Hi folks
Let me firstly say that we are all fine. The house is totalled but we still have all our machinery and sheds, might even set up temporary accommodation in the wool shed (always said I looked like a bit of a sheep with my hairdoo !).
The devastation around here is immense and it will be sometime before our beautiful area regenerates and is restored to its original beauty. It was heartbreaking to see the dead sheep on the side of the road and yesterday equally heartbreaking to watch them digging big holes to bury them all. I passed a property that was spreading hay for their animals and saw the horses, cows and sheep running full pelt for the food. That is a really big problem here as 95% of the food for the livestock is now toast. It looks like a great big brown sand dune around here. Another thing we have to be careful of is the still smouldering trees as they can fall over onto the road at any time. We had a couple of big trees go on the property yesterday.
We had the insurance assessor out on Wednesday and we sat him down on our outdoor table (that table is of a plastic nature and was about 4 feet away from our totalled camper trailer - d'oh, that would have been good to have right now - and the bloody table survived !) I said to him that I would love to offer him a cup of tea but I couldn't quite track down the kettle at the moment - see, I still have a warped sense of humour !
Please don't be sad for us, we have each other. The girl is having fun shopping with her Nanna getting new clothes and toys. Yesterday I went to buy a laptop from Truscott Hi Fi and the gentleman that I always see there when I buy things (my NEW stereo is trashed - bugger!) gave her a Hot Wheels laptop and a game for the PC. People are so kind here. I had a bad moment in K-Mart yesterday, standing in the aisle trying to not look at everything and all I wanted to do was close my eyes as everything I looked at reminded me of things that I did have. But that is the key to it all, they are just things and can be replaced.
At the moment, the company is putting us up at a Motel in Port Lincoln and we are treating it as a little holiday, poor Sarge though (our doggie), he is sleeping in the smokey smelling ute in the carpark.
Thankyou all for your kind wishes and I know you all want to help in some way, can you do this for us - keep on thinking of us and help us be strong.
Onward and upward, and on the positive side of all this, we will have a new home, collect new things, and above all, that stuff that we hoarded and didn't know whether we should keep or not... well, the decision has been made. All of our families have photos of us and the girl and my Mum has a video of her as a baby that I copied off for her - good idea !
Take care all of you !
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Monday, January 10, 2005
Paradise "Un"Lost
What an amazing couple of weeks !
Where do I start, and you know me well enough that I will go all over the place with this.
We had our first visitor since we have permanently moved and he stayed for a few days and it was nice to catch up with him. Played a bit of music (he was a member of the band that I used to play in) and drank and had fun. The Man, the Girl and myself then took a day trip to a place called Baird Bay (near Port Kenny, Sceales Bay and next on is Streaky Bay), to look at 2 acres of beach front property. Beach front ! NOT. Well, technically it is closer to the beach than Roxby but it wasn't worth even considering as it was extremely isolated, and the beach was not worth the effort of the 300+ metres (as described in the paper). I mean, if the beach was glorious, it would have been a definite go-er. Anyway, we went into the township of Baird Bay (the other property was about 5 kms out of the township) and looked around there for more prospective purchases. To cut a long story short, the property we enquired about was $350K and it is around a 4 hour drive away from the farm. Not so bad but I think we'll look a little closer and somewhere that is a little more populated. When you go out to your shack, I reckon about an hours drive would be better. (that is the average price of beachfront property around here so I think I'm gonna have to work a lot longer if we want to do this, or maybe buy a caravan or.... whatever, something will come up!)
So onto the next day...
We went to The Man's, Sister's in-laws shack about 40kms out from our farm. Took the boat as the kids wanted to have a go on the "Monster Tube" and the Brother in Laws boat motor was not built for the task of dragging screaming people around on an oversized, tube at excessive speeds. I even had a go. Yes, I braved the wrath of The Man at the helm of the boat promising that he wouldn't go too fast - HUH ! I thought having his sister in there with me would be a small guarantee that he would be gentle - HOW WRONG WAS I. We survived, and I waded back into shore to drink more beers. That night, we had freshly caught whiting for tea and drank some more. We didn't intend staying the night but I'm glad we did.
The next morning The Man and the Brother in Law (BIL) went fishing (it was a stinking hot day and I declined for the better of sitting on the deck of the shack, watching the 2 boys and the girl, canoe around in the bay, then return to get supplies of a fishing rod, cockles (freshly caught), some snacks, water and a reload on the old sunscreen). That was cute - they were out there for hours and had an absolute ball ! The older boy sat with the Sister in Law and me trying to con us into taking him to the next popular town to go cruising for chicks. We were quite happy to just sit and read so he missed out this time.
The Man and BIL returned with 8 whiting (not many but they are at the shack for another 3 weeks so I am sure that there will be more fish tomorrow!) then we all went out in the BIL's boat around to another bay and this is where things get magnificent !
