Thousands of Firefighters are being placed on standby as the temperature soars to 44c and above. To add to the problem, we have a North Wind, which is helping to dry everything out. We are not, officially, in a heatwave – yet. A heatwave is defined as five consecutive days when the temperature is above 35c. So, if you have, 36,36,42.35,31 – then it’s not a heatwave and if the 6th day soars to 44c., then that’s the start of another five day cycle. What you have to remember is that 44c is the “Official” temperature. It is not ground temperature and it is not what the sun is beating down on your wee head. The official temperature is taken in a shaded area not in the direct heat of the sun – like your head. The dogs are sleeping inside and I have renewed the bowl of water I have at the end of the drive. In weather like this – when I am home_ I change the water every couple hours to stop it getting hot. This is for dogs, or indeed, any thirsty animal to drink from. The birdbath has a slight leak and needs to be replaced/ repaired. It has been empty and I was intending to do the repairs soon – however, I have filled that with water also at least the birds can cool down, if needed. The Weather Bureau has warned that we are on track for temperatures above 40c for the next seven days. All the more reason why anyone with a lick of sense should have at least 6 litres of water in the boot (trunk) (for the radiator) and enough water for drinking. Today was 41c, and tomorrow will be 46c – official temperatures so I expect the dogs will be inside all of tomorrow. Actually, unless I have to go out I think I will be inside for most of tomorrow.
Category: House, Garden and Dogs
Bigger is not always better
The State of South Australia covers some 983,482 sq.klm. It’s bigger than Texas but with a total population only marginally greater than Phoenix, I suppose we do have a lot of environment. To the west of me – the town of Cowell some 115 klms away -the photograph is in the general direction of Cowell and there is nothing in between except the general assortment of Australian wildlife. Like many places in the USA South Australia punishes people who do not take the environment seriously – they die in the harsh, hot conditions of outback SA. There was three travellers died only a few weeks ago when the car they were driving in broke down and they decided that it was only twenty miles to the nearest settlement, so they could walk there for help in a 45c temperature. They became lost and didn’t make it and their bodies were recovered only after a massive police and ranger search. If you treat it with disrespect and are unprepared for the worst that could happen, the far north of South Australia can be very unforgiving. Even driving between here and Adelaide, I carry 2 x 3 litre water containers in the boot (trunk) and I always have drinking water with me in the car. When I take the dogs out during the summer months – in the morning before the heat and in the evening when it’s little cooler,, I generally have a small backpack with a bottle of water and a bowl.
The South Australian Dog Rescue ended the year fairly well and 400 dogs have been saved from the pound and have gone to new furever homes. I have been involved in ten of those, which I have taken from here the 400 klms to the State Capital and their new owners. I hope to be heading that way sometime next week, once this heatwave breaks. At the moment it is 35c but this is expected to rise and to mid 40+c over the next few days and into the start of next week with a cool change coming mid-week.
In the garden it has generally been a tidy up and keep up the watering to what plants have survived the heat of the other week. I have not been able to replace them because it is New Year and most places are closed until today, so I will probably get over to the Garden shop during the course of the day and have a look at what I think might survive. As I said before I have doubts about labels that say “Full Sun”
The sun has got his hat on.
