Heat waves been freakin’ me out! The past week has been hot and dry, and for someone who lives surrounded by tall eucalyptus forest, that weather produces an alarmed mind bending effect. Fires are part of the landscape here, and looking around at the trees, the burn scars from the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires can still be seen on the oldest of them. And it’s here at this point that the more pragmatically wired part of my brain steps in and takes over the entire conversation:
Dude! Are you listening to me? What the f#$% is wrong with you? The last big fires were in January 1983, and sure it was dry that month at only 25mm / 1 inch of recorded rain. But man, that rainfall came on the back of a very dry 1982 where the annual rainfall was way below average at 489mm / 19.2 inches. And you got how much rain last year? Oh that’s right 934.4mm / 36.8 inches. Get it together, and stop whingeing bro’!
Phew! Not to say that even now a fire is out of the realms of possibility, but glad the old mind has a solid grasp on the abstract art of statistics. Sadly, having attended a hippy dippy school for under privileged kids in years seven and eight, then sitting next to the school bully in year nine at the more English than the English grammar school, my grasp of the deeper lore of mathematics never fully recovered. Statistics was different. I first encountered that side branch of maths at University, and it kind of made sense. Truthfully though, there’s no way my brain could ever originate those abstract equations. Using them is however, an entirely different matter. The equations are clearly tools to be used for specific applications.
People of course have widely diverging opinions in this matter, and sadly a few years ago, some rando on the interweb advised me that statistics is: Maths for dummies! Thanks for the thoughtful feedback, yeah.
It’s funny how a person learns as they go through life. As a child with a feeble grasp of the abstract art of mathematics, I’d be sent off each Sunday morning to help my grandfather with his extensive vegetable patch. Despite his own humble beginnings, the old bloke survived World War II as a bomber pilot, returned home and applied himself to the abstract world of big business. By the time I knew him, he was well financed, but not without his foibles. However, having grown up on a farm, he did have a large vegetable patch which was all laid out in nice rows upon what was once a tennis court. My mother probably played tennis with her sisters and friends on that court. But when I knew that land, there was only ever a good steady supply of home grown vegetables.
As a kid the old guy loomed larger than life. In the garden I recall he wore a raffish looking terry towelling hat. Terrycloth being a cotton looped sort of material which can absorb large amounts of water. The hat was white, and a bit grotty from memory. The rim sported a band of seasoned sweat. Probably needed a wash. Hmm.
Anyway, a week or two ago, Sandra and I were enjoying gourmet pies (lamb and rosemary to be precise) in a beer garden at a small country pub about forty minutes drive north of here. They do good pies, and conditions were idyllic. It was a quiet day, and there were only a few other customers enjoying the surrounds.
One of the customers was wearing a blue floppy terry towelling hat with a wide brim which hung down low over his face. The dudes solid build suggested a person who worked with his hands for a living. The face was wide, the eyes peering out at the world from just below the rim of blue cotton twinkled, whilst the mouth was set in a smile. Blond curls hung out from each side. He had the look of a surfer more used to reclining on the beach enjoying a beer than being out among the sharks. He was the trickster. And the set of the face suggested satisfaction with the gourmet bakery products.
Sandra and I reclined at out leisure after having consumed our pies. The day was warm, and there was no need to hurry away from the well watered green lawn surrounded by an otherwise dry landscape. They do say that hubris is a problem, and it maybe so, for at that very moment, on an otherwise still day, a rogue wind gust lifted both of our plates off the table and slammed them into our faces. Well that was a surprise. Seeing this, Mr blond curls had a look of mirth upon his face. In the spirit of the moment, we both laughed at the misfortune. Everyone seemed pleased with the outcome. The bloke promptly left, and the air became still again.
Anyway, heading back home again I mentioned to Sandra that I’ve got to get me one of those terry towelling hats. A bit of searching around, and they’re still made, even for my extra extra large head size (note the Editor added the additional ‘extra’ to that sentence). Cool. Two blue hats are now on their way. I look forward to getting them so I can have style like yo granddad, but perhaps without the err, foibles he was burdened with, the cheeky old scamp.
As a sort of postscript: we’re in the middle of a four day heatwave. It’s been extraordinarily hot and will continue to be so over the next few days. Strangely, about half an hour ago a monsoonal thunderstorm storm lit the sky up with lightning and the rain fell heavily for many hours. We’re not out of the proverbial woods yet in terms of summer dry weather, but at least some of the more dry sensitive fruit trees will have had a decent drink of water.
I’d intended this evening to write about the deer which have been so problematic this season. Yet mysteriously, the trickster with the blue hat sort of jumped into my writing consciousness instead. Sometimes life works out like that. Yesterday morning as we were recording the video on the many concrete staircases here, I could hear one of the neighbours shooting deer on their property. It’s hard to maintain one’s train of thought in front of a camera whilst not too far away large calibre rifles are being used – but the show must go on! Anyway, the deer are a problem here this year, and other than humans, they have no local predators. Soon, I too have to step into that role. It distresses me, because unlike every other forest critter, we’ve all seemed to manage some sort of rough balance with the produce on the farm. The deer are unlike all the rest, but we’ll see. Makes me wonder what the guy with the blue hat would do, the trickster seemed pretty cool, but I failed to ask him the question.
Yeah, it’s been hot this week so making additional concrete steps is a good way to spend an hour or so. Then you can retreat back into the house where it’s sort of cooler. We don’t have any air conditioning, mostly due to environmental concerns. Everyone is different, and that is a line we’ve drawn in the sand. We save our energy hogging badness for things like visits to nearby pubs to grab a gourmet pie. Anyway, earlier in the week, a cement step was poured.

