Gardens and dogs – too much heat.

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

My HumanIn South Australia we are used to the heat of summer – that does not bother us too much – but the last couple of years we have experienced high levels of tropical humidity. This means that it is 35c during the day but only dropping down to 29/30c at night. Most people are getting tired through lack of sleep. Many, like me wake up in the morning as tired as when we went to bed. The overhead fans  drying things out. It’s all right for the dogs, they have an air conditioner and are fairly cool.  The humidity at this level and for so long is not what we are used to and it’s draining. We had the door open and the nets up (keep the flies out) so the dogs could wander in and out at will. It has been so humid and  draining that we have had to close the door just to keep the heat out and the cool air in. And the tiles of the laundry are  cool. We are used to arid and dry, not hot and humid. Today, for example, the temperature is 38c but that’s ok – it’s hot and we can deal with that – not sure about tomorrow though – 42c.

Needless to say, the dogs have been inside most of the time. We closed tot doors to keep the hot air out and they bark at the door when they need to go out.  They have been good and spend much of the time “resting” and having differences of opinion as to whose turn it is for the raised bed. We have two inside a large one and a small one and they argue over who gets the large one  :o)

According to what we have been told, this is the last  of the string of days over 32c and by Thursday we should  be down to mid to high 20s again.  As I said at the start, I don’t mind the heat, but the humidity is draining. The garden is suffering because although I water at night after the sun goes down, I have already lost  many of the vegetables I planted when I thought the very hot weather was over. Most of the flowers, with the exception of the Lavender, have survived. The Lavander might, but it looks decidedly  unwell at the moment.  Of course it being the hottest day of the week thus far, and I get a call to come into work. Oh well, I suppose my extended holidays had to end sooner or later.

Someone sent me this photograph so I thought I would share it. If I have breached copyright o something, I am sorry and I will remove it if asked.

Sunset, dogs and trees

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs
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The end of the Road – Really!

I went looking for some polystyrene this afternoon and discovered that the pet shop has a sale on this  Thursday and one of the items is a collapsable ramp that I can put outside so the man can walk up  rather than jump up the stairs. I know I am probably going slightly overboard but  he’s my man and it’s  part of my job description to look after him. Anyway, depending on how the unit looks  and works, I might end up buying two.

My car goes in for repairs ( excuse me, didn’t you do that last week?) and hopefully the fuel gauge should be fixed. First time was to determine the problem (took about an hour) Parts were ordered and I took the car back  at the end of the week ( Last Friday) but he couldn’t do the job because my son, who borrowed the car for a while, very kindly filled the fuel tank – and you can’t  replace things in the fuel tank when it’s full of fuel. I have had to drive around for a few days and today is the day it goes back in to finish the repairs. I don’t think it should take all that long to do and I should have it back by lunch. – Car back and repaired…

Went down to the sale and had a look at the dog ramp, which wasn’t too bad. Didn’t get one though because  they decided that this – and a few other things – were not part of the sale. Anyway, came up with a new idea. Went to the garden shop and bought kneeling pads and wrapped them in  carpet and they fit just neatly and let him get on and off his bed without trauma. Good. However, herself decided that they were not good enough so she got out her sewing machine and, using some spare material she had left over from something, made two “pillowcases”  One to  put the pads into and one to change. This is the person who just “tolerates” the dogs, but  maintains she is not a “dog person”. This is the same person who went to the craft store and bought a heap of material and made a dog coat for the little man when we first rescued him  – he had to have all his own coat cut off because it was so matted and she didn’t want him to be cold. But, she doesn’t really like dogs all that much  :o)

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Messy Native Trees

This weekend we have a fundraising venture for the Royal Flying Doctor Service at the “Collage of Technical and Further Education” – TAFE. It’s the first day back for the new semester so the collage  will put on a  barbecue lunch for the students and staff.  We will cook and serve it and TAFE will give us a donation. I think it is going to be a very busy month.  And the Saga of the Native vs Exotic Trees still continues. If you look at the mess and look over the road not only is there a mess, but nothing else grows near it.  I don’t like native trees planted along  pathways and medium strips.

Dogs, ramps, vets and cyclones – no change!

