Flood time again!

This Australia Day finds John and myself marooned by floodwaters, the Wilson River having risen nearly 10 metres in 48 hours and broken its banks, flooding the valley (well it would). Mind you, I'm not complaining: here we are, marooned on a subtropical hill in paradise, the village store only a minute down the road and a bit further on the Eltham pub with the floodwaters slipping quietly just under the bridge. We might nip down for a beer and to listen to some local music later. Here are some photos:

BOM river heights data for the Wilson River shows the rapid rise in water. How many m3 I wonder?

Large camphor laurel trees standing in their own reflections down near Boatharbour Rd

A view of Eltham village heights from the valley on Eltham Rd

John brings the Hilux to a halt upon hitting some low floodwaters

Looking on the railway bridge and the valley from Johnston Road

This is where you can hire a tractor. But not today.

A row of pecan trees fetlock deep in the water

Eltham and Booyong valleys, where a small river can suddenly become very big ...

Holiday visitors: dear friends

You can't make new old friends. Good old friends, are infinitely precious. Kate and I have been friends for about 35 years ... Many precious shared memories! Kate and her husband Graham and the two younger children dropped by for a visit (Kate's oldest, Maddie, is best friends with Tess). As of old, we sat till late on the deck, talking, laughing, and playing music. Kate did much lovely singing, Graham played guitar (he's a fantastic player, and in open tuning at that!) as well as woodwind; and I played anything I could get my hands on (ranging from my 18th century flute, through tin whistle, recorder, clarinet, to guitar). We went through as many O'Carolan's tunes as we could remember: lovely! It was one of the nicest musical evenings I had for a long long time.

Sadly they could only stay a short time but it's a lovely thought to know that there WILL be a next time!

Here's hoping we see each other soon again Kate!!

Holiday activities

As our John was on call all holidays (he occasionally takes on the temporary role of airport manager for Lismore regional airport) we couldn't go far away, or go camping, which we all would have enjoyed. But our days were pleasantly filled in and around home nonetheless. On many days John would have to inspect the airport and the runway to check for damage or incidents (a fence down and an ensuing cow on the runway would play havoc with Rex's Saab turboprop, I can tell you).

Some days I would accompany John, just for companionship. And it's interesting. I particularly enjoy spotting wildlife (all wildlife sightings have to be recorded). If I can I take photos, of course! Here's an example:

Who's that hiding in the hedge? (click for bigger)

It's me!!

Building update

Trevor our friend and builder had committed himself to getting the deck on before Christmas "so you and your folks can have Christmas lunch on the deck". Bad weather prior to the holidays made it seem unlikely, as there was much to be done. But the Thursday before Christmas Trevor turned up with a broad smile and a veritable gang of carpenters he had drummed up: five experienced woodworkers and a couple of young apprentices, who all worked like Trojans for us. It lifted the spirits to see these craftsmen working fluidly, good music playing on their portable sound system, and watching the deck come to life.

And sure enough, the deck was laid and we had a lovely Christmas lunch on the back deck, overlooking the valleys and hills of our Northern Rivers home.

Here's a photo of Tess doing some gentle calisthenics on the deck :-D. The wood is spotted gum, by the way: a native Australian hardwood.

Today (Thursday 12 January) two of the lads have returned from their holidays. Robbie and Slim have just started working on putting up the verandah roof structure. Stay tuned for more updates soon!

Brief intermission

An unplanned hiatus in the blogging due to ongoing computer / internet connection problems ... coupled with malware afflictions as well. As the university was closed during the Christmas break, I couldn't access our IT support desk, and the whole situation tried my patience (very frustrating when everything freezes time and again). Despite our IT guys' best efforts this past week, attempts at repair failed, and it all culminated in the crumbling demise of my sturdy SCU laptop which had been serving me so well these past years  :'-(

I'm working with a small loan laptop for now. I'll try and catch up in a few posts.

The rain in Spain ...

... may fall where it may, for we have a roof over the back quarter of the house! Yay!

It needs gutters still. By the way, the new gutters, alas, will be the wrong colour (upon delivery they turn out to be too light in comparison with the older guttering which is in fact Heritage Red). This is because I chose the incorrect colour. Me. Moi. (I nearly chose Heritage Red. Nearly. But I changed my mind at the last moment. :-X ). So, in time, if you come and visit the house, make sure to point out that the gutter colours don't quite match so I can squirm a bit and shuffle my feet on the ground a little and mutter things about not being that good at colour matching ...

