Dirty fences and determined sunflowers

It's been one of those glorious autumn days at Taggerty, with a clear blue sky, warm sun and a light breeze. We had a lazy morning enjoying lots of fruit on the veranda, some of it local. Our oldest passionfruit vine has been prolific which is extraordinary because it is on the side of the little old house that caught fire on Bushfire Saturday.



The fire burnt right up to the house on that side - all the grass was burnt but has since come back and the house was only just saved by the local hero up the street. Since then we've enjoyed semi roasted passionfruit but also plenty of beautiful juicy fresh ones.

After our fruit brekky this morning we headed down to the little house with all our fence destroying gear. Fence pulling after a bushfire is a very dirty job and can be quite frustrating although ultimately satisfying. Here you can see a sequence of attempts on a post.




The next post proved too much for one so our neighbour Doug helped. He still wears protection over a burn on his arm from Bushfire Saturday.




The last couple of weeks we've noticed a number of unseasonal happenings. The old plum tree behind the little house has sprays of blossom at the top of burnt branches.



Many trees are coming back after the burn sprouting fresh green leaves. Some of these are deciduous and would normally have mature leaves turning autumn tones soon. I imagine the trees need this last spurt of activity to store enough energy to see them through the winter.



I expected any iris that had survived to be shooting about now, but was still struck by their resilience coming up from the blackened ground.




If nature can do it so can I, so I put aside my reservations and learned to drive the tractor today. I used to drive the old tractor but we bought this tractor just after I developed complex regional pain syndrome so didn't get to know it early on and have just left it to Kerrin. Today was the day to break through that block and it turned out to be very easy to handle.



Tired, dirty and hungry I was glad to leave the fences or what's left of that one, lying on the ground for another day. There is still so much fence to pull out I just don't want to think about it. One step at a time. On the way up the hill to the main house we stopped off at the big dam. The water level is down but it's beauty always calls us to stop a while and enjoy the peacefulness of the water.



We are blessed with lots of water storage so have been pumping water up from the big dam to the dam near the house. It's always a joy when the water comes gushing out.



I couldn't resist going into the orchard and just doing a couple of things before dinner :) That's always risky. Sure enough, it was a couple of hours before I could leave it and come inside. Kerrin just rolls his eyes when I head for the orchard, he knows he'll be cooking dinner again if he wants to eat before sundown.

It's the best part of the day for me. I lose myself in the pleasure of the moment, grubbing out fire weed, mulching, watering. I wander around with a pocket full of seeds - broad beans, beetroot and carrot today - and often just plant them where the whim takes me. There are always lots of surprises popping up in unexpected places. currently I have zillions of little cotyledons popping up amongst the carrots. I guess I'll find out what they are in a few weeks when they become more recognizable.

Just before I finished tonight I went down to admire my compost - lots of good worm castings helping out at the moment. On the way I glanced over at the old sunflower stalks, burnt brown in the heat of the fires. In amongst the brown were lots of happy new flower heads.

Smoke and sirens

Last Monday I went outside to plant a kangaroo paw underneath the old red box that grows so close to our veranda that it worries me. I love that old tree and it doesn't look as though it would land on the house if it burnt and fell, but with a strong southerly wind it could.

As I stepped outside I smelled smoke and my body tensed before my brain could tell me it was just the smoke from our stove. There is friendly fire and there is wildfire, but my nose couldn't distinguish for a moment and pictures of Bushfire Saturday are always ready to surface.




Later that day I was sitting sipping my tea and preparing to add to this blog when a siren started nearby. I was outside sniffing the air and looking around by the time Kerrin had come downstairs to do the same. Together we listened and decided it was in Cathedral Lane. Was it a fire or police siren, or maybe an ambulance?

The sound went on and on, going further and further up Cathedral Lane maybe. Police sirens don't go on and on like that unless there is traffic. Ambulances don't. It must have been a fire truck. No sign of smoke and the siren had stopped. We asked the neighbours later but no-one else heard it and no-one knew what it was about. One of life's unsolved mysteries.