The weather has warmed up again and I have been back out in the garden. I am working on the Crazy Paved area and trying to decide what to do with it. The blemishes make it unusable for herself. It had been my intention to make this her clothes line area but the ground is so uneven that I really cannot expect herself to walk on it in safety – but I have already gone through all this. I have started the re-edging and am halfway through that. Once I have that completed I will make a decision on what to do, but I rather suspect I am leaning towards having it concreted over – it would be just too much to big a job and much too time-consuming to dig it out and start again – not that I would anyway. It looks fairly reasonable from a distance but up close it is badly done and very uneven. It’s the devil to try and keep clean because the dust and leaves get into the cracks and the uneven divisions between the stones and make it a hard job to sweep. I started by saying that the weather was warming, but in this little corner of the Commonwealth, it can heat up to a point where it really is silly to go out and work (unless you have an occupation that requires outside work) because the temperature can really do nasty thing to you. I personally believe that working outside in the garden in temperatures of 46c (115f) is pointless because it is exhausing and draining, and that’s what the temperature climbed up to on Monday and despite being watered, fed and mulched, many plants died. I have questioned the contents of plant information tickets – they say the plant can be full sun, but what does that mean? Does it mean full sun in the highlands of Victoria or full sun on the edge of the desert in northern South Australia. I rather suspect they are created in Victorian and New South Wales temperatures and not for 40+ of country South Australia, so “Full Sun” does not really relate to this little corner of the world. Our ‘ Full Sun” kills them off. I was told that they should survive if I ensure that the ground is mulched to protect the roots and that they are well watered, but it really didn’t make a lot of difference and the only two plants that survived the extreme heat of last week were the two “Sturt’s Desert Pea” – which is not really all that surprising since it is a plant well adapted to desert life. However, they are short lived plants and will really only last the season, but at least I might have some colour.
A “feature” of our part of the world is a North Wind. In many parts of the world, particularly in the UK, a North Wind is a very cold wind – they even have a poem about it ” The North Wind doth blow and we shall have snow” Well here, the North Wind is a hot wind that blows off the hot desert and pushes temperatures up as well as being draining, making the heat worse than it is already. The dogs have been inside in the cool.
Welcome home. We missed you…..
I was only away for four days but it might just as well have been a month. The dogs set up a racket when I drove into the driveway and even before I emptied the car, I was on the floor playing with them. At times I think I sort of felt like General Custer because they did their little dog thing – run around t you in circles. It was so funny – I’m sitting on the floor they are running around me jumping in and out of my legs and every so often they would stop shower me with licks and kisses then circle me again. She who must be obeyed just sat and watched in amazement. It t was ages before they settled down and I was able to empty the car and get my case in. I love my dogs and I enjoy their company – they are my associates really. The good thing is that when I was away this time, my flowers and plants were watered. Normally she forgets to do this and I come home to dead plants, but this time she remembered.
The front of the house is starting to look nice now. During the course of this week I will start to look at the picnic area and see what I can do with that. I have looked an a number of options and it was intended that this would be made into a clothes area so she wouldn’t have to move too far outside to hang the clothes up on a line. And no, we do not have a cloths drier because she does not like them and prefers to hang cloths on a line to dry. We did consider using the area as is, but the crazy paving is just that – crazy – and was really not done all that well. Because she is partially disabled the ground is too uneven for her and I wouldn’t be comfortable having her even try to walk on it. I will replace and make alterations to the borders then decide what I want to do with it. I have bought her two laundry trolleys – one from the door to the dog gate and one from the dog gate to the Hills Hoist clothes
line.
Anyway, that’s me until next year. The next meeting of the Presbytery is not due until 2nd February, so all being well I should not have to be away for a while. This is good – for me – for the dogs – for the plants. The meeting lasted two just over two hours – that’s 900 klms round trip for two and a quarter hours. We have six meetings per year – five in the metropolitan district (I go there) one in the country (they come here). There is only one place that I will not travel too, but five out of six is not a bad record.
Round 2 begins
This morning dawned fresh and clear and until about an hour ago it was still so. About then I started to see that the sky was dulling down and dark clouds were slowly moving in and sure enough, here we are in the middle of another thunderstorm. This is passing strange – we don’t generally have three in a row like this. Two in one day was bad enough but three in two days is trying the patience just a tad. There are about 5000 homes without power – 100year old trees were picked up thrown over, along the main streets power-lines are down due to falling trees all of which I said yesterday, but this new storm, if it develops like the last one, could cause more damage. However, having said that, I don’t think it will. It doesn’t have the same’ feel’ as the ones did yesterday. According to the statistics there were 120,000 lightening strikes across the State. Anyway, Chienna is in the laundry on her bed and the little man is curled up on my bed. The reason for this is that he must have sneaked in and no one saw him. He was too quiet and it was only a few minutes ago that I went into my room and saw him. I didn’t have the heart to move him so he’s still there. Yesterday was the first time I have ever seen him concerned during thunder. Normally he’s not too fussed but yesterday it was very loud and the lightening was very bright.
