Like many others, we are wondering where summer has gone. For a couple of days now, the Bureau of Meteorology have been warning us about a large rain band that would move in and stall over southern NSW. It did and it has, causing flooding all over the place. The 3 vertical pictures are from Julie driving home, just this side of Sutton (I was in bed with a migraine yesterday and recovering today).
The others are of the Yass River at the end of our paddock.
I posted pictures from about the same spot back in December, when the flooding was localised.
This time, the rain has been more widespread and it’s all belting down the river. All those little bridges on Yass River Road where we came up on the way back from Melbourne last time, will be closed for sure. And even if we wanted to get the bus out of the paddock, I don’t think we’d get very far. Julie swears she’s having a dream (no, not a nightmare) of being back in Seattle with webbed feet!
The dam that created Lake Burley Griffin has been opened.
We took a smallish load of washing into the Laundromat for a dry and fold, and Julie got talking to the lady, who implored her NOT to bring anything in on the weekend, as they were already swamped (yes, pun intended). There was also a guy who said he’d lived in Canberra all his life and had never needed a dryer, until this week. The inside of our shed is dry, but is also fairly draughty, and what is blowing through right now is warm moist air, warm enough to ALMOST dry the clothes, but also damp enough to not get them dry enough to put away into cupboards and drawers that are not completely dry themselves. We are really trying avoid a repeat of the mouldy smelling clothes.
Saturday. We went to Costco for a much needed shopping run to stock up on essentials like toilet paper and mango juice. Oh and Dentastix. We use these as treats for the dogs and they go through them even faster than they eat their food. God help us if we ever run out!
It’s RAINING.
AGAIN.
I haven’t taken a picture of our public road driveway because we daren’t stop, it’s so muddy. For that matter, the paddock track driveway is not a lot better.
And just when we need the Zook the most, it’s off at the mechanic’s place for a comprehensive review of what needs fixing next week. I don’t think we’ll get stuck on our tracks, but both of them are pretty damn slippery. Pictures in today’s set include a shot taken on the way home from shopping and one taken by the webcam in the windscreen.
You can also see that with our new awning setup, we can fit either of the cars under it for unloading in the wet. And our patio (i.e. the green mat) is completely saturated underneath, with water sloshing up around my boots in some places.
And today, I did the unthinkable. I drove out to the bore pump. Not because it was raining, which it was, but only lightly at the time. Not because I didn’t want the exercise. But because the paddock is too wet to walk in without getting very wet footwear. Starting to think I should buy some Wellies.
Monday. At least we have had one day of sun to dry the ground out a bit. I’ve managed to have a bit of a walk around to survey some of the driveway damage and check yet again on the river. Not as high as it was, but still flowing VERY strongly. It looks like the poles in the river bed have done their job of catching the larger debris.
Saturday of the Canberra Day long weekend. I had a driving job last night and got home at about 11pm, so I slept in until my phone woke me up with the 9:30 alarm to take my morning meds (must not be taken on en empty stomach). Stepped outside and saw that Queenie was down. On investigation, found that she had her ankle twisted in fence wire. No problem, she’s done that before, so proceeded to cut the wire away, but she didn’t get up. As it happens, Rajah is in in the same paddock and he was standing there looking concerned. While Julie called the owners, I tended to her as best I could, feeding her small pieces of carrot, while Rajah, behind me, kept nudging me to remind me that he was there and didn’t want to miss out. Just like a bloody big puppy dog!
When Nicole (Mum) arrived with Aggie & Ellen, we set about trying to get Queenie to stand up. When it became obvious that she was having difficulty, Nicole called the vet, while we kept supporting Queenie as best we could, especially when she sat up a bit, holding her upright for as long as she would stay there, to keep some blood flow to her legs and temporarily put her internal organs back where they should be. Horses can only be down for a short time before complications set in. Much of this involved sitting in the mud with my back to a warm horse, pushing with my legs and arms as much as possible! We learned as we went along. We even tried using the front of the Zook to get some height, but what we (and the owners) didn’t fully realise was that she needed to get up on her own. A horse is bloody heavy! The more she attempted to sit up, the more tired she got. But then when she did sit up, she drank when offered water. These are good signs apparently. We also supplied some blankets and pillows to provide a bit of padding for when she fell back onto the ground. Julie’s job was pulling on the halter to try to get her moving forward as she stood up.
