Himself was on a strike team today into Moyston and up into the Mafeking region in the Gariwerd / Grampians fires that are burning in December 2024. These are some images from the fireground where they were doing containment line monitoring.
Meanwhile, at home an hour away, the smoke rolled in this afternoon when the anticipated wind change arrived.
We've been accumulating fire fighting gear now for so many years. Every major fire that gets near, we reassess the gear, the plans, the age of us both, and we tweak and tweak and tweak. This year we're expanding the automatic sprinkler systems, with a view to eventually installing a full on roof version (finances are limiting what options we have at the moment - have you SEEN the cost of farm insurance recently!)
Right now the gear stands at:
PPE for us both - his is obviously CFA gear / mine's purchased.
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| Firefighting gear laid out on the back deck ready to grab and run |
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| Generator's are stored on pallet racks so we can pick them up and deploy as required. |
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| Pallet tank at the back of the house yard. |
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| One of the pallet tanks sitting at the front of the house |
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| Second pallet tank at the end of the house |
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| Old farm ute with a fire fighting unit including pump, extinguishers, hoses and water supply on board. |
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| Firefighting cart with its own pump, hoses and water supply sitting at one of the paddock entrances from the house yard. |
Of course it was probably my imagination, I can't find the specific reference anywhere, but I'm sure I saw, in Ballarat's The Courier, a mention of Western Victoria and Drought.
Not "rainfall deficiency" / not "dry" but actual drought. They used the word. I was so shocked and surprised I forgot to bookmark the report. Not shocked about the drought bit - we're living it. Profoundly shocked that somebody in Melbourne had dragged out an atlas and a compass and figured out there was a "west" in Victoria. I guess it's possible somebody got lost on a driving holiday to Gippsland but even then, it's a big detour and it must have come as a hell of a surprise for most people to discover a) there is Western Victoria; and b) it's a bloody big area. Imagine how amazed they are going to be if they find out how much of their grain comes from out here.
But looking at:
The seasonal bushfire outlook is suggesting we're all gonna die.
No. Shit. Sherlock.
We're going into this summer with a yearly rainfall of 492.6mls (up to November). That's, what, slightly more than half of 2023 when we got 805.9mls. Which was around 2/3rds of 2022, which was around 2/3rds of 2021 and on it goes. The hassle with those last few years was also that what we got tended to come in massive downpours which caused flooding, washed out fences and chaos. And little of it into tanks or dams.
So we find the idea of "average yearly rainfall figures" a great steaming pile of bullshit - unless they are spreading it over 50 years - in which case we might pay attention.
But we've been buying in water for animals now for so many years I can't remember when it started (and trust me - that's unbelievably expensive compared to what city people pay in water rates - it's eye-wateringly (if we had any) expensive). We've managed to avoid house water buy ins so far, mostly by not using water in the house. We have shower's that are < 1 minute (we use a watersaver on the shower that means we can turn the water on and off with a paddle attachment). This year we've done that all year round, normally we give ourselves a couple of minutes under the shower in winter but not this year. Which was interesting because when it's as dry as this its also frosty and bloody freezing. But combine that with minimal laundry (god I laughed at somebody on the radio a while ago suggesting it wasn't hygienic to not wash pillowslips every day... I mean ffs!), and minimal everything else and we sort of stagger through most years. Which is a hassle because the main aircon is evaporative so we cook frequently overnight because of the complicated use case required to justify turning it on. We've also had some help from the conditions and the gardens and orchards are pretty well gone now.
But this year you can really see the carnage. We've got dead gumtrees all around - not just in the bush but on the property and road verges. There was a tiny bit of grass growth when we had the single down pour we've had this year but that's dried off and we've been walking through crackling dry grass, dry gum leaves and dust for months now. And the dust is getting worse - even startled ourselves recently driving home - dust storm that looked for all the world like a smoke showing until we stopped worrying, and had a good look (could everyone driving down highways right now do the same thing - dust is brown / smoke is white or black, dust tends to move behind whatever is throwing it into the air / smoke doesn't do 100ks - immediately / granted it can if the wind is blowing). Which it's looking like it's going to do all summer - god we've had some wind and heat already, and today and this weekend we're nudging 40 already.
Wonderful.
Needless to say it's going to be a shit of a summer, after an absolute shit of a year.