Evidence of fire is still everywhere around in the affected areas, even in the brilliance of the grass. In our home paddock there is a clear line where Kerrin stopped the fire, but now the burnt half is a vibrant deep emerald green, whilst the unburnt half is just average autumn yellow green.



A lot of the dead trees have been bulldozed out along the roads now, so where there was thick bush there is now an occasional blackened tree. More and more often though, on the jet black arms of a dead looking tree, are spectacular clusters of green shoots sometimes running the whole length of a branch as the tree begins its recovery process.



I carry my camera everywhere and we often stop so I can leap eagerly out and catch the latest spectacular show of green. Each week the colors of the trees and land are changing and I'm keen to keep a record of how it unfolds. It's hard to believe just a couple of weeks ago our land still looked black from highway to mountain.



I started this post a week ago and just couldn't keep writing. Perhaps it was the meeting I attended at Marysville golf and bowls club, sitting in the shade of the old tree, listening to how things are being managed and knowing that a lot of the people around me have lost so much. It seemed wrong to come back here and celebrate new growth even though watching nature spring back is so hopeful.



I haven't driven into Marysville, it would seem intrusive when residents have only been in for a short time themselves. Everyone I've met who had to go in - cfa and wildlife rescue people - say it is hard to be there with so much devastation around and so many lives lost. One resident I spoke to, whose house is still standing (!!!) said it looks like a bomb hit, flattening all the buildings and leaving rubble.

I came back to Taggerty blessing the fact that we have a house to go to in between clearing up all the debris, and that we are both alive. I still look at all the burn around us and the patch of green behind us and find it hard to understand why our house survived.

One of the scary stories Kerrin tells is when, in the middle of the fires, when 70,000 eucalypts were filled with raging fire on our western boundary and embers were falling everywhere, the fire pump ran out of fuel. It's behind the house, away from the bush, but we have found embers there too.

Kerrin just got on with filling the pump with petrol, praying no embers fell near him as he worked. He took the risk and it worked. Last week, out under the old gum tree, I found a patch of burn we hadn't noticed before. Perhaps 20cm in diameter, it must have been where an ember fell and kept burning, maybe burning itself out and maybe going out from the spray of the sprinklers nearby.

Today we got going on the fences again. Equipped with gloves, pliers, wire cutters and a small jemmy, we started at separate ends of the same fence and met somewhere in the middle, sweaty and tired. I finished with a roll of reasonable wire for later use, and a lot of scrap wire that will go to the tip next week as the skip up at the store has been taken away.

Kerrin has been measuring so we can order corrugated iron to put around the house under the veranda. We finally settled on that as the best solution to the problem of leaf litter collecting underneath. We'll be much better prepared next time and no that isn't being pessimistic, just realistic. Global warming and Victoria add up to more bushfires but let's hope we never experience anything like this year's fires again.

At the end of the day we all chilled out a bit in the orchard. Kerrin and the dogs took advantage of my new compost bins to take a break.

Emerald Green Recovery March 17

We drove back up a few days ago, through the Black Spur. I am amazed at how my brain had glossed over some of the damage, maybe it was just too hard for my heart to absorb at first. There is a lot of damage between Healesville and Dom Dom and then amazingly it's ok for a while, until you reach the outskirts of Narbethong. There is so much burnt from then on, houses that are not much more than twisted blackened tin lying on the ground, the timber mills that must have raged hot with flame. Then some welcome sights - the Igloo with its Big Burger sign still out, Butters Cafe still open, the little white church still clean and white.




As we got closer to Taggerty I was ready for the blackened paddocks and the houses that were torn down in the fire's rage, but I wasn't ready for the emerald green! The grass is coming back (and so are a lot of weeds) and its brightness is such a stark contrast to the charcoal black of the ground that it is as though someone has strewn emeralds across the land. The sight of green is so soothing to eyes that are tired of black and still remember the red soreness of smoke for days and days and days.

The grass is greening but the mountain is browning as it becomes more and more evident how much burnt. At first sight it would seem that our whole mountain is going to be denuded of trees, but we went for a climb yesterday and were amazed at what is hiding in the blackness.