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

Yogi2The Terrorist is not a well  little boy. At the moment he is not too bad but we have had to curtail our walking for the moment. I cannot take Chienna out because he would go  slightly spare and I would have to take him, but then after about ten minutes I would be carrying him. I don’t mind that at all, but it is not good for him. Anyway, I saw a dog ramp in a catalogue the other day so I will dig that out and have a serious thought about it. Actually, as an aside to that I have ordered one so it will let him get up onto his bed without any trauma. It should arrive within a week. He has slowed down quite a bit and he has difficulty jumping on to the raised bed. I will make an appointment with the vet and let  him have a look and see if we can  determine the cause of the problem – other than just getting old.

Summer is “officially ” over and we are now into Autumn.  Cannot say that I noticed all that much difference. It’s still sticky at night and I still have the overhead fans on and I still get up in the morning drained and slightly washed out. Herself suggested that I should have a bowl of water on the floor to  overcome the dryness of the fans but knowing me I’d probably get up during the night and step in it or kick it over. My room is the warmest and I have not been to bed in 90 days. – Let me qualify that – wearing shorts and a Tshirt, I lay down on the top of my bed and sleep, I don’t actually pull back the covers and get into bed – too warm for that,  and it’s only really a problem if we have a sudden change and the temperature drops more than a couple of degrees during the night.  The latest suggestion is that the Australian  weather has been on steroids this summer. Well that works because it now appears that a good number of our athletes have been. Certainly  Cyclone Rusty was a bit of a fizzier but now on the opposite side of the country a new cyclone is building up in the Coral Sea. Between fires, floods and cyclones it has been an “interesting” summer.  However, I believe summer is over when I can go back into bed again.

Still waiting to see the Vet about the little man. At the moment he seems ok and I have  made a temporary step for him.  During the course of today I will wander around some of the hardware shops( actually there is only three) and see if they have any polystyrene that I can  have  and make into a step for him. The photograph is the dog that I was looking after for a few days – an affectionate little thing – and I finally managed to sort out the orientation.

It’s all about the dogs

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

Anything goes wrong and I am up for big bucks. In order to accommodate a dog, I have moved my chair further away from the desk and moved the computer closer to the edge. Yes, I know, people type with dogs on their lap  all the time but for me it’s a new experience – and it’s not my dog. I have been looking after this little fellow  for  friends who have gone to Adelaide for medical treatment.  This is a dog that they adopted but it was a rescue dog who had been abused, chained up and left to fend for itself. It took a lot of work by the South Australian Dog Rescue to  look after him to the stage where he could be adopted. However, he is a very “clingy” dog and hates to be left on his own (Understandable) This was the reason they felt that he would not be put into boarding kennels and decided to ask me to look after him. For the last couple of weeks they have brought him over to get used to my dogs  Not the greatest success and at the moment it’s sort of “Armed Neutrality” – growling but not fighting.  This dog needs to be touched and to be very close to his human – hence him being on my lap. He will not look at my wife at all and was upset because I went out this morning. He is very affectionate but my two are ganging up on him.  I was out working in the garage for a while and decided to come back inside for coffee. I came to the back door and my two were standing guard at the back door and growling when he came near.  The little buggers were refusing to let the  visitor pass. Rather than have a confrontation, I took him  out the gate and had Annabell open the front door and brought him in that way.  Actually, I am , in an odd sort of way, quite proud of my two the way they worked together against what they saw as an intruder.  :o)

Anyway, that was his morning and afternoon and now the little fellow has gone home. Friends came back from Adelaide this afternoon and off he went back home – and I kind of miss him – even after only three days. At least the computer is back in a less precarious position – that’s always something. I took several photographs of the dog and for some unexplainable reason,  this program insists on setting them in  in a Landscape setting rather than a Portrait setting, which is annoying. And yes, I have resized them, cropped them and I open them and they are nice portrait, but when I try to insert one on here it reverts to landscape.  I  guess you can take it  that I am not the world’s greatest photographer – more a point and shoot kind of person.