I now know that all Queenslander houses traditionally have Heritage Red guttering. Knowledge is a great thing.
:-D
.

Happy Birthday Briony!

Eighteen summers young :-)
And of course, what Briony really wanted for her birthday was an authentic Indian headdress. Which she received! Here she is larking about with Yarrow, who is resplendent in her white dress (a present from Sinterklaas).

Happy birthday darling Briony!

The rain in Spain ...

... falls mainly on The Grange. The past few days the skies have bucketed rain onto our village, while just on the other side of the valley where my parents live in Eltham, nary a drop fell (!!). This hasn't boded well for The Grange building project because it is now, precisely during this drippy time of course, that the old section of roof has to come off and the new section is in the process of being fitted. The boys (Trevor, Robbie and Slim) have done what they can with tarpaulins these past few days but even so the interior rear section of the house has occasionally looked like the interior of a waterfall. Progress is slow: the boys are doing their best but it is impossible to work on a slippery wet roof in the rain. So once the rain falls, work stops and the boys pack up and go. Here are two photos taken today:

Heavy skies; the boys racing to cover the roof...

They nearly managed, before the rain fell and work had to stop for the day.

Building progress

Building has been delayed by heavy rain the past week, alas. And there was a bit of a setback when the key cantilever beam, which is to support the deck roof and hipped roof, was placed incorrectly. Sigh.... Even though I *reminded the boys beforehand*. Mind you, the roofing represents a fairly complex engineering structure, so I guess it's understandable that errors are made ... after all, they're only men ... ;-). So, the beam had to be taken down and re-placed: a hefty job as it weighs more than 100 kg. Unfortunately, once the old skillion roof was removed, the skies opened and we had a torrential downpour ... So I brought out the buckets, mops and towels ...

But today the sun shines and work seems to be progressing steadily. Here's a very recent photo of the current  happy chaos :-)

A brief intermission on Stradbroke

Claudia (Briony & Bella's mother, Dr C. Catterall, environmental scientist) kindly invited us to her holiday house on Stradbroke Island for the weekend, to catch up with our McAdam girls B & B; Claudia's sister (this being Professor C. Catterall) and Carla's daughters (both also doctors, of the medical type though). John's good friend Geoff Nette (also a Dr, a marine biochemist who runs the research station on North Stradbroke Island) and his lovely wife Jo Kaspari were there too. And a lovely weekend it was too: along with the excellent company and really interesting conversations, there was plenty of good food and drink, and lots of sun, sea, surf and soft squeaky sand beneath the feet.

The headlands are gorgeous!

Lovely walks to be done on Stradbroke.

This is a previous photo of a Straddie wallaby, which I took last year . But we did see plenty this time round too.

Home Beach: a nice easy beach for children who can play safely in this tidal gully. Mind you we did some very good body surfing here too, out where the breakers are.

Building the back deck: project started!

It's taken months of frustrating negotiations with our local Council to finally get building approval for our proposed back deck. The deck is designed to complete the 'wraparound' of the verandahs of this house, and would enable us to enjoy the best views that this property affords. As was common in the early days of house design, the best view from the house was hitherto from the dunny window. (And why not...  ;-) ) .

Complying with Council requests and bureaucracy was a long, torturous and expensive process which I hope never to have to do again. Each step was fraught with costs: they requested not a plumber's report but an "On Site Sewage Management Consultant's Report" (cost: $1400 for the consultant and $900 to put the ensuing development approval through Council). They requested not a Rural Fire report (Neville Battistuzzi who is our local fire chief and who grew up here on the farm could have knocked one together for the price of a beer)... but a  report "By an accredited BPAD engineering consultant (cost: $550 for the consultant to walk onto the property and look and say "Hmm, not much fire danger here")... Anyway....

On the positive side: the deck and roof have been designed in conjunction with my friend and old neighbour Charles Howden-Ferme of Bangalow Heritage Building, using Burra Charter principles for the Queenslander House. The architectural drawings were drawn up by Michael Skinner, local artist and friend. The engineering was done by the excellent Steven Tilley from Greg Alderson and associates. I found these intelligent and flexible people delightful to work with and would highly recommend their services. On the sustainability / ethics front: all the timber comes from locally sourced, sustainable sources, milled locally (much of the timber is spotted gum, a local hardwood).

