Sunday Morning. Chook Chat.

It's going to be quite warm here today, around 30 and last night and this morning the Eastilies have hit with force.  Everything is being blown around.   When the wind drops though it will be hot.  I'm not very good with hot weather so should be out there doing me jobs now...but it's too windy for me.  Gosh I sound hard to please and really I'm not.  Hot coffee, good book, outside...it doesn't take much at all.  Just no big winds and hot weather please.

We haven't seen any sign of the fox since the killing but have been offered the use of a tried and true home made foxtrap and will get that next week and set it up out the back.   A big problem we have is that our chook pens are big and not all the chooksheds in the pens have a door so can't be shut up.  Because of their size not all the pens are netted over the top but they are high fences with wobbly wire that points outwards running along around  the top so the foxes can't climb up and over.

I have three pens in use at the moment.
*The one that we have just trenched and tinned, in use by my breeding chooks, not netted and wasn't trenched and tinned all around but hopefully safe now.  We are going to put a door on their shed so they can be locked up though.
*one with the HyLines in. The Hylines can be shutup but I don't always remember to do them
*and the 2 orchard pens that I have my AussieRocks in.  The orchard pens have a shared  shed that all the chooks get locked up in at night, but not all year round.  I start locking these ones up during early spring and hope I start before the foxes do.  I alternate the side of the orchard that the chooks can get to..
I also have 2 netted pens that I use for chickens, safe from crows and other things WHEN I shut the gates.

My problem is that by evening I am so sore and tired that I don't always think to shut the doors/gates.   The chooks don't *go to bed* until it's dark and by then I am usually finished for the day and ready for bed myself.   Really, because of my slackness in this area, we are lucky that we haven't lost more.  I did lose some a few years ago...We did a lot more work on the pens after that and seem to have been left alone since so I was lulled into what now has  proven to be a false sense of security.
If I only had a dozen or so chooks then a smaller totally prison-like pen would be easy to have.   I want lots of chooks so it means more work and some losses until we get it right.  Hopefully now we have.

It's still blowing a gale out there but I best be off...I need to make more coffee...

Wet Weather.

Husband spent most of the day pumping water away and though most of the puddles are gone the ground is still very soggy.  It is supposed to be fine tomorrow so that will give it a bit of a chance to dry out but more rain is forecast for later in the week.  

This is me standing in front of my car.  The water is now gone but it is soggy and slippery.







To boot or not to boot.

The shed the HyLines use has water in it.  I  put dry hay in there for them, to keep them dry.



More than half of this pen was under water.

The water was being pumped out of these 2 hoses for most of the day.  We had a pump in the old duck pond and another in the hole we have dug for the wishing well.  The ground is so wet that the holes would refill as soon as the water was pumped out.

This is the old duck pond, it is around 6foot x 10foot and 2 foot deep.  Because it is the lowest part of the yard it acts as a sump and the ground water seeps into it.  Today it has filled and been emptied a few times.

Our area did receive a lot of rain, more than 43mm overnight, but we still need heaps more to get the dams up and able to cope with the Summer demand. 

Windy Day.

The Southern end of town copped a bashing a few days ago and it has been wet and windy here since.
We had the Grandaughter sleep here Sat night and thought we'd take her out for the day on Sunday.  Visiting family, having an *Adventure*  getting her out of the house...

We drove South, down Nannup way.  It was WET down there too.
We all had a wet and wooly time but it was fun and we arrived home in the dark so I was in the dark about this until I went awandering around the yard this morning.     

Spoke to the son this morning and he said that it was very wild and windy here yesterday.  I'm glad I wasn't here as me being the SookyLaLa that I am it would have scared me.   

Of course it's nothing like what other people copped but it's given me something to write about.

We, Hubby, will take the posts off and straighten them.  The bananas might ripen.

A Stormy Night.

It's stormy and cold here today which is to be expected seeing as it is Winter but after some of the warm days that we have had it's a bit of a difference.  I was thinking that it could be an indoor all day kind of day.

The fire is going, the woodbox is full, the kettle is on...what else do I need.

Son rang earlier to see if we had had any damage as he'd driven through town and seen trees down, roofs off, SES people out working....
I took the camera with me whan we had to go in and he was right, the southern end of town has been hit quite severely.

Someone's shed.  And trees from the corner of the park are down.

Roofless houses through there.

Insulation shouldn't be here.

A massive tree is down here.  Notice the tin wrapped around the post.

There's a car behind there, under those fallen trees.

Can't go that way...

We live down the other end of the town and we had no damage at all.  We were lucky.  A few years ago our area copped the damage so it all about the luck of the draw and a good reason to keep up the insurance.

It is still quite blowey here but no longer raining and the sun is trying to shine through. 
Storms are forcast for the weekend so maybe a tidy-up outside wouldn't go astray.

Queensland, I'm Thinking Of You.

I have been outside most of the morning trying to catch up on a few things that I was too sore to do yesterday.  And as usual I was playing the *poor me* card...too much to do, I hurt, I can't do it...I came in for lunch and to watch the midday movie...

Instead of the movie there is coverage on the cyclone that is heading towards Queensland.  I am quite ashamed of myself, having a pity party over here when there are thousands of people over there that are in danger of losing their homes, their possessions and maybe their lives.  I really feel for everyone over there in the danger zones.

Recently Queensland has had floods and storms and now this massive cyclone is on the way, due to hit tonight and it will probably wipe out a lot of towns.  Towns are being evacuated, people are boarding up their houses, some are staying in their homes...I am scared for them all.  I hope there are no deaths but it is a BIG cyclone, 500km across...that's going to do a lot of damage.

The weekend just gone, over here in WA, the southwest area had a cyclone warning and I was scared about that.  Ours turned out to be a non event but knowing how I worried I cannot imagine how the people in far north Queensland are feeling.

I sincerely hope things are not as bad as we are hearing they will be...