The steps usually take about a day for the surface to dry, and probably a week to properly cure. With a dry surface, we can make another step, so that works out to be about a step per day. Then another step was made this week.

There are three distinct orchards here, and the sunny orchard has really dried up this week. Only a few weeks ago, the grass looked lush and green.

The shady orchard has a more solid tree canopy with the fruit trees being at least five years older. Plus I believe the soil there has received far more feed over the many years. The difference does make me wonder if there is a need to feed the soil far more heavily in that sunny orchard.

Even the dogs, who were bred to work in the hot Australian conditions rounding up sheep and cattle, are themselves looking hot and bothered.

Still, nothing lasts forever and storm clouds are gathering over the horizon.

Another job we’re able to do in super hot weather is construct steel rock gabion cages. Earlier in the week, we sewed together a slightly shorter cage. And on the hot day, we hugged the shade whilst dodging the skin burning sunlight.

Once the weather cooled for a day or two about mid-week, we were able to place the steel rock gabion cage in it’s position on the second line of cages.

The plan at this stage is to complete a second row of steel rock gabion cages in that location. This will require a further four cages to be constructed and filled.
In breaking produce news:
With the very hot weather this week, the chilli’s in the greenhouse have begun to ripen. We use a lot of chilli in cooking, and the fruits dry really easily and well. The plants in the greenhouse are perennials too, and are meant to keep producing for about six years.

Tomatoes have also begun to ripen rapidly in the heat. The earliest variety to ripen are always the yellow tomatoes. They also seem to have the best taste.

The red variety of tomatoes are a bit larger than the yellow, and so they need a bit longer to ripen. But the earliest are doing just that. We tend to save seed from the earliest and best tasting varieties.

Turmeric tubers are now in their third season in the greenhouse, and this year they’ve grown better than any earlier year.

The various plants sometimes surprise me, and the other day we spotted several self seeded silverbeet plants growing in a garden bed – as you do in hot and dry weather with no additional watering. They really have had no watering and/or care and attention. The leaves they produced were excellent tasting and the plants will recover and grow right through the winter months.

Onto the flowers:



The temperature outside now at about 11am is 30’C (86’F). So far for last year there has been 88.4mm (3.5 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 42.2mm (1.7 inches)