Goodbye summer – hello autumn

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs
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Sunset -“My Back Yard”

I was not working in the garden because it was too hot – now it’s too wet. It has been raining for two days. Not the heavy rain that causes any kind of flooding but a light rain that still gets you very wet. However, if I can I will try and do some work in the sheds or the garage. I say try because I now have an additional dog. Some friends have to go for medical treatment (wife) in Adelaide so I said I would look after their dog for a few days. That’s fine but when you are outside it is very difficult to walk  with three small dogs  seeking attention and running around your feet. You get scared of standing on paws and hurting  one.  The “foster dog” wants attention and my dogs want reassurance, so it makes for a difficult time outside  :o)

What I am in the process of doing is going through a ton of boxes and shredding and dumping things I no longer want nor need. At the moment the garage floor  space look like a tip.  I brought the boxes in from the sheds and they are currently scattered over the place in various stages of being emptied.  Hmmm, I got the recycle bin in ok, not too sure if I can get it out as easily  :o)  – at least, not until I have moved some of these boxes.
Still, I have been threatening to do this for nearly a year now.

The cyclone ended up a sort of a fizzier in that it headed towards the coast packing winds of up to 250kph, then sort of died and in the event caused relatively little damage as a category 2 cyclone. This is good and I am glad that the Pilbara was spared serious damage. But then again, although it died out and caused little damage, it did halt the export of some $500 million worth of Iron Ore . I sometimes wonder about all the media hype. Rusty was built up as being  a monster storm, and at a category 4 and rising, this is fair comment. This went on for days and people were evacuated or went into shelters, but when it finally did hit the coast it dropped from a 4 to a 3 to a 2 to a tropical depression – all of which is good, – but it sort of creates a kind of anti-climax – if that’t not too bizarre of a comment. However, we are thankful that no one was killed, hurt or injured.

Fires, flood and cyclones – again.

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

With some people, a break just cannot be caught!  Parts of Victoria were on fire and now other parts are threatened by torrential rain and flooding. Same in New South Wales as storm fronts  sweep in  from the Pacific and the Coral Sea, dumping massive amounts of rain. Sometimes it’s an advantage to live in the most boring state in the commonwealth. And in between all that comes the news that a young volunteer fire fighter has been killed. He was cleaning up after a fire when a tree branch fell on him.

Now we have major flooding in large areas of Queensland /  New South Wales and reports of three dead including a 17 y.o.boy who was swept into a flooded drain. He and his mate were wading through the water at the Golf Club looking for golf balls when they were swept away. His friend survived. Thousands have been evacuated and there are flood warnings out on over 15 river systems across two states. Sometimes we get a bit of localised flooding in Adelaide, but never to the same extent because we just don’t have the river systems. On top of all this comes the news that Western Australia is bracing for another tropical cyclone.

The last few days we have had high temperatures and yesterday at 43.5 was the high of three days of mid 40s. Today it’s supposed to be back down again –  think in the high 20s – just another day when you go to bed hot and bothered and wake up in the wee small hours looking for a blanket as you shut off the overhead fan. Added to this is the fact that it’s raining and things change very quickly  Apart from not doing flooding we don’t do snow here either.  Although, having said that we do have the occasional hail storm that temporarily covers the ground and looks like snow – for all of half an hour.

I am confined to the house and sheds and garage for most of the day. My car is away for repairs. Nothing too serious – the fuel  gauge is not working and I need that to be working when I drive to Adelaide.  It tells me the distance to empty so I can plan the fuel stops – although the truth is I really don’t need it because it’s a set route from here to Adelaide – unless I want to deviate by several hundred miles and arrive from a different direction. But the reason I use the distance to empty function is that if I want to get home for something, knowing where the petrol (gas) stations are,  I know how far I can go without having to stop for fuel.

A “Red Alert” has been issued for people in parts of the coastal areas of Western Australia as Cyclone Rusty approaches. Rusty is a category 4 cyclone , punching winds of up to 250kph and  although it’s a thousand miles away from us, we will expect to get some residual rain, not enough to cause any problems, but some. It is expected to hit land  this  afternoon sometimes – if it keeps its current speed.

Trees, Oil, California and snow in Arizona.

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs
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Native Trees – What Joy!!!

In our little corner of the Commonwealth, the temperature has dropped down considerably and back to manageable levels – a pleasant 25c. Dogs are back out in the fresh air.  I said that my soil was tested and  the less we say about that the better. The  large pots and planters is probably the best way to go. The two Desert Roses  (new) that I have out front, in sunken pots are doing considerably better than the actual roses in the ground. The same is true of things at the back of the house – although I do have the added problem of trees that shed leaves at the slightest puff of wind. Actually I think the threat of wind makes them nervous enough to drop leaves by the bucket load. I also bought  an English Gooseberry  Bush and have that in  a large pot. It’s also doing well and survived the heat. The Mulberry – in the ground – did not. But depending on how the gooseberry progresses, I might try again with a mulberry in a large planter pot.