About 4 years ago now, early one Sunday morning we went to take our dogs for their normal morning meander around the paddock, only to realise we were being watched by 3 faces from the verge on the side of the highway.
Three beautiful male goats, their ears still bleeding from where the tags had been removed had spent the night up against our fence, drawn we assume by the sounds of us feeding the alpacas, sheep and pigs the night before. Luckily they'd remained safe on the extremely busy highway, although how we've got no idea.
Then there was the problem (we thought) of how we were going to get them off the highway without incident, as my partner made it to the front gate only to find them standing in the middle of the road, at the bottom of the ridge that would mean any of the grain trucks that hurtle down the road wouldn't even see them until the very last minute.
But the boys took one look at him and ran towards him, following him straight down our drive to our house gate, following him and the cart of hay from there through to the paddock, and into the pigs holding yard.
Nobody claimed them. Some utter piece of shit had obviously just dumped them. They were tame, hand raised we'd guess, their dehorning had been botched and they were desperately thin with overgrown toenails and in need of some care.
They've been here ever since - last thing in the world we needed or wanted. They've been a joy and a source of constant amusement with only occasionally proving to be right pains in the arse. We named them the "Three Tenors" and now we've only got 2 of them.
Pav was always slightly different from the other two. He was quieter. More cuddly. More inclined to get himself into trouble. We've had to extract him from a few hazards, we've had problems with the botched horn, we've always had to trim his nails more than the other two, and he's always been a slightly different shape and perpetually hungry. Which made his sudden refusal to eat a couple of weeks ago a bit of a shock. After initially investigating if he might have urinary tract / stone problems, it then became apparent that his rumen had shut down. Long story short, we tried all the suggested methods of getting it to kick back into action, but there was something underlying going on, and within a week or so, he still couldn't eat and was starting to show signs of weakness. So we had to intervene and he's now buried with the elderly alpaca, Pascoe, and pig Billie, who we've also lost this year.
It's going to be "one of those years" as everyone, including us, shows signs of age. It's been a hard hard year already and we're not looking forward to how it continues to play out, although, touch wood, so far, everyone else is upright and looking okay. And we're watching, oh boy are we watching.
We have a grid interactive system on the farm. Solar panels and a battery on the house and EV. Grid backup for that system in case of need (still got to work long hours in front of computer equipment), plus there are pumps, sheds and various setups around the place that are grid connected still. We have got standalone solar setups wherever possible, but with the lengths of electric fences and stuff that has to keep ticking over, the electricity bill is always there. And to get rid of bottled gas we've replaced the oven / cooktop with an electric / induction combo.
Mind you, the sheer gouge that has been the last couple of bills from a standard supplier were horrific. So we looked for alternatives.
Did all the comparison websites, nothing was looking at all interesting or providing that much in the way of opportunities to do something positive about the usage whilst not killing the world in the process.
Anyway, after a happenstance article came across this lot:
Their claim to fame:
Save with Cheaper Wholesale Energy
Now I will admit there was a hell of a lot to like about this model.
Today we've said goodbye to our Billie
I remember the day we bought her home, 14 years ago, in one of the small cat carriers. Which she fitted in, with room to spare. Her sister, was a bit delayed, the other piglet originally put aside from us wasn't well and Lillie was being neutered and we'd go and get her a couple of weeks later.
In the meantime we got Billie home, and settled into her new home, layered in straw and made as comfortable as we could make it. She promptly laid down and went to sleep, but when I went back to check on her 15 minutes later I nearly had a fit - couldn't see her anywhere in the shed. Until she suddenly emerged from under the straw and bounced around at me - telegraphing the behaviour of a lifetime. The number of times in the intervening years where she's frightened the living daylights out of us by disappearing from sight, reappearing with no notice and frankly, you don't want to know the slight feeling of panic that comes from the sight of a piggie running straight at you.
Like the night they both went missing and we hunted the area looking for them for hours. Only to return home pigless and bereft - we thought they'd gone for good. Only there was a bag of manure that wasn't where it used to be, and then there was the snuffling noises coming down the drive half an hour later as they both trotted home - very proud of themselves. Which lead to the development of a huge moveable pen and the shenanigans involved in moving it, and them on a regular basis, until they aged and we all agreed they could free range. Which meant our back dam has been substantially altered, the shelter shed out in the paddock is now somewhat more "airy" than it used to be with the back wall obviously considered surplus to requirements, and on the never-ending saga of crazy went.