Climbing up the mountain from our side is always a bit arduous, but we found ourselves repeatedly stuck on steep climbs with shale underfoot that was shifting and falling. It was a bit hair raising and unexpected as we've climbed the mountain many times before with only a few patches of shale to navigate through. After a while we realized that there were countless rocks with bare clean faces and realized that we were walking through rocks exploded in the heat.



On that Saturday night, massive explosions were heard up the mountain and Kerrin eventually worked out that the small stone pieces that were hailing down on him like shrapnel were actually pieces of exploding rock. We had no idea how much had exploded until yesterday. In fact it's hard to remember what the landscape was like, but I think there was much more soil and more large boulders.




Then we began to glimpse little bits of green. Bracken pushing its way through the shale, new growth at the base of burnt tree trunks, small fern fronds beginning to uncurl under sheltering rocky outcrops and most startling of all, rows of young stems covered in small leaves appearing on big old blackened tree trunks. The bush is coming back.



The only sign of wildlife we saw were the birds, and in amongst the black there were very few of those. One lone butterfly was fluttering above the black, dancing in the sunlight for a while then gone. We met some of the bush inhabitants at the store yesterday - a big old koala sitting in a laundry basket and his two rolled up companions, young wombats curled up in towels. They were all on their way to Frankston to complete their recovery before being brought back for release. They all seemed very accepting of their human helpers and the wombats allowed us to gently touch their fur. I hope they received the loving blessing I sent with my touch.

Up the top of the mountain we sat for a while looking out at an unknown familiar view. We could see our land more clearly as there are less trees blocking the view, so we could make out the driveway up to the big house and the little dam. That used to be obscured by trees.



We could clearly see where the fire had been and the color of the Black Ridge across the valley was beautiful in its red browns and black. I took some photos even though the light was bad, only later realizing that in each photo there is a ray of sunlight coming through the clouds and falling on our house. One of those beautiful synchronicities which makes me recognize the greater plan of which we are just a little part.



Today we cleared more burnt fence debris and took it to the skip in town which is one for community use at present. Taggerty will need a community skip for a long time, there is so much to clear. We felt good to have taken one load down but it's just a little dent in what remains to be done. At least we can now see where the old harrows are - they had become overgrown with grass and we had wondered how we'd get them out. The fire fixed that!



Once we were up in town it seemed logical to sit on the verandah at the store and have a coffee. Gossy makes a great coffee and he's pretty good with the dandelion variety too. We sat and chatted for a while, caught up with some of the local news, saw some people we know. That's another change the fires brought, our store has been a hub of activity through the fires and beyond, and we, like other locals, are more inclined to stop for a drink now and hang out for a bit on the verandah.

Back at home. I've been working in the orchard - still battling the wildlife raiders who this week chomped the new broccoli seedlings off at ground level. I guess we're doing our bit keeping the wildlife fed but I'm beginning to think I'll just have to disguise the vegies better. The carrots are all being eaten still so I guess I just need to harvest them while I can still see where they are. At last we have two little pumpkins growing but I wonder if we'll get enough sun to ripen them, it seems a bit late in the year. The plants are all a bit confused - the sunflowers are trying to flower again, perhaps to make up for all the beautiful sun faces that were scorched in the burn.



The local bees are feeding off my marjoram which has decided to flower (I'm not sure when it's supposed to flower but I doubt whether it should be now). Our bee keeper neighbour explained that any flower is better than none, but what the bees really need is eucalypt flowers for pollen and nectar. They'll be waiting a while for that I guess.

Well it's time to go sit on the verandah while Kerrin poaches us some eggs for lunch, then to sit some more while we eat and enjoy the view.

Nature's Resilience March 10

We drove my favorite drive today, over the Black Spur. From Narbethong to Dom Dom saddle there is hardly a sign of fire, then down to Fernshaw (the reserve in the middle of the forest) there are a lot of blackened trees and tree ferns, but the miracle is there is still so much green there, so many areas that haven't caught as well as those that have. There are gullies that look untouched, and then gullies that are burnt out, as though someone dropped fire from heaven in random places.

Fernshaw itself looked quite green still, those European trees would have helped, but beyond that down to Healesville the fire must have been intense and was widespread. As we drove through we realized that if we hadn't witnessed worse, we would have been appalled at how much has burned in that stretch. The trees are black and the ground is black, but the trees still have dead brown canopies that used to be lush leaves.