Whilst travelling to this other bay (name will be omitted as I'm gonna keep this secret spot to myself), we were blessed with the presence of no less than 6 dolphins - imagine the girl's excitement when she saw some real life dolphins ! Woo Hoo, I can tell you, I was pretty excited too ! It was so cool to have seen them playing at the bow of the boat, weaving and bouncing out of the water. They seemed to be reasonably small so they may have had a couple of young'uns with them. We stopped at the bay and the girl went of with her favourite aunt, collecting shells and discussing life in general. The Man and BIL were busy collecting (and eating) fresh cockels for the future fishing planned. I went for a swim in the crystal clear water and whilst floating, realised that I am only 40kms away from this place and if I really wanted to, I could drive by there after work tonight - this truly is a magical place !
I'm in awe of how beautiful this region is. I'm gonna leave it at that today and hope that when any of you come to visit, we'll share this beautiful place with you.
Where do I start, and you know me well enough that I will go all over the place with this.
We had our first visitor since we have permanently moved and he stayed for a few days and it was nice to catch up with him. Played a bit of music (he was a member of the band that I used to play in) and drank and had fun. The Man, the Girl and myself then took a day trip to a place called Baird Bay (near Port Kenny, Sceales Bay and next on is Streaky Bay), to look at 2 acres of beach front property. Beach front ! NOT. Well, technically it is closer to the beach than Roxby but it wasn't worth even considering as it was extremely isolated, and the beach was not worth the effort of the 300+ metres (as described in the paper). I mean, if the beach was glorious, it would have been a definite go-er. Anyway, we went into the township of Baird Bay (the other property was about 5 kms out of the township) and looked around there for more prospective purchases. To cut a long story short, the property we enquired about was $350K and it is around a 4 hour drive away from the farm. Not so bad but I think we'll look a little closer and somewhere that is a little more populated. When you go out to your shack, I reckon about an hours drive would be better. (that is the average price of beachfront property around here so I think I'm gonna have to work a lot longer if we want to do this, or maybe buy a caravan or.... whatever, something will come up!)
So onto the next day...
We went to The Man's, Sister's in-laws shack about 40kms out from our farm. Took the boat as the kids wanted to have a go on the "Monster Tube" and the Brother in Laws boat motor was not built for the task of dragging screaming people around on an oversized, tube at excessive speeds. I even had a go. Yes, I braved the wrath of The Man at the helm of the boat promising that he wouldn't go too fast - HUH ! I thought having his sister in there with me would be a small guarantee that he would be gentle - HOW WRONG WAS I. We survived, and I waded back into shore to drink more beers. That night, we had freshly caught whiting for tea and drank some more. We didn't intend staying the night but I'm glad we did.
The next morning The Man and the Brother in Law (BIL) went fishing (it was a stinking hot day and I declined for the better of sitting on the deck of the shack, watching the 2 boys and the girl, canoe around in the bay, then return to get supplies of a fishing rod, cockles (freshly caught), some snacks, water and a reload on the old sunscreen). That was cute - they were out there for hours and had an absolute ball ! The older boy sat with the Sister in Law and me trying to con us into taking him to the next popular town to go cruising for chicks. We were quite happy to just sit and read so he missed out this time.
The Man and BIL returned with 8 whiting (not many but they are at the shack for another 3 weeks so I am sure that there will be more fish tomorrow!) then we all went out in the BIL's boat around to another bay and this is where things get magnificent !
Whilst travelling to this other bay (name will be omitted as I'm gonna keep this secret spot to myself), we were blessed with the presence of no less than 6 dolphins - imagine the girl's excitement when she saw some real life dolphins ! Woo Hoo, I can tell you, I was pretty excited too ! It was so cool to have seen them playing at the bow of the boat, weaving and bouncing out of the water. They seemed to be reasonably small so they may have had a couple of young'uns with them. We stopped at the bay and the girl went of with her favourite aunt, collecting shells and discussing life in general. The Man and BIL were busy collecting (and eating) fresh cockels for the future fishing planned. I went for a swim in the crystal clear water and whilst floating, realised that I am only 40kms away from this place and if I really wanted to, I could drive by there after work tonight - this truly is a magical place !
I'm in awe of how beautiful this region is. I'm gonna leave it at that today and hope that when any of you come to visit, we'll share this beautiful place with you.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Oscar the Cockaleechie Kitten !
OWWWWCH !
We have a new addition to the family in the shape of an 8 week old kitten. Traumatic as it was, I don't mind the little bugger (even though he tried to rearrange the veins in my right arm whilst I was trying to save him from the dogs that were at the place where we got him from !). The reason for the 27 or so scratches on my arm is also the result of attempting to put him in a box for the trip home. (The man said it reminded him of those games where an object comes out of the game and you have to whack it - I believe it was called whacker - how original, anyway I do recall scoring a few free tickets in my youth on that contraption). I had to nurse him wrapped in a towel (that had cat excrement on it !), for about 30 kms until we made it home. So Oscar is now slowly getting used to his new abode (the dog has been banished to the outer) and the girl was perturbed by the fact that this cute little kitten could do so much skin damage to her beloved parents in the quest for her desire ! I guess the fact that it wasn't ripped from it's mother early and placed in a pet shop and conditioned from an early age was a huge factor in it's timid behaviour.
The man has been playing on the tractor today, doing a spot of ground rearranging. The back of the house will have a pergola and paved area and whilst he was in the mood, the tractor was employed - but wait ! What do front end loaders and ground have in common you ask ? Underground electrical cables of course, and yes he found it ! That had ceased the supply of the house water pump (until the extension cords came out), but wait, there's more. Today, infact a moment ago, the house water poly pipe (which he was extremely careful to keep avoiding), jumped out of the dirt and managed to cut itself on the loader bucket - IMAGINE THAT ??? So, another patch job until that gets fixed properly. And where, I hear you ask, was I whilst this was going on ? As far away as possible from The Man as I tend to get annoyed with him talking to the machinery and blaming it for all his short comings !
Now, my turn. What's a person if they can't take the piss out of themselves. Let me start with "I am okay, nothing happened to me !"
Ahem... i crashed my car
Yes, I was driving down our picturesque roads, turned the corner, looked into the back of the car for a second and voila, I was in the scrub "dancing with trees". Luckily, I was only travelling very slowly and I think my Guardian Angel was very alert at the time ! The worst part about it was that I had to report it to the police as it was more than a thousand dollars damage. "Are you injured M'am, Only my pride !"
Anyways, the car is in the crash shop and it should be all fixed next week.
Christmas was good, we travelled to the big smoke and spent a few days there and then back up to Roxby to clean the house (SOLD) and back to the farm the next day. New Year was a bit of a fizzer as that was the day (New Year's Eve) that I crashed the car.
Oh well, it is 8pm and we haven't even thought about tea yet, (the cat has been fed, of course !) and I don't hear the trickling of water outside so I am assuming that the water pipe has been repaired so it will be safe to go outside and complete the inspection of The Man's excavations.
We have a new addition to the family in the shape of an 8 week old kitten. Traumatic as it was, I don't mind the little bugger (even though he tried to rearrange the veins in my right arm whilst I was trying to save him from the dogs that were at the place where we got him from !). The reason for the 27 or so scratches on my arm is also the result of attempting to put him in a box for the trip home. (The man said it reminded him of those games where an object comes out of the game and you have to whack it - I believe it was called whacker - how original, anyway I do recall scoring a few free tickets in my youth on that contraption). I had to nurse him wrapped in a towel (that had cat excrement on it !), for about 30 kms until we made it home. So Oscar is now slowly getting used to his new abode (the dog has been banished to the outer) and the girl was perturbed by the fact that this cute little kitten could do so much skin damage to her beloved parents in the quest for her desire ! I guess the fact that it wasn't ripped from it's mother early and placed in a pet shop and conditioned from an early age was a huge factor in it's timid behaviour.
The man has been playing on the tractor today, doing a spot of ground rearranging. The back of the house will have a pergola and paved area and whilst he was in the mood, the tractor was employed - but wait ! What do front end loaders and ground have in common you ask ? Underground electrical cables of course, and yes he found it ! That had ceased the supply of the house water pump (until the extension cords came out), but wait, there's more. Today, infact a moment ago, the house water poly pipe (which he was extremely careful to keep avoiding), jumped out of the dirt and managed to cut itself on the loader bucket - IMAGINE THAT ??? So, another patch job until that gets fixed properly. And where, I hear you ask, was I whilst this was going on ? As far away as possible from The Man as I tend to get annoyed with him talking to the machinery and blaming it for all his short comings !
Now, my turn. What's a person if they can't take the piss out of themselves. Let me start with "I am okay, nothing happened to me !"
Ahem... i crashed my car
Yes, I was driving down our picturesque roads, turned the corner, looked into the back of the car for a second and voila, I was in the scrub "dancing with trees". Luckily, I was only travelling very slowly and I think my Guardian Angel was very alert at the time ! The worst part about it was that I had to report it to the police as it was more than a thousand dollars damage. "Are you injured M'am, Only my pride !"
Anyways, the car is in the crash shop and it should be all fixed next week.
Christmas was good, we travelled to the big smoke and spent a few days there and then back up to Roxby to clean the house (SOLD) and back to the farm the next day. New Year was a bit of a fizzer as that was the day (New Year's Eve) that I crashed the car.
Oh well, it is 8pm and we haven't even thought about tea yet, (the cat has been fed, of course !) and I don't hear the trickling of water outside so I am assuming that the water pipe has been repaired so it will be safe to go outside and complete the inspection of The Man's excavations.
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