Possum Galore
A life ‘Down Under’!
Too close for comfort.
So…yesterday (21/9/26) I was working at the book cave and all day there was a pall of smoke hanging over the town as there has been for a few days due to a bush fire down in NSW. On finishing work I headed home and almost immediately saw a huge cloud of smoke from another fire that appeared to be very close to where we live.
Will was over at our neighbours when I got home. Our neighbour, Dave, is a park ranger and he was preparing for the worst because the situation did not look good. The fire was not that far away, just over the hills in front. He said he would keep us updated on the situation throughout the evening.
Will had already packed up bags and stuff in the car in case we had to leave quickly. It was quite stressful and we went out to our rock lookout a few times to see what was happening.
A bit later, Dave rang to say that he was in touch with the Firemen and that he felt that we would be ok but at exactly at that moment we saw that the ‘Fires Near Me’ App had updated to an Emergency Warning and was telling everyone in the area to evacuate and that the fire could cross our only escape road in the next hour!
Dave was sure we would be fine. He has great experience and knowledge of bush fires and we trust him so we didn’t evacuate.
As the evening went on we made a few more trips out to our rock lookout and the fire did seem to be dying down a bit and the wind direction seemed to have changed too in our favour. I didn’t get much sleep during the night but by morning the Fire warning had been downgraded. Dave was right.
The fire is still burning and might continue for days yet and the situation could change if the wind changes direction but at the moment things are a bit calmer.
It is just the start of Spring here and we still have Summer to come and the ‘El Nino’ forecast is not good but if there is a silver lining about this fire it is that it has already burnt out a swathe of bush land in the area from which we are most likely to be threatened in the future.
Catch up!
So…what’s been happening since we got back from Wagga?! Well, not so much that’s been exciting enough to post on here. We have both been back at work. Will is loving his job at the school and really is in his element. The ‘Book Cave’ is good though nothing too exciting has happened there (Thank Goodness!) apart from the Fire Warden training I was sent on, that unbeknownst to me included an actual fire drill at the Library! The alarms were set off and the building evacuated, the whole caboodle and I was glad when all that was over!
Back here at Frogknot we are still pestered by possums. We have evicted the beast many times from the roof of Blue Moon but it always finds a way to get back in again. We are determined to win in the end.
The Walleroos are still visiting, though not in the numbers they used to. We have our regulars, Karen and Skip. Karen has a young male joey that follows her around still and another joey (female) in her pouch. Skip had a joey (another female) in her pouch but just as it was starting to venture out she kept turning up without it and we thought she’d lost it. However recently a young female walleroo has been turning up with her so maybe (hopefully) she didn’t lose her baby after all. There is another walleroo that comes but she is very wary and dashes off as soon as we appear. She also had a joey (female) in her pouch and it too went missing just around the time it was starting to venture out of the pouch. We suspected a fox or dog got it and so far unlike Skip have not seen it again. There is also a Swamp Wallaby that now comes and visits too and is getting a bit more used to us being about and trusting us a bit more. She has a joey in her pouch too but it’s hard to tell if it is male or female as swamp wallabys look the same.
We have made a start on building our new indoor bathroom. We have dug and cemented in the stirrups for the supporting poles.
The garden is starting to come alive after winter with blossom on the fruit trees beginning. We are seeing more birds around in the garden and visiting the bird feeder. We regularly have our Crimson Rosellas and Double Barred Finches. Occasionally the King Parrots come and the Bronze Winged Doves and we have started to see a pair of Bar Winged Doves too. We have heard a lot of Bronze Winged Cuckoos and Fantailed Cuckoos this year too in the tress about us.
The ‘Chooks’ are fine and all our five hens are laying now, even the chick, Isis, we got from our neighbour has begun to lay.
We had a quick trip to Brisbane to pick up some solar panels from our friend Ros and just this last week went to Warwick to see a Shakuhachi Masters Concert. It was in one of the churches and we were sat on hard wooden pews which after an hour and a half was pretty excruciating! It was great to see and hear the Shakuhachi players though.
We are heading down to Currumbin on Monday for the ‘Swell’ festival, the beach sculpture festival so I will post some pictures from that and I am heading back ‘Up Over’ in early October for three weeks to visit family and friends.
That’s about all our news at the moment though we are not looking forward to the coming summer with the record breaking ‘El Nino’ brewing. Water is already pretty scarce around here so the last thing we need is a dry, hot summer. We are getting jumpy about bush fires and there was one not too far away last week that gave us a few smoky days but it, thankfully, appears to have died down.
Over and out…for now.
More Wagga Days.
So…while they were getting the exhibition ready in the last few days I kept out of the way again by visiting the Wagga Zoo and the Marrambidya Wetlands…
Wagga Days.
So…I have been keeping away from the Art Gallery and letting the artists get their work sorted. It’s all been a bit stressful since the gallery were behind in dealing with the set up of another exhibition which is opening at the same time but with one day to go to the opening things seem to be getting there now. Rochelle is painting directly onto the walls, Tracy has been putting up shelves to display her 14 carved wooden pieces and metal dioramas and Will was told the sound equipment he had been promised had been used for the other exhibition! He is hopeful that what they do have instead will work otherwise they may have to use his own speakers.
I have been out and about walking around Wagga. The first day I walked around Lake Albert. Yesterday I went to The Rock Nature Reserve for a walk. I should have done more research on that beforehand as when I got there the walk looked a bit more strenuous and adventurous than I had anticipated but I wasn’t going to go all that way and not get to the top, but it nearly was a trip too far. Today I had a wander around the free zoo up by the Botanic Gardens.