The “flooding” was a lot of water on the roads, in gardens and elsewhere – it was NOT gushing through people’s houses, it did not threaten lives, it was at best ankle deep and apart from a few smallish puddles, it cleared away very quickly as the storm water drains caught up. The damage we did experience was caused by very high winds that threw down trees and brought down power lines. No one was hurt or injured, but it is interesting that this is the third year in a row that we have had a thunderstorm of this nature right at the very start of summer.
The Right Call!!
I was booked to go down to Adelaide this weekend, but everything conspired against me. I was going on Thursday, which would have been a day early, so that I could visit family in hospital. The Temperature soared to 42c and I decided to put the trip off for a day. Then I received a message that the meeting I was to attend on Saturday had been cancelled, so it seemed to me that it would be cheaper to go down and back by coach if all I wanted to do was shopping. I booked the ticket. At 2am this morning (Friday) a thunderstorm struck the area and the dogs were going gaga. My taxi arrived at 5:40and I just paid the fare and sent him away. I could not, in all conscience, go off to Adelaide and leave Herself, to look after two neurotic dogs in the middle of a thunderstorm. At 6:16am sixteen minutes after the coach left, the storm passed and the thunder ceased., but the storm front is not cleared and there are still rumblings, so the dogs have not settled down and by the sound of things this could go on for a while yet. At the moment I am kind of floating on a sea of coffee . Once things clear and the dogs are settled down, I might try and get some sleep. It’s hardly surprising that people get sick easily in this area – an area where the temperature can climb to 45c in a day and drop twenty degrees overnight – this week being a good example where it was 42c yesterday and 25c today – and a thunderstorm into the bargain.
It has just gone 9am and in an hour the coach will arrive in Adelaide. Here the storm has finally cleared and although it is still overcast, everything is fine. Herself is awake and suggested that I should have gone to Adelaide but I still think it would have been selfish and irresponsible had I done so. And I said before, we really don’t do floods here – just very big puddles and lots of water and even that only last for a little while because we have very large storm drains to cope with the heavy rain that we get from time to time. By 1:30 pm the rain came down and there was crashing and banging of thunder and another storm – louder and wetter – and the dogs were really going gaga. The little one fled out of the house and into the pouring rain. By the time I got to him we were both soaked, but he got into his house and I could not get him out. Finally did get him out and wrapped him in a blanket and sat with him in my arms until he calmed down. We gave him a bath. – Yes he was wet, but the bath water was warm. This storm was interesting in that it did cause some damage mostly due to falling trees. The ground was wet from the rain we had the other day so this downpour , coupled with high wind, just ripped trees out of the ground along the main road. and since most of the old buildings have a tin roof, we lost a few of them. Power outages caused by falling trees. I had a friend call me from Adelaide and they suggested that it was not a good day to be in the city.. We don’t really get the full-blown storms (thankfully) what we get is the rough edges – a sort of side-swipe. The older areas of the town get bigger puddles.
All very interesting, really!!!
What’s interesting? Well to send a few hours writing and placing photographs and save to drafts, then come back a little while later and press trash instead of edit. Oops. It said I could recover it but I could not for the life of me find out how to do this, so I’ve sort of given up. And the oddest thing is that I cannot remember what I was writing about – well I sort of do to a point, but it’s long gone now. However, it does give me a chance to talk about the South Australian Dog Rescue. A dog was recently rescued from the pound – which as I said before is a kill pound. This poor Poodle was really in such a mess it was difficult to imagine how any person.with any degree of compassion, could allow this to happen. The fur of the animal was so badly matted that the vet was present when the groomer started to cut the coat. The matting was so bad that the poor animal is left with bald patches on his skin because the intensity of the matting had pulled the roots of the fur out in these places. The vet believes that the fur will never grow back in these areas. The dog will stay with a foster carer for a few weeks until it recovers then it will be vaccinated and desexed and once it is over all that trauma it will be put up for adoption. Until then, it will stay with a foster carer. I have a friend who has recently adopted a dog and the even after quite a few months the dog still has marks where it was chained up around the neck.No, don’t ask me how people could be so unkind, I honestly do not know. My friend and her husband are over the moon with their dog and were pleased to get the adoption papers last Thursday. I will take it out for a walk for them tonight along with one of my own – my son will have the other one.
We had a fundraising event for the Royal Flying Doctors Service (RFDS) yesterday and although I do not know at this stage how we fared, I should imagine we did well since we were very busy. The SADR had a stall not far from us. It was a lovely afternoon and a very flat out busy three and a half hours – 5pm – 8:30pm. I should say that the event yesterday was the Christmas Pageant and we were at the After-Pageant Fare in the gardens.
Before going out to the gardens I spent the morning and early afternoon in my garden. I decided to remove the old edging, which was looking a bit “faded and Jaded” After ripping out the old edging I discovered that the bolts I had were too big so I will now have to wait until Monday to get into the hardware store and get the right size. Not to worry, it will look nice when completed. Anyway, with a sort of unhappy story to start off with, I thought I would insert a photographs of a ‘ Man in His Office”
Dogs, Pounds and Rescue.
“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.”
-Mark Twain
This is Australia and we have a Socialist Government. Actually we have two Socialist Governments, one State and one Federal and one is about as bad as the other because both love to pass legislation that takes the fun and excitement out of everything – except crime. We’re good with crime, we smack people on the wrist hand them lollies and give them suspended sentences. And for those of you in a more enlightened society where you send criminals to prison, a suspended sentences is where the Judge tells you how naughty you have been, you look contrite and say you are sorry and the judge tells you she/he cannot be swayed by this (and then is) so he has to make an example and sentences you to three years – suspended. This means you walk from court free, even if you have been drag racing, crashed into another car and killed someone, you can still walk from court free on a suspended sentence.
I have two dogs a Foxy Lady and a Maltese Terrorist. The foxy Lady does not like going in the car – we do not know why, but the little man does and when he is in the car he likes nothing better than to curl up on my lap and go to sleep. He is not a barking, head out of the window sort of dog, he just likes to be comfortable and comfortable is sleeping in daddy’s lap. Legislation says that this is illegal. All dogs must be restrained or kept in a dog carrier when being transported. Tried both ( to obey the law, of course) and the dog carrier just upset him and the restraint, using the seat belt clip, had me pulling the car off to the side of the road and getting out and around to the other side and releasing him because he just about strangled himself trying to get across into my lap. Ok, I confess, I is a criminal – I breaks the law – I have an unrestrained dog in my car – a full size, dangerous, bite your head off, Maltese Terrorist. As you can see by the photograph, he is definitely dangerous. The only time I restrain a dog is when I am transporting a dog down to Adelaide for the South Australian Dog Rescue.(SADR)
The sad thing about this place is that people just wont get their dogs desexed and let them have litters, which they then dump on the RSPCA. They can’t cope so they go to the pound – which is a KILL pound. Ten days and then the animals are put to sleep. The SADR rescue do what they can and try to find the dogs new homes – mostly out of here, so when I am going down to the State Capital, I generally have a couple of passengers with me. I remember taking one dog and told the SADR that ” if this dog gets Dognapped on the the journey, don’t blame me – he was such a lovely little fellow. It’s ok – he arrived safely to be handed over to his new mummy.
The keys to life!
“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring–it was peace.”