I guess that still suggests hope of life, different to the forest around Narbethong in which the trees are stark black tapering stalks with no canopies and the earth has that silvery ash color to it that suggests it is sterile.

In amongst the black, south of Fernshaw, with everything burned around them, are three old tree ferns standing together quite close to the road. They are tall and brown and give the suggestion they are leaning towards each other, still holding up strong green fern fronds, perhaps in their quiet wisdom discussing how the world has changed around them.

The Black Spur was burned out in 1939 and the mountain ash were replanted, which is why there are so many trees all about the same size and age, all stretching up into the sky to find the light. Underneath are the tree ferns, countless numbers, keeping the mountain green and lush even on a hot summer's day. To me they are the wise old ones of the mountain.

The wind was a major factor on Feb 7, but the green of the rainforest section of the Black Spur probably kept enough moisture in the air to slow the fire down and keep it cooler. Nature is amazingly resilient and I will look forward to my drives over the spur each week, watching the regrowth. I have a favorite meditation spot there where I sometimes stop, looking down into a gully, a sea of green. It's still there :) :) :)

There are so many beautiful things coming out of the devastation of February 7. This is just one of them
http://helpflowerdalenow.blogspot.com/
It seems that so many people are still sending heartfelt love and gifts to the survivors of the bushfires. If you wish to help, have a think about what is realistic for you and then get in touch with someone who might be able to put you in touch with someone who knows someone...you know how it goes. Help will be needed for years for those who are rebuilding their homes and their lives. At the moment their is an inundation of help from all quarters so chances are you'll be told that just at the moment you can't help, but keep asking.

Later, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a month or two, maybe in half a year, your help might be invaluable.

Right now you can still help by sending loving thoughts out to all those who are hurting, just sit quietly for a minute and feel the love in your heart, then extend that out to those in need.

Fences, dirty dogs and the Bucky Pub

More kangaroos this morning sitting in the black (you'll need to click on the photo to enlarge it enough to see them), heads down busily finding tasty new shoots. The big male sitting off to the side a bit in the long grass, keeping watch. A couple of joeys were out of their pouches, sitting close to Mum and mimicking her movements. Then something alerted them and they hopped away down the line of ti tree and into the next paddock, not hampered by a fence in between anymore, the fence is flat on the ground and so is the gate.

There were lots of birds around today too, kookaburras staking their territory and magpies trying to get a go at the worms in the orchard before the currawongs could take over. I haven't heard the lyrebirds for a few days but we've heard them several times since the fires so are confidant there are still two families in the gully.

This afternoon we got back onto the fence line: more cutting, pulling, untangling then folding the wire that's too damaged to be reused and picking up a myriad of little bits of wire, remnants of where the wire was so damaged that it was really brittle and broke off as we pulled. Lots of sweat, lots of black on everything including me.



Then tonight we went down to the Bucky Pub - it's not often that I suggest that but I just wanted to sit in there. When the fires started the rumour that it had burnt down was one of the things that shocked us into accepting what was happening. Then to hear it was still there, that and the Igloo, was so good. The kitchen was the same, the chef still able to tell me what was gluten free, the garlic prawns (go light on the cream) still as delicious
Sitting there, looking up at all the burn on the mountain, we marvelled yet again that the bushfires didn't take more homes.

Driving back to Taggerty, the cathedral is just black and brown, blotches and streaks of black and brown intermingled with no green until the eye drops to the base of the mountain. The green is so soothing that my eyes seek it out all the time. The roadside is gradually being cleared now of a lot of the broken blackened trees, and the grass is shooting, so although it's not getting back to normal (the new normal will be different), it's beginning to look more livable again. All the west side of the Cathedral is so burnt, our house was surrounded by bush and at the edges of that bush were fires. The house next to the bush behind us is totally gone, yet we were spared. The fires were enormous and fickle, unpredictable and unstoppable in so many places.

There was a flare up a couple of days ago out the back of Taggerty. Just a small flare up but if unseen, unattended...