When the vet finally arrived about 3 hours later, he gave her a shot of painkillers intravenously and she perked up almost immediately and was on her feet within minutes, albeit pretty lopsided. Wow, can we get some of those drugs, please? The picture shows me holding her up on her left side as Nicole walked her around the paddock, with Rajah walking around so that he didn’t feel left out. Like I said, big puppy dog.
We knew she was feeling better when she dropped a rather large poop just after she stood up, Then, after we had walked her for a minute or two, she stopped to eat some grass, let go with an almighty pee, followed by the biggest, loudest and longest fart that either of us have ever heard. Man, that must have felt good!
Meanwhile, the people who run the sheep, and who are building the new house, had a visit from a friend who is a Qantas pilot, who dropped in for a quick visit in a (probably) hired helicopter. I kid you not, it’s all go, out here in the paddock!
Their son Tom is looking after the dogs (for a price) whenever we are away.
Speaking of which, we are now in Sydney. On the way, as we crested the hill overlooking “Lake” George, which has been almost bone dry for longer than I have been in Canberra, we peeled off into the viewing area, like almost everyone else. It has water in it!
Here’s a comparison picture taken in Jan 2011, showing the water WAAAYY off in the distance.
We’re staying in the refurbished Airport Hotel in Arncliffe, so that we can catch a train into the city tomorrow (Sunday) morning to see the Harry Potter Exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum. We’ll drive home after that and then on Monday, the job is to go through the storage unit and dig out everything we will need for the USA trip. Because we will be severely limited by luggage weight this time, I’ve already dug out Julie’s warm and waterproof jacket, which I will wear, as well as the PINK ski jacket for her. Julie is NOT a pink person. Don’t know where she got it, but it’s finally going to be useful.
Dinner was at the local pizza shop with great service and equally great food, plus a bottle of Chardonnay Pinot Noir. Note self when buying wine by the bottle: Pinot apparently means bubbly. Julie only had 2 glasses, while I enjoyed it so much that it went back to the hotel room where I finished it off, which is quite rare for me. But then, I wouldn’t be driving until late afternoon the next day.
Sunday dawned with a clear blue sky, although we didn’t actually see that part. We checked out, put our stuff in the car, then walked down to the train station, stopping to pick up some good coffee and cakes to supplement the delicious leftovers from last night. It was only a relatively short walk to the Museum, via a brief detour through Paddy’s Market (of course). The exhibition was fascinating and worth the trip, and the ramblings through the rest of the museum was equally interesting.
We were walking back towards Central Station and starting to wear down, when I steered us into a hotel that seemed to have a strong food component (rather than just grog). Excellent choice. The opportunity to sit and recover, as well as a good meal, worked wonders.
We apparently just missed our train, which is the all-stops, so rather than sitting in the humidity of a station platform buried underground, we caught the next train and got off at the transfer station at Wolli Creek, so that we could at least sit in the beautiful breeze, which made the 20 minute wait much more bearable. The trip home was uneventful, although we stayed on the freeway longer and turned off at Gunning, but it was punctuated by rest stops to stretch the weary backs, after the unexpected exertions yesterday. We both have sore muscles on top of other sore muscles. They will be worse tomorrow!
Monday. They are. Went down to our storage unit and pulled it apart, finding almost everything we need for the upcoming USA trip. In today’s picture set, flood debris on the walking track (with the bonnet of the ride-on mower in the foreground), debris and damage to one of the log jams, HUGE mushrooms in the paddock where I was mowing the walking track, and more water in the dam than we have seen since we have been here.
Wednesday. Julie called me at work to say that her employment was being terminated, as of the end of next week. Oh wow, we need that like a hole in the head. Of course, she has again crashed into depression. Not without good reason of course, but it’s like living with a Mother bear whose cubs have just been taken away. I’ve alternated between trying to be supportive, getting sucked into a verbal fight and staying out of her way.
Update: All is well again in the paddock. Julie has lots of leads to follow up, including some casual work at the laundromat, as well as some permanent opportunities. I borrowed from the property owner, a hand hoe. He asked me to take good care of it, as it is a “family treasure”. Phil explained to me that they had picked it up in the wilds of Russia and that it is a farmer’s hand tool. As with many tools procured from some of the “real” people of the world, the ergonomics on it are just perfect, with the blade at just the right angle. I’ve used it to lay bricks (of which there seems to be an almost endless supply where we are) into the driveway track, as well as the tracks leading through a couple of the gateways on the property. On one, I’ve effectively built a raised road through the water that collects in the area near the gate. Although I have padded the bricks down with the tyres on the Zook, the next step is to REALLY test them out by putting the bus over them, which will be a couple of times over the weeks as we prepare to set up the campsite to leave it for 3 weeks and head over to the US of A.