― Milan Kundera
The weather over the last week has been odd, to say the least. It’s still cool in the evenings but the days are starting to warm up. But it has also been odd in that we had one day where the temperature shot up to 41c – crashed overnight and we had a gale and a thunderstorm. In some parts of the State the Country Fire Service are still fighting fires that were started by the lightening strikes during that storm. I have been ill, herself has been ill and we ended up taking her to hospital because she had difficulty breathing. She was put on a ventolin machine for about an hour and that helped. I have been unwell to the point where I have not been taking any calls and not moving out of the house much. However, I am well on the mend and have started getting out to the garden again. Even started taking the dogs out for a walk. And that’s the odd thing about the weather – it was a lovely day yesterday but quite cold when I took the dogs out in the late evening. I came back for a a jacket. It’s been odd. During the week I was involved in a Fundraiser Event for the Royal Flying Doctors Service and whilst it was warm and pleasant during the day, the minute the sun started to go down, the breeze got up and it became cold. Fortunately I had a jacket in the car that I could get. I suppose,really this is typical for this area and our closeness to the desert. In summer the hot wind comes off the desert and pushes the temperature up, but at the moment it is cold. Very odd indeed.
Most of the time I have been spending out has been cleaning up, since I am surrounded by trees – tree leaves and wind don’t go too well together. At least we are not in Queensland that is once again being battered by storms. We are too close to the desert and we really don’t do floods – the occasional puddle with lots of water, but not floods. This cold and damp weather seems to have gone on forever, so it will be nice to spend some time talking about the heat for a change :o)
Not friendly – definitely not friendly
Last week the weather was lovely and I was working outside again. It came as something of a shock to the system when the weather took a severe turn for the worse and brought it storms, rain, hail and cold. Definitely not friendly weather. In fact it was so cold it snowed in the Adelaide hills and the northern Flinders ranges. Further to the east communities were cut off by heavy snow falls. And just in case you are wondering, this is Australia and this is mid-spring. Thursday was really bad and then on Friday, the front cleared away, the sun came out and it was warm and sunny again. It’s been a very busy week – Monday I was working in the garden at the new clothes line area – Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I have already mentioned, Friday I had to drive to Port Lincoln – about 165 miles east of here. We, my son and I, went down there to pick up his new mobile (cell) phone. The closest office of the company he is contracted with (as am I) is in Port Lincoln. Saturday I was at the Civic Park all day running a fundraising event for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. On the following Tuesday I was again fundraising at a Government Sponsored Jobs and Skills Expo. The Gov. wanted the food to be free so they asked us to put on a Barbecue and they would pay for everything, plus give us a fee for the day. It was a great event, well attended and we were very busy.
When I came home I was told by my wife that one of our dear friends had died in Adelaide. On Wednesday I organised things that I needed to do,packed the case and set off to – picking up a dog to take down to be taken to his new mummy and her “forever” home. The poor foster mummy was all tears as we settled her (the dog that is) into the car. Five hours later, with two walks and pit stops and a drink, we arrived at the area where we were to meet and I handed the dog over to her new mummy. The dog was happy and the new owner looked very happy, so I think they will get on well together. The dogs name was Violet and she was a real sweety.
The funeral was on Friday morning and after lunch I started heading back home. I was home just before 6pm. The following morning I was on the move again, this time 80 klms to Port Augusta for a meeting, which lasted until 1:30. I had the rest of the day to myself – wasn’t that nice? All being well I should not have to be moving again until early December and a meeting in Seacliff – about 450 klms away. I am starting to get just a tad worried about the ‘Terrorist”. My wife said that last time I left he went into his house and didn’t move out for two days and just refused to eat. When I came back I took his dinner and sat down on the floor with him until he had finished it. He worries me at times. Fierce – heck no in order to be fierce you have to have teeth and he has none. He is a rescue dog who we believe was abused and although the vet did what he could , we just could not save his teeth and they were removed. He generally eats pretty well but for some reason this last while back he seems to mope when I go out of town. He has our other dog and the family but it seems that’s not enough at times. The odd thing was that after his teeth were removed and he started to recover he took on a new lease of life. Probably the result of not being poisoned by rotting teeth.
Edgar's Page 