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.