We're driving back to town over the Black Spur tomorrow morning early. Every summer as I drive through the Black Spur I say a prayer that it will be spared from the next bushfire. I often visualize rain falling as I travel through, trying to keep my imaginative mind off any suggestion of flames. Trees and tree ferns regenerate so I know it will grow again but wildlife suffers. It's been one of the questions in the back of my mind these last four weeks, how much damage did it sustain?

My vegie garden is looking good now with the rainfall last week. The asparagus are still miniscule but looking sprightly again and at last the chard and silver beet look as though they'll make it, although they're only about 10mm high! I'm blaming the currawongs, the invaders from up north, for the broccoli leaves strewn carelessly on the ground at the base of the plant. It seems like a piece of random fun as other plants aren't touched!

The crickets were out in force tonight, enjoying the evening and not fussed by Schnooks' antics, leaping on one patch of ground after another but never quite working out what was making the sound. They (the dogs that is) came fencing with us today and then she went for a swim to cool off. Her normal drying off routine is to scrub herself along the dirt, but it's much more fun in the ash isn't it?



Well, it's only 9pm but I think it's time I took the latest edition of Earth Garden to bed and let the stories and ideas in there lull me into that beautiful relaxed state of mind that comes just before a long peaceful sleep.

Remember to remember still that the people you see in the street have their own stories, maybe bushfire, maybe floods, maybe joy, maybe grief. Most people wear a mask of 'I'm ok' but just underneath that, sometimes very close to the surface, is something else. Tread sensitively.

Letting it sink in

It's hard to believe what the country looks like up here, you might think you've got the idea, but if you come up you might just stop the car when you reached the burn and sit for a while, so the enormity of it can sink in.

We have had one or two 'roos coming in, different to the normal healthy group of 20 or so, then tonight all of a sudden they were there, maybe about 8, sitting on the black. They looked at me for a while then took off into the next paddock and I was sad I had disturbed them. It must be hard to find food with so much of their local haunts wiped clean of all green. There is bush behind us but not a lot of grassland. Tomorrow we'll call in at the DSE and see if they know what our local grasses are and if we can buy seed anywhere to start some regeneration.

Yesterday I was about to head off wood collecting when I noticed Schnook was very interested in the corner where the house joins the garage. Fortunately I looked as there was an echidna burrowing for all he was worth with Schnooks' nose in hot pursuit.

I called her off and moved some wood across to protect him, then rang the wild life helpers who are still resident at the Taggerty store. They arrived with gloves, a washing basket and a couple of towels. He really didn't want to be moved and I was feeling a bit ambivalent about calling for help as Melissa her colleague went to work with gloved hands and my garden trowel. Eventually, after much digging and squirming, he was picked up, a big prickly ball with a long wet nose, probably after the ants which have arrived this summer. I stroked his prickles and sent him a mind message of peace, he was safe and would be well cared for.

I was sad to see him go but Schnooks and echidnas are a bad mix, she worries away at them and they burrow into the impossibly hard soil. Melissa said they would check him at the store to make sure he doesn't have burns, then take him up onto the mountain so he can forage in peace.

This afternoon we saw some photos of baby koalas being fed at the store, so tiny and so accepting of help. Our wild life people come from a group called 'Aware' and are extraordinarily dedicated to their task.

There's Alex with the little Joey in a bag which she let me peep into - little bald head with folded back ears, perhaps the whole head being the size of a young child's fist. Every so often she would lift up the bag and simulate the mother 'roo jumping, up and down around the verandah for a while, then sit back down to chat again. And there's Michelle who is in charge here and looks so tired every time I see her. She's pretty jaded about the articles in the press and bigwigs arriving at the store and being shown some of the wounded.

A lot of what we see is beautiful but getting up at night to feed the animals and dealing with them when they are in acute trauma, that would be hard. I intend to do some training so I am of more use another time. Yes there will be other times, we all acknowledge that. Not in our area hopefully although it's quite possible.

We hear more and more stories all the time. I met someone yesterday (at the store again) who was in Melbourne with her dogs locked in the house up here. There were reliable reports that her whole street was wiped out and it took a few days to discover that not only was her house ok but so were her dogs, hungry and thirsty but ok. The cat was ok too in its outside run under the gum tree!