So now work has begun. It's very exciting.Our good friend Trevor Gale (Kel's Dad) is now our builder and he turns up at 7 am with his two workmen (Rob and Slim) and there is rapid progess: a delight after experiencing the geological pace of Council (Cf: it has taken18 months to get the plans through Council, but only a proposed 6 weeks from start of building till the deck is standing and roofed). Here are some early pics, after only a week of building:

Footings have been poured. Old stairs still there.

The uprights in position, held by braces. Lovely view!

Joists and bearers in place and some of the painting done.

Did you mean ...?

Well, no I didn't, but maybe, then again, maybe I did  ... ?   :-D

Hindsight is a good thing ...

Flying fox photo by Grahame McConnell

A barbed wire encounter

John, Briony and I were walking home after the monthly music jam session, when Bri spotted a flying fox entangled in the barbed wire of a fence. The poor thing had snagged its wing on the barbs and was flapping piteously. Not being one to leave an animal suffer (especially a native species and threatened one at that), Briony tried to untangle the wing from the barbs. The bat, sensing rescue, hung on to her, so John and I stepped in to help. Briony and I held the bat while John tried to free the wing. Understandably, that would have been painful for the bat, so all three of us received a few swift penetrating bites (all things considered I thought the bat showed reasonable restraint). Didn't hurt too much: I've had kittens inflict more damage. Soon the bat was free and it struggled off into the darkness. All G, as Tess would say: the flying fox otherwise would have suffered a slow and painful death. All three of us were glad we were able to rescue it and we ambled home.

HOWEVER.

The next mornings' internet research showed me that there are several nasty viruses that can be contracted by being bitten or scratched by a flying fox, most notably the Australian Bat Lyssavirus (ABL), which is a bit like rabies. A lot like rabies, in fact, and is treated in much the same way. So now the three of us have to have immunoglobulin injections into the bite sites (that will hurt more than the original bites, I'm sure!!) as well as a course of rabies shots the coming days and weeks.

Darn. As John said "Probably would have been better to have let the blighter hanging on the fence!". But then, as Briony said to the doctor after he informed her that the inoculations would give several years' immunity against ABL and rabies "Great, now I can get to play with bats!".

All in all another adventure in the Northern Rivers...

The sad demise of Captain Rainbow

Get your hankies out, folks: this ends badly.

Our Eastern Rosella couple (the male became known to us as Captain Rainbow because of his beautiful colours) had returned to claim the nesting box as theirs once again, having bravely fought off other bird couples vying for the use of the box. It was astonishing to see how Captain Rainbow and his Missus teamed up to defend their territory, with success but often leaving them puffed out, drooped on their perch with their heads together. But they prevailed and the nesting box was deemed theirs, and the Missus started laying ... Every morning and afternoon Captain Rainbow would call her with his characteristic 'peet-piree' and they would fly off together to feed, making happy chut-chut-chut sounds as they flew. During the day he'd perch nearby and every now and then a questioning tone would emanate from the box, and he would reply reassuringly, chut-chut-chut "I'm still here my darling"..

Then this last weekend, we decided to leave the back door open during the night, as the kids were camping in the backyard in a tent and there were some storms predicted. We wanted the kids to be able to get in quickly if the weather turned bad. Normally, of course, the house is closed at night, for we won't let the cats hunt  nocturnal wildlife...

(You can see it coming)...

In the morning I walked outside to check on the kids in the tent, and saw under the house brightly coloured feathers festooning the ground, and one of our cats sitting smugly with feathers around. I recognised the feathers immediately, so with a falling spirits I checked for our Eastern Rosella couple ....  And there was only one grieving bird calling calling calling for a mate.

The past few days has taught us that it's Captain Rainbow who met a feline fate, and his Missus is still grieving for him badly. Eastern Rosellas mate for life, so this is a tragedy for the young family. I really feel for her: life will be very difficult for her now, and I feel guilty about letting the cats out this one night.

The Galaxy Song (with metric conversions)

This morning at the breakfast table we were having a conversation about astronomy, moon phases and the like (as you do), and Yarrow wanted to know at what speed the Earth revolved. So I sang her Monty Python's "The Galaxy Song". The astronomical facts and figures in the song are tolerably accurate, but as they are not in metric, Yarrow couldn't get a 'feel' for the distances and speeds. So I promised her I'd convert the figures to metric.

