Mom and I spent today cutting up and burning fallen branches on the far side of the creek. We packed a picnic and kept two smallish fires going from 11am until dark. It's a really enjoyable way to spend the day - sunshine, nice surroundings (increasingly nice, as the volume of dead stuff decreases), moderate exercise and just enough risk of things ( Read more... )

My sister and brother-in-law came out here today to help with some chainsawing and clearing branches from the firebreaks. Two alpaca cria were/are due this month, so I've been keeping a pretty close watch on the alpaca paddock, but I was busy this morning reading Hornblower fanfic, cleaning the house and organising food for the day. Nothing unusual ( Read more... )

Many thanks to those of you who came to my tree planting day on Sunday. I've been away since Sunday night and today was the first time I got to see all the trees in their new homes. Nice work!
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I've just finished rereading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in preparation for Saturday and enjoyed it a lot this time around. I think I skimmed through it so quickly two years ago to find out what happened that I didn't give myself the opportunity to savour it much. This time, I liked the Voldemort backstory in particular, and found the ( Read more... )

a.k.a. The Third Annual Tree Planting Day

Second, FirstAbsolutely no pressure on anybody to attend, as I don't actually expect everyone I know to help me plant trees every year for the rest of my natural life! If you do happen to be interested, though, could you let me know if any of these dates suit you? (If you can see this, you're very ( Read more... )

Last weekend's weather and nearby fires finally brought home to me that in those conditions it would be impossible to protect my house, or quite possibly my life, with nothing more than garden hoses and mains water. Last Saturday it was 44C (111F) when I got home at 2pm and the wind so strong it felt like it was melting my eyeballs. I went out to ( Read more... )

I'm glad this didn't happen on Sunday or some of us might be a little flatter than we were before...

( A small impediment to the growth of some of our trees )

The Count:  525 plants in about 3 hours. No, wait, adding the ones dragonfly8 and psycho_tabby brought:  531 plants. 
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As previously advertised and despite hardly any rain (it's officially the driest winter on record so far):  Sunday 23 July.  All welcome!

( Details )

Since the social calendar seems to be filling up, let's say:  Sunday 23 July.

( In case anybody's free this Sunday afternoon and keen to endanger themselves for fun and food )