Until 8 months ago when we found Billie lying in a wallow, unable to get up. Long story short - torn cruciate liagment and not a lot of options. Our wonderful vets gave us pain relief, and then got in touch with the equally magnificent Pam Ahern at Edgar's Mission who provided some excellent suggestions for managing potential pain and building some strength so we've kept her limping along, happy, and eating well, confined to a largish pen though, until this weekend. When the other back leg gave out as well and she was unable to stand. Which meant unable to toilet properly and pigs (contrary to the bullshit myths) are incredibly fastidious and clean creatures. So she was okay with not being able to move much but keeping her clean wasn't possible. Plus it's no life if she can't move at all. So we booked the vets and the bloke with the excavator for this afternoon and steeled ourselves.
She leaves behind a very big piggie shaped hole in our lives, but one that left us with lasting changes in how we see "farmed" animals.
That's her, buried in some straw with her sister.
And her on the left lying down - her favourite position.
And because there's nothing like a bit of embarrassment, she had to be knocked out sometimes so we could do a pedicure on her tootsies. She snored. A lot, when under the influence of anaesthetic.
Because - here's one of Cassie, enjoying a cuddle, while himself watches his nightly array of YouTube videos or whatever it is that he does over there. She looks smug because she's pretty darn pleased with her nightly routine.
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| Contented Cassie sitting on himself's lap enjoying a snooze |
And Laverne - who turned 14 on the weekend. How I'll never know. The list of health challenges we've had with this dog are longer than your arm, and part of the reason the bank accounts never quite seem to recover. She's been a joy and a worry since the day she arrived. (That's her at the bottom of the photo - enjoying a snooze with her life-long companion Shirley).
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| Shirley to the top of the photo, who incidentally will be 13 in a couple of weeks, and Laverne who turned 14 last Saturday |
Finally - I've been dealing with a bit of a threat to life and limb for me and them for a while now. There's been this stack of books beside the bed, which is also next to their night beds, that teetered, rocked and threatened to tip over onto everyone in the vicinity all the time.
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| Bamboo spinning bookcase stuffed with books waiting to be read |
Allowing for all the problems that go with getting stuff delivered when you live on a main highway in a regional area, this finally arrived last week - after a bit of a wait and a lot of "depot searches".
Spins on top of a nice little storage cupboard which is now stuffed full of the bits and pieces that had nowhere to live. I can see the books, find them without having to constantly restack, and am now not constantly on wobble in the piles alert.
(This is not the only MtTBR in the place mind you - this is just the lot that have shuffled beside the bed. Now you can see why I'm hoping to live another 60 or so years (and desperately wanting a few rainy days when I can stay inside and read) ...)
Not posted much recently (it's still as dry as anything in these parts so most of the day is spent just trying to keep everything ticking over), but aside from that, there's been no great insights or observations to make.
Until I suddenly realised over the past weekend there's a bonus to driving an EV that I've not seen commented on - and that's the effect that the quiet / lack of motor noise has on a chronically carsick dog.
We loaded all 4 of the dogs up on Sunday last week to take them to the river in Avoca and the lake in Maryborough for a bit of a stroll about. Cassie (the new younger Aussie) likes more exercise than the twice nightly meander around the paddocks gives her, and besides, they all love to meet new people and see new things. Even the old girls who are only up to a gentle stroll about, love the fusses they get from strangers, and the chance to sniff something new.
These trips used to be fraught with complications because Mambo, the nine-year-old male Aussie, has suffered from chronic car sickness from the day we collected him. The first night we had him involved a mad scramble to the vets because he'd thrown up all the way home from Ballarat and ended up dehydrated and very uncomfortable. The rest of the night was spent with me keeping hot water bottles warm for him to lie on (I read something about colicky babies and thought why not - it worked), and then there were the pain killers we had to administer and the sheer panic that we'd harmed our brand new puppy.
But anyway, he survived that, but has never been able to do more than about 15 ks in a car since then without projectile vomiting and panicking big time. Tried car booster seats to change his view, tried him in the back and front seats, tried all sorts of things - nothing worked.
Until we got the EV - in which he's never shown the slightest sign of throwing up, is happy to be in the car, doesn't whinge when he's put in it (until we get to a 60k zone when they all start whinging to get out and go for a walk), and generally is really easy now to take for a drive. We've been doing quite a lot of miles since the EV arrived with all the dogs and it is such a relief.
The theory is there's no low level engine frequency noise / thingie / something technical himself mutters about. Whatever it is - worth the changeover to an EV at double the price!
Leaving aside the obvious call of bullshit on the 5 minute thing, the number of times we hear this argument it makes us think it's yet another piece of FUD put out by the fossil's to confuse potential EV owners ... yet again.
Our car has a 420(ish)k battery range.
We charge it when at home - either off the solar system when there is excess capacity (ie when the battery has reached the optimum level to keep the house running in the event of an overnight outage when there is no solar input), or in offpeak mostly.
The home based charging system we have allows us to set the thing up to charge on offpeak rates / overnight, immediately, or from the solar (combinations thereof). So mostly it charges when frankly we don't care how long it takes, we're asleep. Or reading a book. Or having a glass of wine.
So we rarely, if ever, leave the place without 420ks of driving range before we even hit the first town with an EV charger (20ks away).
As 99% of our trips are those day to day things like heading to the vets, the shops, the doctors, the pub, or local events, we've rarely need to stop to charge it anywhere - even when a "to the shops" trip takes around 200ks in total, give or take another 20 or so driving around Ballarat, Bendigo or Ararat (mostly).
On the occasional longer drive, most of our charging stops are dictated by our need for a loo and coffee. We always coincide a "top up" charge with the location of (preferably) both of those.
The amount of time required for those charges differs based on the capacity of the charger, but for example:
I don't know about anybody else, but we plug the thing in and head off. (Although I will also admit we've sat in it and watched a YouTube video once because we could ...). I've never yet had the urge to stand there hanging onto the charging cable, had to wash the fuel off my hands or shoes before I got back in the car, or had to monitor the fill / charge. There's an app that tells us what the charge is up to, and in the event it's getting close to fully charged, warns you to return so you're not hogging a charging station.
Aside from all of that, because you can wander off, we do. I can't do loo, coffee, stroll to and from the car, and be ready to go in under 5 minutes these days (if ever really). Add another 5-10 minutes because we're not that important and don't mind a bit of a sit around sometimes. It would take longer obviously if you're on a big road trip, in which case, we think a driving break sounds like a good idea.
So that's range anxiety / too long to charge down to yet another example of very transparent FUD.
What's next? Oh it'll probably be BUT THEY CATCH ON FIRE. Look up the stats.
As mentioned in the post about EV's and our trip to Mt Gambier we went there to pick up an Aussie Terrier.
Cassie (as called by the breeder) is a 6.5 year old Australian Terrier, who has had a couple of litters of puppies in the past and the breeder is now looking to downsize. She was neutered before we collected her (which is what we wanted), and she's here now as a pet to go with our other Aussie's, Mambo, Laverne and Shirley.
(Some may know Laverne and Shirley are also ex-breeding dogs that were in need of a home a few years ago.)
We sat about in the stinking heat, trying to keep livestock alive, monitoring constantly for fire outbreaks. Not exactly anyone's idea of a "relaxing weekend".
Did we go away? Of course not, we can't leave at this time of the year although, we did throw caution to the wind for one afternoon at a local winery - on the understanding that if anything happened my partner wouldn't be driving the CFA truck to it. He had a glass of wine. The zero alcohol requirement for drivers these days means that you either live your life based on the demands of the CFA, or you opt for can't help in the event of disaster and have a life, or at least 4 hours of a normal life.
It's been a torrid February / March period after a weird winter where we got flooded on one day, and spent the rest of the season trying to get water tanks filled.
Around 4mls of rain in total for those two months though, with stinking heat and strong winds. Combine that with a couple of long weekends which mean campfires out of control, cars being driven into long grass setting off fires, fire bugs, permit burns getting out of control, people reporting permit burns despite them being permit burns, long weekend non-permit burns because people are ... , car / bike accidents, and generally anything and everything designed to keep VOLUNTEERS running, and you kind of get to the stage where you dread long weekends. They just mean stress, worry and sheer hard work.
So you can imagine that there's a bit of sensitivity about messaging around. That the ABC are firmly city centric goes without saying, but their weather reporting this Easter long weekend really took the cake, which I thought they'd eaten ages ago, but here they were, really ramping up the put downs. I mean it's one thing for the ABC Wimmera to mostly ignore local fires, or report inaccurate fire information with a bit of a laugh and some lighthearted bants whilst people's houses were going up in flames, and firefighters were in danger, but you know, "ideal weather" over Easter wasn't it. Oh until it "deteriorated" and there was some rain over firegrounds that have been burning for weeks.
It was so bloody hot, and dry for most of Easter, after it being so bloody hot and dry for so long that frankly, we're exhausted. And running out of water again, as well as patience and tolerance for thoughtless fools. Their reporting was more than just the normal "well you don't matter" put down. They were reporting this in the face of fire's still burning, exhausted and frazzled volunteers, ongoing high levels of fire calls self evident on the apps, the lack of rain and stinking hot weather being noted in the same bloody report that insisted that the heat was "ideal" and the potential rain "deteriorating". And yes, there were some storms in all of it, but "deterioration". Oh I'm sorry, did our need for water and maybe some relief from constantly worrying about fires on the doorstop screw up your weekend of sitting around in the bush toasting marshmallows on campfires you can't seem to put out for love nor money? Pardon us, we'll just wait for you to wander back to your reticulated water systems and paid firefighters and the like, and belt in and fix the mess you've left in your wake shall we...
So the upside is I've finally weened myself off any pretence of following ABC News. They aren't even slightly interested in rural listeners / viewers anyway. I mean their complaint form doesn't even have an option for anything other than regional town or "remote". But then this is from the fools that reported Dunarch as "remote" a while ago.
A running reminder of the weather as reported by our Tempest weather station
We live in Central West Victoria, and last week we had to head across to near Mt Gambier to pick up a new old dog.
(Meet Cassie - 6.5 year old, retired breeding female)
Given all the "horror" stories you hear about range anxiety (which we don't have) and chargers being out of action (which we have seen), we did a bit of pre-planning for the trip. Well I say pre-planning, we got a route plotted out by Google that included charging stations, and headed off first thing in the morning.
Car was fully charged before we left the front door - which is around 420ks. Which "technically" could have meant we could make it to the supercharger site in Mt Gambier, but we were well aware our bladders wouldn't have a bar of that.
So first stop was Dunkeld
where there was a particularly good cafe, and a coffee caravan in the main street. Good loo just near the charger as well. 30 or so minute stop - so a good top up.
Then we stopped in at Dartmoor - charger in this case is positioned right out side the public toilets and was the perfect distance for another driver change and a quick charge top up.
No cafe this time, but we were starting to hit the timeline that we needed to be in Mt Gambier for so we pressed on.
Then into Mt Gambier, and 15 minutes out the other side to collect the dog. Back into Mt Gambier and this time we did a full charge at the supercharger so we could walk her, have another drink and a snack and head for home.
https://www.tesla.com/en_au/findus/location/supercharger/teslasamountgambiersupercharger
(sorry forgot to take a photo....) It's at the OTR - easy to find.
We then stopped at Dunkeld again on the way back to give us all a loo break and because the charger was there, topped up.
In total we drove around 700ks. We charged the car 4 times (three of which were more about our bladders and caffeine addiction than they were about the need to charge the car).
Observations:
If charging apps / sites tell you the charger is coming - check the comments. They are often out of date.
It cost us around $40 in charging costs. Given we normally charge the car at home off our solar system, that was an expensive trip for us....
We worked out that if we still had our previous diesel car the same trip would have been around $100 being generous with the pricing / mileage of what was by then an aging car.
Overall the drive was unbelievably easy. We swapped drivers regularly but given our advancing age, we both got home without any aches and pains and nowhere near as tired as we should have been. And the last hour or so was through heavily populated kangaroo country - which is normally so mentally draining you can arrive home from the local pub with dishragitis.
The dog, by the way, is fabulous. She's interactive, bright, friendly, smart as a whip and has slotted into the madhouse really well in under a week.
Look, I'll be honest, created this blog ages ago and then promptly forgot.
Story of my life really.
But since the demise of Twitter and because I have severe FOMO (Fear of Moronic Opinions) I've been looking into Tumblr and a few other places, none of which "grabbed".
All I want to do is post the occasional odds and ends about Farm Life, drought, heat, bushfires, #EVs, and other meanderings that don't fit the bill over at AustCrimeFiction.org - I thought I'd start this up again.
So here we are.
