy. At least down by the new house the rock garden copes
with the dry heat without any attention. I have a few plants in pots on the
front patio but that’s it.

It has now cooled a
lot here. We are back below blood temperature again. Our bodies must have to do
miraculous things to keep our inside temperature stable in these conditions.