Project 365: Week 3

Australia is a land of harsh contrasts and unforgiving nature. To quote part of Dorothea Mackellar's poem My Country,

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me! 

This January, nature is throwing massive heatwaves at most of Australia and there are catastrophic bushfires in Tasmania, New South Wales and Victoria. Australia is having a go at the terror thing at the moment. This week fire is hitting close to home with a bushfire which began at Aberfeldy in the mountains behind our town  spreading overnight to threaten towns nearly fifty kilometres away. The middle daughter is a firefighter as part of her job and was hard at work as first response at Aberfeldy. She then spent the weekend on standby. Fingers crossed it doesn't flare up again. The last thing many residents in Gippsland need is reminders of Black Saturday. Those fires permanently scarred a lot of psyches in this area.

Day 15: Clean desk at work for the start of a new year. Of course in my case, a clean desk usually means little real work is going on!

Day 16: Our watch cat just hanging about in the side garden monitoring for any intruders attempting to enter our gate

Day 17: Smoke plume from the Aberfeldy fire about 6 pm. Looking out across the paddocks down the road and thinking of the middle daughter Mel who is off up there fighting it.

Day 18: Tired, weary and dirty firefighter after an 20 hour overnight shift.

Day 19: The Head Chef hard at work. The boys went for a drive to the local meat packers this morning. Here are a batch of homemade hamburgers and a stack of things to be chopped up for the freezer. Apologies to any vegetarians reading my blog. I have dedicated carnivores.

Day 20: This is what happens when your future doctor person gets too bored when they are on holidays. They choose to pierce their own ear. Mind it was done with a sterile needle and full aseptic technique.

And once again I neglected to take a photo on Day 21. (There seems to be a pattern happening here. Day 21 was a Monday as was the day I missed last week. Enough said). Lots did happen yesterday so it wasn't that. Yesterday:

• I  had my new smart meter installed first thing in the morning. Nice to see prompt, efficient and respectful tradies.
• The local council sent workers out to trim the street trees.
• It was rubbish collection day.
• And all three of these things happened almost simultaneously whilst both girls were also trying to leave for work. Busy street.
• I went to work and the boy went off to a friend's house to play computer games and then kept sending me a series of texts pushing back his estimated time of return. He eventually decided the only viable option was staying the night instead.