THE GALAXY SONG

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred [MW1] miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second[MW2] , so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day[MW3] 
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour[MW4] ,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years [MW5] side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick[MW6] ,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute[MW7] , and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

---

 [MW1]1448 kph

 [MW2]30 km / sec

 [MW3]1,609,344 km / day

 [MW4]64,374 km / hour

 [MW5]same!

 [MW6]Australian astrophysicist Bryan Gaensler has even stated that Eric's estimation of the thickness of the Milky Way, at 16,000 light years, is more accurate than the official 'textbook' figure of 6,000 light years :-)

 [MW7]By conversion, it’s 19,312,128 km/min, but according to google research, it’s 17, 987, 547.5 km/min

Briony is on her HSC journey

Briony is in her HSC year and one of her electives is visual art. Last Tuesday John and I went to see the year 12 HSC visual arts exhibition held at the school. I was very impressed with the quality of the work!

Each artist provided an interpretive statement of their work. Briony's describes her collection of paintings (not all pictured):

"The encompassing concept for my body of work is of the girl represented through the series, and her passivity. Her situation is outside of her control, yet she does not panic. The octopuses represent negative emotions (depression, isolation), whilst the fish, representing positive aspects of life such as family, creativity and hope for the future, guard her form and lift her towards the surface and the light. The works in which there are no fish represent the nadirs we can reach; however, the final triptych is one of hope, as the girl and the fishes leave the octopus alone in the depths."

Gorgeous work, Briony!

Spring has sprung?

Our millefleur bantam hen has once again successfully fended off the rats and other predators and has hatched nine little babies. So cute ....

Here I am holding one in my hand: a sub-atomic particle of fluff that says "cheep-cheep-cheep". Note the fluffy feet.

On looking back over the posts in this blog, I notice that it was *exactly* a year ago that she hatched nine chicks. She's so consistent :-D

I now pronounce you ... Wife and Wife

Last weekend most of our local family travelled to Mittagong and Berrima to witness the gorgeous and loving wedding of our Oceane (nee Burckhardt) and her life partner Sarah Campbell. The statement "I now pronounce you Wife and Wife" was met with huge cheers, as was "you may now kiss the brides".

It was a very moving moment. The whole wedding was fantastic and beautiful and we had a lovely time. Thank you Oce, Sarah and families, for putting on such a joyful event!

And if you're wondering, no, alas same-sex marriage is not legally recognised in NSW. Not yet, anyway. (For those who are worried about gay marriage and are graphically inclined, you can view a graph of the consequences of gay marriage here). 

But we sure can recognise love.

Before and after ... the front door lock

Some of the original locks in the house are long gone, but some notable ones have survived. But my, the world was enamoured of paint in the 1900s! Most of the original locks on the house have been painted shut, as have many of the brass window fittings and locks. Even the elegant and cleverly designed window clips that hold the sash windows open have been painted over.

One of the notable locks on the house is the front door lock. It was heavily painted and was quite stiff. I pulled the lock off the heavy front door and had a go at cleaning it up & restoring it. Here you can see the results: before and after. One the back is embossed "Sargent and Co" - and when I googled the name it appears the company is still going strong. I have written to them in the hope they can tell me when the lock was made, which would help us date the house (1880s? earlier?), but alas no response yet. I'll add a comment to this post if I do get a reply!

Skirting the question... and more before and after

This is a section of the wall in the living room. Probably the house did not orginally have skirting boards (see the traditional original green goes to the floor). Skirting would have been expensive. This room did originally have architraves (though not all the rooms did). Sometime in the house's history this room was painted and skirting added (the cream colour stops short of the floor). Then in the 70's the room was stripped of both skirting and architraves, and panelled with the synthetic cladding, which was *truly* awful (and which we removed). The question then was: would we put skirting back, or not? In the end we did in the living room, though we've opted not to in the two 'simple' bedrooms, such as the one in the post below (More on 'simple' vs 'special' rooms later). We did find architraves in the original style which we used as replacement.