This time, we had decided a long time ago, that we would spend a couple of days on the beach in LA, followed by 5 nights in New York (because Julie’s never been there and I want to see the 9/11 Memorial now that it’s completed), before spending a full 2 weeks in Washington State, catching up with family. Really looking forward to that! Duncan has promised to teach me to ice skate properly, since my level of competence is currently only at “upright and mobile simultaneously”.
Late last week, I was driving into work in the Zook and the speedo suddenly went to zero. Of course, if the speedo reads zero, the odometer isn’t registering distance either, which has the potential to really stuff me up for running out of fuel, as I rely on resetting the trip meter back to zero when I fill up with fuel, so that I know when to fill the tank again. And there is the odometer reading 249,573.3km, about to tick over 250,000km within a few days and nothing is happening! So that afternoon, I took it into our friendly local mechanic, Terry Cooper of Coops Mechanical, who works from his home up a side road off Sutton Road. After a bit of investigating, he pulled the speedo cable out from the bottom end, or rather, he pulled out 2 segments of it! Unfortunately he omitted to plug in the wiring loom at the back of the instrument panel and I now have NO instruments at all. He was most apologetic when I called him the next day, but for the most part, I can get by until we leave it with him for most of April when we are away in the USA.
Even more scary is that last night and again tonight, Julie has gone sleepwalking. Last night, she was calling loudly for Kelly (who was quite snug and warm in his own bed, thanks very much) to come with her and “save the sheep”. Then suddenly, she was out the door and off towards the driveway. At least she was vocal as she left the bus, but even so, I only had time to put some external lights on, grab a torch and catch up with her before she got too far. Scared the crap out of me.
Tonight however, she was out the door with no warning, so I had to scramble to do all that and then try to find her in the dark. Fortunately, she was heading across my field of vision, from the gate at the END of the driveway, past the front of the wood pile, towards the dam, so I was able to head her off before she got near the dam. She wanted to talk to the frogs in the dam. That then changed to wanting to find some frogs, because they would be good in tomorrow’s calzone! OK, so I got her back inside and by this time, I was the one who was stressed. So I was still up when she got out of bed again, and blocked her from going anywhere near the door. This time she wanted to go swimming. Where? Hell if I know. The river? The dam? Ugh to both of those. Anyway, she went back to bed and I followed shortly after, to find her swimming IN the bed. Treading water, I think. I finally got her snuggled up and couldn’t help it – a fart slipped out. The response: “Ooh, I just blew bubbles.” At least I had a good laugh over THAT one. She’s handling the job search situation OK, but clearly there’s an awful lot of stress under the surface. She’s been known to sleepwalk before, but not in the 8 years that I’ve known her.
In between all this activity, the bus has to go in for its annual safety inspection next week, which of course involves getting it out of the paddock for the day and taking it into Queanbeyan. Unless Julie has some work that day, she will be genuinely “homeless” for the day. “Shopping!”, as she would say. Actually, she will probably be browsing the op shops for some new work clothes.
In fact, the bus was due in for said inspection on Wednesday. Tuesday night, the rain set in. Yep, you guessed it, there we were, with everything battened down, ready to go, and I stepped out the door and felt the ground go “squish” under my woolly boots. And to make it worse, some contractors arrived to make some changes to the way flood water drains away under the walking trail into the river, chopping up the public road track even more than it was after the last heavy rain. We ain’t goin’ nowhere! We did however manage to get into Queanbeyan to do some shopping at the op shops, where she found black pants and jacket suitable for interviewing. As it happened, she received a call in the shop, inviting her to an interview the next morning.
Our next opportunity for getting the bus tested is next Monday, the day before we leave to stay the night in Civic, before catching an early bus to Sydney, which of course is leaving no scope for anything to go wrong. So it’s going to have to be the day after we return from USA, which is also the last day we can get the inspection done. Cutting it fine either way!
Sitting here on Thursday night. The interview went well today, although the job involves a lot of dictaphone work, which won’t mix well with her new hearing aids. Suddenly, Julie again comes bolting out of bed, out the door into the dark. Great, here we go again. This time, she wanted to go down to the seat overlooking the river to watch the birds. What a pity it’s so dark and there are no birds to see! Honestly, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried!