The Clean-Up

After a busy week in town I came back to Taggerty last night. It was very still all night and some of this morning, with smoke hanging around obscuring the horizon and irritating eyes and throat. It's still pretty black out here, but if you look carefully along the blackened ground, a soft fuzz of green is appearing everywhere. 'Weeds' said one neighbour, 'food for the animals' said Kerrin, 'land recovering' was my comment. The plants are just getting on with the job at hand, growing.

Down at the local cfa shed where we dropped in to see if the chefs needed any more hands, one of the locals who hasn't lost her house but who is always helping in the community was looking pretty drained. I asked her how she was and she replied: 'I'm not really thinking about that, I'm just getting on with the work, that's all we can do'.

I 'got on with the job' for most of the day, then realized I needed a break when I tried wheeling a bucket of water in the wheelbarrow with very wet results for my gardening gloves that were sharing the ride. I stopped and went in for a drink, then found myself sinking into a sense of overwhelm for a bit. After recognizing that and expressing it to Kerrin I felt ok again and was ready to focus on just the immediate task - planting a passionfruit against the solar shed.

Kerrin was busy putting yet more sprinklers on our roof to make sure every inch of house is protected! I finished watering the passionfruit, then took the mattock up to the little dam to clear out blackberries. There were only a few but phew those roots just go on forever!!!

The wind came up then and suddenly the little spire of smoke in the black ridge across the way leapt into life and so did the walkie talkies. The firies were on there way with trucks and hoses, their voices taking on an edge that isn't there when they're just on patrol. Our channel sprang to life and neighbours reported four trucks stationed down the bottom of our road ready to fight.

I got on with watering the orchard and we kept an eye on the smoke. The hare or rabbits had been in the orchard again so my silverbeet and celery are ground level again and the new carrot tops have been stripped back to stalks. One of the grevilleas has been ripped out and even the horseradish was nibbled at :( We've redone the wire on the gates yet again in an attempt to foil those pesky rodents.

By the time I was finishing in the orchard we could hear the firies joking amongst themselves, a nice sound, they only joke when the fires are contained. The wind had swung around to help them and immediately the billow of smoke went back to a thin spiral. Right now the house is just about rocking in the wind but it's still from the south so it's our good fortune, maybe someone else is cursing it.

It seems that the forest around Rubicon is still burning but contained so most of the smoke this morning was coming from there. Sad that so much country is still burning and so many animals, insects, birds etc suffering. The wildlife people have been in the forest behind us for the last couple of days, keeping an eye on some more wounded koalas. The local store is a koala nursery with 30 being rescued out of the eucalypt plantation. They found 5 koalas dead there. I guess it was good there weren't more, but 5 is a lot to lose. I don't know how those left will manage as the eucalypts are to be cut down and chipped sometime soon.

We're heading back to town tomorrow so we can get to the Corner Hotel in Richmond for a fire benefit. There'll be a strong contingent from Taggerty so it should be fun.

I've heard a number of stories now of city people burning themselves badly in strange accidents - probably the best was the volunteer at Whittlesea going for a joy ride on a Harley and then hopping off the exhaust side - ouch! So all you sympathetic city people, just look after yourselves so you can keep helping the bush.

There is so much to be done, a lot of which will have to wait until things like the toxic soil situation (due to computer melt downs) is sorted out. The bush community will be welcoming willing hands for a long time to come. The community spirit which has been so extraordinary over the last two weeks will do us all good if we can keep it going.

The pain of the fires has touched us all, opening hearts and connecting us in unexpected ways.
Let's keep that going,

love Marg

Black Stumps and the Air Filled With Ash

Hello from the 'burbs,

It was hard to leave last night, but here I am back in the office.

Yesterday we started the day by cleaning up around the house again. Picking up old bits of building wood that had somehow never been cleared and raking more dead leaves which seem to be falling as fast as we clear them. Then under the house. We thought it was pretty clear under there, but I raked and filled buckets with dead leaves for what seemed like an age, while Kerrin variously removed old nails from wood to be dumped or carried my bucket loads to the trailer. Then we sat on the garage edge and watched a family of blue wrens, one colorful male and his three soft brown companions, as they joyfully harvested the insects from the ground we had cleared earlier. Such a beautiful sight seeing the wildlife dancing on the soil against a background of green forest.

We are blessed here, with so much green still behind us.

Tuesday we drove down to Buxton for some supplies and on to Narbethong to check on friends and land marks. We experienced great relief to see the Igloo still standing and the Bucky Pub - many memories in both places, then stopped for a while and took some photos of Sid's place or what was left of it, some burnt out old tanks, buildings with walls just gone and roofs collapsed down, the cafe tables and chairs sitting as though waiting for customers, blackened and silent. In Narbethong we drove past Tudor House and then realized what it had been, but were delighted to find Wombat Cottage unscathed, the herb garden out front still green miraculously despite the lavender which most people now loathe because of its highly flammable oil content. How is it still there when lavender everywhere else is just black stalks? King Henry's has gone, all the old junk cleaned up by nature's hand, just gone, I hope he got out.

All along the way were just hundreds and hundreds of blackened stalks with the tops missing, the forest burnt quite beyond recognition and many many houses gone. We saw some surviving houses - how would you live there now with your neighbours dead or gone and the trees horrible reminders of the night?

Kerrin has stopped seeing flames when he wakes, a good sign. I have stopped worrying about why I wasn't there and am accepting it.

Yesterday afternoon we started on the front of our place, wanting to get the fences done and some semblance of the place being loved. We cut out a lot of the old grevillea with its blackened roots that used to be covered by blackberries. No blackberries now. We cut and dragged and stacked and cut and dragged and stacked, then drove it out into the bare paddocks and left it to rot. It will be good habitat for lizards and little birds for a while. We still haven't seen any snakes, I wonder how they managed.

Now I'm back here and preparing to start work. It will feel a bitstrange at first, but my body and mind are adapting, listening to the familiar bird calls, doing the familiar beginning of the day things.

The transition between town and country is going to be harder for a while.

Thanks for all your support, I think these blog letters will continue for a while, so let me know if you'd like me to take you off the list. For some people this is the first letter they've had for a while. I'm sorry about that but my address book wasn't duplicated onto my laptop so only the people who sent me mail could be added. We're still getting calls from people we haven't seen for a while who are concerned about us.
If you know someone who knows us, please let them know we are ok and if they'd like to receive my emails could they write to me,
love Marg

A Light Breeze

The clean up continues here. We're taking lots of leaf litter and burnt wood and spreading it on the burnt ground in the hope that it will act as mulch and protect us from losing topsoil. So far the wind has been kind, very still or staying southerly until this morning when it shifted to a light northerly which has cleared the smoke a bit.

As it lifts we're beginning to see the extent of the fires in our valley, and to once again be grateful that we have a house to be cleaning up around.
It's been quiet today with no chatter on the walkie talkie, perhaps everyone is feeling more secure now.

There was a fresh spiral of smoke on the mountain behind us when the northerly first came up, but it settled quite quickly. Probably just one of the old gums that came down, still smouldering inside. It would be nice to get some rain, just a gentle fall to put out some of those coals and to settle the soil. It feels as though the ground is waiting and ready to burst into renewed growth with just a little encouragement.

Yesterday we were down at the little house working on cutting the roasted grapes off the vine, hoping to save it, when Kerrin called me over. There, coming out of bare earth, are three great green shoots, each about 10 cm long and each carrying a beautiful fresh flower bud, the Madonna Lilies are going to flower in spite of it all!

We went up to Alex yesterday for more water fittings (yes Aim we still didn't have the right ones!!!) and I bought some silver beet seedlings. I need to have some focus on the joys of what is to come as well as clearing up from what has been. I planted them in odd spots through the orchard last night, rejoicing to see that we seem to have stopped the hare from getting in.

Another surprise - I thought the celery had gone, it was brown and shrivelled, but now in the centre of some are little green shoots. Nature is persevering. And under the lemon tree, in some magical way, two pea plants have sprung up. I remember planting the seeds weeks ago and had given up on their germinating.

I received an email this morning asking for support for wildlife, and as we looked at the eucalypts next door which burnt and are to be pulped some time soon, I wondered how many dead and wounded animals are in there.

The Wildlife Rescue team are doing what they can but it's a massive task. That area was full of kangaroos, wallabies, echidna, snakes, lizards, birds, koalas. Our neighbours found a koala in one of their small gum trees the next day. He's been checked by Wildlife volunteers for breathing problems and I think got the all clear so he was one of the lucky ones, although his home is gone and probably his family.

We've seen a couple of kangaroo but nowhere near the usual numbers. Even though the wombats in the gully are a nuisance, some recently even digging their way up the hill towards our olives, I hope they were able to escape the heat. There have been a couple of scorched birds sighted too, with browned feathers but still able to fly. I thought of them as I cut the grapes off, leaving them on the ground for birds rather than putting them in the compost. There is very little food for wildlife at present and I was delighted to see some of the usual bird activity around the orchard which is still quite green.

Well it's time to get on with the clean up again. More ash, more burnt wood, more leaf litter.

After The Fires

The fires are contained and the wind is still being friendly for us. We've had two days of family coming up and helping us to clear the fence line of debris and clear out under the tank stand. Pre-fires I was quite happy to go up to the tank stand and pick blackberries for breakfast with the dogs (Pluto loves them and is pretty good at picking them for himself :). Post-fires I looked at that and was horrified that I could have left it like that. So lots of muscle power and some lovely family time, and now the tank stand is looking quite pristine and the fence is almost clear of ti tree.



The smoke is still just hanging although there's a bit of breeze now. I imagine it's hanging around everywhere. We're taking some cod liver oil to protect the lining of our lungs and we have face masks but they're so uncomfortable when you're working hard. I gave up on the goggles too and then got some ti tree in an eye, ouch! So working with ti tree means wearing goggles despite the sweat.



We're all rather grimy and are counting our blessings that we have a good water supply still and it's cool enough to light the stove for cooking, so there's plenty of hot water for showers. We really must put solar hot water in for next summer!

Ah so much to do! It's best not to look at it all but to just look at the one task in front of us in the moment.



We can still see the fires burning across on the ridge to the west, glad that it's so far away. There are several spirals of smoke when it clears enough to see, and a flare up of flames earlier today. The pines are still burning but the mountain behind us seems to be free of fire now. Rain is forecast so we are doing lots of positive thinking about that.

Well dinner's ready - broccoli patties I think - it smells good. Kerrin is a good cook and we are about to sit on the veranda to eat. It's nice to be able to relax.

news from the bush

Yes we still have some - we are sitting in front of about 200 acres of bush which is still mainly green, it's hard to believe. The first night here I was frightened, so the best thing I could think of doing was to walk around singing very loudly: 'all day, all night, angels watching over me my lord' thanks Lisa and the choir, I felt you behind us in the struggle. Then from the veranda I heard a bass joining in and Kerrin and I sang a resounding duet to the bush and the flames and the smoke and most of all the angels. I think they heard.

The Taggerty Progress Association met last night to discuss what needs to happen here. Some people were still under threat from the pine plantation that is burning. It's being watched carefully and no lives are threatened although a number of houses are. We'll hear some time this morning how things went. The fire is still to the north east of us so no danger.

It's very still this morning so the smoke is settled thickly around us and we can't see much, but we are part of the Taggerty Heights group (named with tongue in cheek of course) which I believe ABC radio announced were the best organized group. Our street all have walkie talkies and are in pretty constant contact through the day. We sleep with it on through the night, but there were no messages either from our group or from the firies who are looking after us last night. No news is good news and we had a reasonable sleep.

They lifted the road block into Alex last night so Alex fire threat must have calmed down too. We'll turn the local ABC on soon as they have pretty good updates. So Kerrin will go in and get some supplies today. We've decided to start a new cuisine up here: Taggerty Smoked products: olives, grapes, trout smoked even before you catch them - the local ladies had a good laugh over that one then fell silent as we thought about the dead trout and other suffering wild life.

Yesterday we walked over some of the blackened ground and felt sad to see fresh kangaroo dung sitting on the black. We saw a female with a large joey in her pouch last night, struggling to hop away with a sore back leg. The local wildlife crew are great - hope she can be helped. A sense of humour is always there, Georgina who is our local wildlife contact, says we'll be seeing more echidnas standing in the middle of the roads looking a bit confused and saying: 'where are the ants?' I hope a few come visiting here as all the local ants are currently demolishing what is left of my hopeful crop of singed sweet corn :)

Enough from me, there are many who are suffering. I know that some who read this have been through the fires too, and some have been through floods. I hope your loved ones and homes are safe and that you are being nurtured through this time.