A mixed blessing.

Where would we be without the internet at a time like this? Lots of things to look at, research, order on line or in this case keep me amused while it rains. Being stuck at home without Skype would be awful as at least we can keep in touch with family and friends throughout the world.

The garden is unbelievable. A bit of rain and everything goes wild, I'm having to mow the grass twice a week now! It does look beautiful though when compared with a couple of months ago, lush and green instead of dust bowl.

This may seem to be a strange photo to add but it tells a story. Blocking off our view of these units next door were a couple of big pine trees. The units are laid out in such a way that they formed a funnel for winds during one of our hottest days on record. Pine trees, very strong wind and a 50C day don't go together, hence two dead trees, a gap on the fence line and some firewood. The next tree along has suffered a partial loss.

A rare visit from a group of Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoos at the water bowl.

Nice to see as always, Sulphur Crested Cockatoos.

Look how green and lush it is.

A bed of Canna Lilies.

 

Nectar loving Rainbow Lorikeets in among the Grevilleas.

We will have a bumper crop of Navel oranges this year. The branches are so full they have to be propped up,

Its the same with the Lime tree. I can see a batch of marmalade being produced later in the year.

Crepe Myrtle.

Guess who forgot someone's birthday!!

As I tried to explained, I couldn't get to the shops as we are in partial shutdown.
I'm not sure she believed me.

Trying times.

If sometime in the future, people were to look back at 2019/2020, they would find it very difficult to believe what has happened in NSW during this period. It would read as total fiction.

We started with the worst catastrophic bush fires ever recorded. These fires were during a drought that had been going for years. Suddenly the weather changed, the farming communities rejoiced in the rain but this also bought devastating flooding of vast areas. Now we are part of a world wide plague, Corona Virus 19.

We seem to be better off than a lot of countries throughout the world. We have lots of confirmed cases but so far only 11 deaths. The government have come down hard but I think a little late, these restrictions should have happened weeks ago but we have a leader who is renowned for miss management. In the fires he went on holiday now he has closed parliament so who is really running the country.  A cruise ship docked in Sydney last weekend and border security, or whatever they call themselves lately, allowed 2800 people to disembark of which 270 have been confirmed as having Covid 19 which is bound to spread very quickly through the community.

 Personally we aren’t too bad so far which could be attributed to living in a semi-rural area, as the majority of cases appear to be in city or heavily populated areas.

We have personal distancing restrictions now and lots of hand washing. Its a good job that this didn't happen during the drought water restrictions or we would have dried up completely. Initially there was a run (pardon the pun) on toilet rolls but the supply has just about caught up with demand now. Pasta, flour, sugar, hand sanitizer, Passata,  etc. are in short supply but we have enough. One good thing we have is pensioners happy hour. Major supermarkets are opening early so that us oldies can shop for an hour in comfort before the general herd stampede in. All pubs, café, restaurants, clubs and non-essential businesses are closed with the resultant unemployment. We still have supermarkets, petrol stations, chemists, so the basics can still be found. Schools in most states are closed or part closed. Hospitals and medical services are working flat out with some military assistance.

Our families and friends in the Northern hemisphere are in very similar circumstances. There has been a world wide movement towards working from home for those who can. My sister and family in Seattle are in total isolation as their cleaning lady tested positive. 

Due to the school closures, Ben and Alex are working from home and seem to be getting a lot of work out of the way. Alex's work ethic is that if he gets all his projects completed quickly he will have a longer holiday. No one has any idea when this pandemic will be over and the kids can go back to school. Ben is anxious and keen to get back as he is due to go up to high school this year.

We are all in a state of limbo. I feel that this is all going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Stay safe and look after yourselves.

Floods

12/02/2020 

As I said, what a weird country we live in. One minute we are in the middle of a catastrophic bushfire season and now the drought has broken and we are in the middle of floods. I heard on the radio that rain has fallen on a station way out west for the first time in nine years. Most of the fires are out now. The Gospers Mountain and Wollombi National Park fires, which started in October last year, are finally out. There are still a couple of fires burning down the south coast but they have been downgraded due to the rain falls. Guess who is claiming a job well done in taming these fires, non-other than our gallant leader who wasn’t even in the country at the peak of the crisis.

We have had heavy falls, complete with lots of thunder and lightning.  There is nothing like rain to start the garden growing again. We have lost some trees, bushes and plants due to the extreme heat but the rest of the garden is growing like crazy. Admittedly it is very wet and mushy underfoot and it will some time before I can cut the grass.

Last Friday was Alex’s birthday but the weather was so bad that we put off our trip to see him until the following day. Di made him a birthday cake so we set off to deliver it but crossing the river bridge we noticed that the water level had risen considerably. We would have to listen out for flood warnings.  We didn’t stay too long with the birthday boy due to the concerns about water levels. Driving home we got as close as 500mts from North Richmond bridge before they closed the road. Blast!! 

What to do now. We have two choices, go back and stay at Beckys for an unknown period waiting for the floods to recede or drive the long way around through the Blue Mountains. We decided on the second option so filled up with petrol and headed for the hills. The conditions were atrocious, very high winds and driving rain. All the way up the mountains as far as Mount Victoria, across the ridge to Bell and down the Bells Line of Road to North Richmond. We drove through lots of water over the roads, waited while fire brigades cleared fallen trees and pumped water off roads and four hours later arrived home. It was a welcome relief to be free of the constant noise of lashing rain, windscreen wipers going flat out and water off the road surface hitting the underside of the car. It was strange to see this section of road so busy then we realised that people who had be caught on the opposite side of the river bridge to us had also to find a way home. 

It’s now four days later and the bridge was reopened this morning although the bridge in Windsor is still closed. A BIG red face for the state government as the new bridge in Windsor, built at huge cost and in the wrong place would have been closed by the flood even if it was finished. We drove across our bridge this morning and noticed that the handrails for the footpath hadn’t been taken down before the waters came down and now they are just a twisted mess. Something else for we taxpayers to pay for as a result of local council works incompetence.

Bush Fire Season 2019/2020

The Australian bush fire season started early in September 2019 and the fires have been blazing ever since, until this weekend that is when we have had unprecedented rain falls. A prolonged drought that began in 2017 made this year's bush fire season more devastating than ever. The fires created unprecedented damage, destroying more than 14 million acres of land and killing more than 20 people and an estimated 1 billion animals. The fires burnt down 3500 buildings, including 2000 homes. With fires of this magnitude we fail to think of the losses in agriculture. Whole orchards, grain crops, fodder crops and wineries have been lost all the way down the east coast, from Queensland down into Victoria and South Australia. The heroics of the Rural Fire Services volunteers are too many to record. We have been in drought for so long that the ground is dry and with low humidity, high winds etc. it was a disaster waiting to happen. We get regular bush fires but this year they have been the worst on record. Our fire alerts range from Low through to Catastrophic, and this is the first year ever that the ‘catastrophic’ signs have been displayed. We have had help from interstate firefighting teams but also teams from NZ and USA.  We were told by the media that a lot of these fires were deliberately lit which has now been disproven. There are questions about a few but the majority seem natural. As the intensity of the fires increased they spread by ember attack, fire storms and dry lightning strike.

We have been on the fringe of one of the largest fires in NSW which has been burning for months. The fires eventually linked up and Sydney was ringed by fire. This fire area included the Wollomi National Park and areas like Putty, Colo Heights, Mountain Lagoon, Mt Tomah, Blue Mountains, the Grosse Valley etc. The river at Wisemans Ferry formed a natural fire break but the fire eventually jumped the road at Bilpin and Bells Line of Road was closed. Most of the small villages along Bells Line of Road no longer exist. We have been living in a smoke cloud for weeks. The winds have been fickle, blowing one way and then another, but because of our topography the smoke doesn’t clear to the West over the mountains. There is also the constant drone of aircraft somewhere above us in the smoke as the firefighting planes, large and small, return to refuel or pick up fire retardant.

The annoying thing about this catastrophic event is that it didn’t need to have been the major event that it turned out to be if our politicians had been on the ball. Back in September 2019, a group of very eminent fire chiefs traveled to Canberra to express their concerns about the upcoming bush fire season and requesting more federal support. Our Prime Minister refused to meet them and so we have the situation that exists now. To crown it all, this idiot went on holiday to Hawaii at the height of the fires. Now that’s what you call leadership, NOT.

We now have relief of a sort. From the sublime to the ridiculous, from catastrophic fires to torrential rain and massive flooding. For the last four days, locally, we have been averaging 50mm of rain a day. Now as I write, the wind and rain are lashing all around the house and its expected to continue like this for the next 4/5 days.    

What a weird country we live in.  What is more frightening is that these sorts of weather change events are being recognized worldwide. Recognized that is by all except politicians who have other agendas.