On the subject of heat,  Australian Eucalyptus trees, because of the heavy concentration of oil and the letting off of oil vapour in heat,  have a tendency to explode throwing fire and flaming debris 20130222_095157across a wide area and overshooting fire-breaks. The oil makes it pest resistant so nothing eats it and keeps it in check. Once imported into an area it becomes messy, very hard to get rid of and flammable – and the wood is not all that much use for anything.  In the late 19th century  Australian trees were imported by the bucket load into California. The climate suited them very well and now Australian trees are everywhere in Calif. and  are responsible for much of the intensity of the fires that occur there. I have said before they are messy, shallow rooted, with a tendency to drop branches and fall over without  a lot of warning. These are the “Native Trees” that this council wants to plant everywhere.  The do say that they will plant them on the medium strip, not near houses.  Well, that’s encouraging – at least they will only drop branches and kill drivers =- heaven forbid they should damage property.

Watched our state news this evening and there, confirming what I had already been told, was the snow falling on Arizona. I’ll bet that was a shock to the system.  I was always fond of winter and snow – not so much on the aftermath, rain, slush and mud. No matter how hard you tried it was net to impossible to keep your feet dry and more often than not we arrived at school with wet feet. Not fun.

What you see here is the debris created by a single tree and these trees were  scattered over every footpath in the town. This is what the council wants to inflict on the median strips. Yes they require very little water, but to offset that, is the mess, the shallow root system and, like a second rate boxer, take a dive when the going gets tough. Can you imagine what a whole forest full of these things is like.?

Dogs, fires and funerals

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs
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The Fighting Temeraire

Since I came back from Adelaide the weather has been pretty hot – in the mid 40s, so the dogs have been inside much of the time.  It has been an interesting few days – Thursday I drove back – Friday  I was at a function at the Golf Club where we were presented with a cheque for $10,000 as a donation from Arrium Mining to the Royal Flying Doctor Service, Saturday we did a fundraising event and I was told that one of our parishioners had died.  This was not unexpected but came much quicker than anticipated. On Sunday I was asked if I would prepare the Order of Service. I said yes, then I was told that the funeral would be on Tuesday (Today) – which gave me one day to get into town, select the paper  for the cover from the stationers, design the Order of Service, Print the cover, print the inserts. fold collate and have it ready for the Service today = all 130  Orders of Service. So it’s been a  kind of hectic few days and the joy of the concert has already receded into the distance. I have a Filofax and without it I would be lost. I need it to keep track of what I am doing, and if I called into work – where I am. For me, it’s not some kind of statement it is a necessary means of keeping track of what I am doing. I have, over years, tried other methods, like a PDA, but I gave that up and went back to pen and paper, I sort of toyed with the idea of a tablet, but decided I could not really justify it and I honestly do prefer my  Filofax.

The hot weather over the last few days meant that the Bushfires in three states flared up again. The fires in Victoria came very close to the City of Melbourne. Here in South Australia we remembered mountain firethe Ash Wednesday Fire of 1983 which tore through South Australia and Victoria and killed 75 people, including 17 firefighters. Two firefighters have been killed in Victoria in the last week by falling trees. Apparently, the fire just north of Melbourne is now under control and people are being allowed back into their homes. The Grampians Fire is still burning out of control and has joined up with another fire. There are about 400 firefighters and water bombers fighting that one. The interesting thing is that many of these men and women fighting the fires and  standing into danger are unpaid volunteers. We have a dual system, one paid and one manned by volunteers. The Metropolitan Fire Service  (MFS) is based in the city and is staffed by paid personnel while the  Country Fire Service (CFS) is staffed by volunteers. It’s compromise between the State Government and  some 430 rural communities – the government supplies the engines and the  equipment – the volunteers use it.

Adelaide, concerts and home to dogs

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

Scruffy - because she really was. :o)The drive down to Adelaide was quiet and uneventful. It was a five hour drive – four and a half or less if you want to go  a fair bit over the speed limit – but I find that 110kph is fine and takes me where I want to go in the time I want to get there. Really excellent day – warm and sunny and being mid-week, little traffic on the road until the outskirts of the City. I drove into the city and met up with my son. We had lunch together. He is down at the corporate office for a while learning a different aspect to the organisation than what he is used to. I think they are going to change him from the mining section for a while.