After removal of panelling

Walls restored, skirting added & architraves replaced

During and after: bedroom restoration

A bit quiet on the blogging side but much is being achieved on the restoration and farm front! One of the jobs is the slow and painstaking restoration of the interior walls. Some of the rooms had been panelled in the 1970s with a horrid synthetic multiply cladding, which we have been taking down (where it hadn't falled down already). Other rooms had simply fallen into disrepair (having been beautifully painted by Val Battistuzzi in the '70s and '80s in nice pastel shades... and then abysmally treated by the last owners). Despite having used a pressure cleaner on the interior house when we first moved in, the walls still require washing and scrubbing. Then the walls and ceilings are sanded. Then the gaps between the boards are filled with an acrylic elastic sealant. Then the painting (first by brush along the boards, then with a roller), in two coats. All in all many hours of work on each wall.

During ceiling restoration - early stages, new white coat. The walls are gap filled already.

Door and original lock restored

Ready to move in! This is now Yarrow's room.

Rainwater maths

Since we hooked the tanks up to the guttering, 77 mm of rain has fallen, which has filled the first tank to 3/4 of its height.  Given that the tanks are 22700 litres in capacity, that means the 77mm rainfall has given us 17062 litres of water. So, each mm of rain falling on our roof gives us approx 221 litres of water (not a bad deal). Our annual water consumption is 195,803 liters (well it was last year). Annual average rainfall in this area is 1793 mm, which should offer us a potential 396,253 litres per annum. Theoretically, that is: at times, the tanks will overflow. But in general, we should have enough storage, unless we hit a very dry spell.

Here below is an image of the impact of the last 77mm of rainfall on our local river, the Wilson River at Eltham.  Not unusually, it's risen by about 3 metres.

The cats get the best seats in the house?

An evening scene on a cold winter's night. Our wood burning stove is the source of heat (and we cook on it too quite often). The chairs are drawn in closer, Yarrow is reading a book on the floor in front of the fire (she's reading "Little Women" for school). Sunny and Inkling are in the best chair (got to feel sorry for Inkling with his leg in plaster), our 'new' cat Minnie - who we inherited due to the marital separation of our good friends Julie and Trevor - is on the wooden chair. She's still a bit wary of the other two, but that will improve. John's successfully solving the crossword with the help of his porter gaff.

You can just see a bit of the new skirting boards and architraves that I have mounted around the room. I love the rich warm colour of the native teak floorboards.

A homely scene :-)

It never rains but it pours :-) ... which is positive news in this case

Things are looking up :-)

John and I are getting out of the dip :-))). Mam's recovering (though it has taken a heavy toll); Pap's getting used to his new medicines; Anoush is home again from her long stay in the hospital in Melbourne; Marc is also out of hospital, has cheered up and has a new girlfriend (possibly the best thing for him). Our cat Inkling has a cast on his leg, and we might not have to have his leg amputated after all.

I'm climbing back up the hill of merriness and the sun should start shining again...



But wait! The sun isn't shining: it's absolutely pouring outside and I'm DELIGHTED! This is because John and I have connected the house to the huge new water tanks with stormwater pipes, polypipe, and other paraphernalia (I built a pumphouse for the pump too) ...  and I can hear the sweet sweet sound of liquid gold H2O pouring into the tanks. The first tank is already half full (so that's 11,350 litres of water in a little over 24 hours). We still need to connect a few things and get a plumbing approval arranged but we're nearly ready to harvest our own water. Just in time for the government and council rebates :-)


See the snazzy expandable linkage that John designed and built between the two tanks? That's to allow expansion and contraction of the tanks depending on how much water they contain. Clever hey  ....

The little pumphouse is made entirely of recycled materials and allows the pump to be accessed and receive maximum airflow without it getting wet during downpours.

It never rains but it pours? :-(

Seriously, for a while there things were not looking very bright... All manner of things went amiss, amok, awry, adrift. I was sad for a while ... which is why I wasn't blogging very much.

In a nutshell: my father was in hospital; then my mother went to hospital for a minor operation which went wrong and she nearly died; my brother Marc in Amsterdam was terribly ill as well as distraught for very real reasons; my sister Anoush suddenly had to have major back surgery. My relationship with my darling John was going through a dip, which grieved me muchly :'-( ... and our young cat Inkling got hit by a car (miraculously survived, phew). On a more minor note, the header tank at the top of the property collapsed, which besides losing our water, crushed the tank beyond repair.

My life felt like this poem, which I recall reading in a book by Spike Milligan:

Since I hurt my pendulum
My life is all erratic.
My parrot, who was cordial,
Is now transmitting static.

The carpet died, a palm collapsed,
The cat keeps doing poo.
The only thing that keeps me sane
Is talking to my shoe.