I spent some time in the city before heading off  for a shower, change of clothes and off to the Adelaide Entertainment Centre for the Celtic Thunder Concert.  I have to say it was a great concert and it was all over far too soon.  I cannot remember when three hours passed so quickly. I really enjoyed the concert and it was a very good Christmas Present from my sons.  The only drawback is that they have to put up with the music – Hey!! It’s MY car  :o)  The drive back home was also uneventful and I did not get to the Garden Centre because I left early. On a warm to hot day it’s best to  do the driving in the morning before the sun starts to bite.  I didn’t have any dogs with me this time down and – barring incidents – I will not be back inAdelaide until late May.

My dogs are odd when it comes to cars. The little man curls up and goes to sleep – sometimes he comes over and sleeps on my lap. The other one, Chienna – she whines non stop. This is something we just don’t understand. We have had her since she was seven weeks old and she has grown up with us. She has never had a bad experience in the car but she does have ultra sensitive hearing and noises really stress her out, so perhaps that has something to do with it. We had her at the Vet. last week and changed the medication that she gets in the event of a thunder storm. We can also use these to calm her down if we ever have to take her for long dont Askdistances in the car. One of my very first dogs had cancer and the vet (at that time) wanted to put her down. I refused on the grounds that this was a pretty rough way to repay all her devotion over the years. I said I would be willing to nurse her, knowing that it would not end well. He gave her medication to  take away the pain and we nursed her, carrying her outside when necessary and just making sure she was comfortable. We only had her for a few months more but we all made certain that she was in no doubt that she was loved and cared for and one day I sat on the floor beside her, she put her head on my lap and she died. I was heartbroken – we all were because she went everywhere with us – making sure that anyplace we went to was “dog friendly’. Not as easy to find as you might think – although starting to become a lot easier today.

Jazz, conferences, Warships and dogs.

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

My FordI suppose the last post, quoting an American President, was a bit cheeky, but there you are. I don’t really bother with political commentators, but I sort of liked Reagan – not taking sides here, but liked the man.  My idea of planting the plants in pots rather than in the soil seems to be working – well they are still alive so that’s a plus. I didn’t go to the garden centre on the way back out of the city.  It was a long and not very productive day and I just wanted to get back home. These days, we talk a lot but we really don’t do much. The next conference is in April and I think I might have a cold, or something…   It had been my intention to pay a visit to the State Art Gallery where there is an exhibition of the works of JM Turner.  Hanging above my desk is a reproduction of  ” The Fighting Temeraire” and it would have been really excellent to see the actual painting.  Now, that’s interesting – the SA Exhibition is ‘Turner from the Taite” but the Fighting Temeraire  is part of the National Gallery (London) collection, so I should think it unlikely that the Temeraire will be in Adelaide and that’s a great pity.

There was a little girl  (Fox Terrier) requiring a lift down to Adelaide so I said I would take her with me. However, she was picked up from SADR and taken down yesterday, so she will now be settling in to her new home.  I head off to a concert tomorrow and that will be me finished with Adelaide until May and I will be there for a week for the General Assembly. Days are taken up, evening I have to myself. There is a dinner on the Tuesday  night, but I will not be attending that;  however not far from the hotel is a Pasta  Restaurant and I am a sucker for Italian and Chianti.  “She who must be obeyed”  cannot travel, so I will be there on my own – me a computer , a smartphone and a Kindle. What more does a fellow need – except his babies, and I will miss them. It’s been a couple of years since I was away from them for more than two days at a time.

We did a fundraiser out in the bush in the middle of nowhere – Jazz Under the Stars – and this is a photograph I took of the car in the middle of nowhere on its way to that ridge you can see up ahead.  Good going in, fun driving out in the dark.

I was always told that if there are two dogs the female generally sleeps with the male human and the male sleeps with the  female human. No one could have told my two because he sleeps Samsung the noo 036with me and she sleep with herself.  If I was really desperate and because I have small dogs, my hammock is way out of their reach and besides,  they don’t like the swinging motion of the hammock – it seems to upset them. I know this because I took one of them onto the hammock with me and he was not very impressed.  He fought to get down and I could not let him just jump down onto the paving  because he could really have hurt himself. I had to  put him back down to earth.   The hammock is outside under the pergola, not in my bedroom  :o)