The other women at the store yesterday both worked at Marysville. One of them has been back and is ok with her grieving although still shocked and profoundly sad. I encouraged her to stay a part of the community, she was a part of the community and spent most of her days there in the business. There are plans to very rapidly build temporary dwellings, shops, post office, supermarket, internet cafe. So she can go back up there to shop, sit in the cafe, go to the post office, and most importantly, meet people. She will be alright although she knew many who died.

The other woman was acutely traumatised still, unable to sit still, her face haunted. The couple who ran the business she worked for died in the fires, and many other people she knew as well. She doesn't want to go back there ever. I wouldn't presume to think I could understand what she's going through, but I think perhaps her decision is right at least for the moment. It would take a lot of courage to go back and look at where so many you were close to had died. Perhaps she doesn't have the right emotional support for that in which case going back would retraumatise her rather than help.

We chatted for a while about the people of Marysville, the people we had met up with since who were ok, the ones who weren't. I wonder about some people who I haven't heard about and I wonder about others in our area who I haven't seen yet, the women at the Alex library, are they ok? I haven't been back there yet but I'll call in tomorrow, see if they're ok, let them know we're ok.

In some ways the Taggerty people are beginning to settle into a new way of being. We all feel closer although now the urgency is over there is less contact between people as they get on with clearing their own land. The store has become the meeting ground - we love going up for a drink (they make a good Dandy latte provided you bring your own dandelion tea bag) because we invariably meet someone new, have a nice chat, hear the news.

Today we pumped water down to the olive grove - one side of the drive is burnt out and the other is still green! I dug trenches around the trees that looked as though they might have a chance, gave the soil around them a good soaking and filled the trenches with water. I filled the old bath tubs in the hazelnut paddock with water so the wild life have somewhere to drink, and dug dead blackberries out from beside the shed - now how did they burn and the fire not touch the shed??? It's a lot easier to grub dead blackberries out that green ones but I still had sweat pouring off me and called it quits after I'd freed up the gateway into the burnt olives. Then I watered anything around the little house that might have a chance, and spread some chook poo and mulch around some of the trees.

Next Kerrin and I got on with cleaning up the debris on what were our fences. Gloves, pliers, wire cutters, shovel, more sweat and a few curses. We're getting there.

The beautiful sound of rain falling on the roof

I'm sitting looking out at misty rain falling on the hills across the valley in the last of the daylight. We woke to rain on the roof this morning, such a beautiful sound, and still no wind.

Yesterday we harvested some of the treees that had fallen over our fence from the eucalypt forest next door, careful to avoid standing under anything looking precarious. I took more photos of burnt trees and soil turned silver grey with ash - when I start a blog I'll put some of my photos in, it feels important to have a record of this time. Today when the wind was at its height we heard an almighty crack and crash in there, one of the old gums falling I guess.

Last night a neighbour came up as he was on his own. We ate dinner on the verandah, enjoying the stillness of a beautiful autumn evening, talking of the fires again and of the rumour I'd heard in Alex that Eildon was outside the cfa containment line as it was considered too hard to defend. I don't know if that rumour had any truth in it, sometimes rumours start out of someone's fear of what might be. When we found we were outside the containment line and so not going to be defended it was hard to accept, but I understand now. The fire was so hot and so fast, a line had to be drawn in a place that was defendable, and our road didn't appear to be.

This morning when it was so still and the rain was falling gently but steadily, it seemed that maybe the threat was over. We knew that wind was expected this afternoon though and so kept on preparing, covering the woodpile in the garage with carpet, covering things under the bench by hanging an old cotton rug over it all. Making sure the dog's beds were inside and no stray sticks had fallen on the verandah, although as Kerrin keeps reminding me, everything on our verandah ends up dripping wet!

Then the wind started. Taggerty gets some pretty amazing winds, especially where we are. The wind seems to whip around the mountain and sometimes arrive from several directions at once. It has been strong all afternoon from the north with some gusts seeming to come from the east. The gums over the orchard fence have dropped a couple of small branches (one landing next to Schnooks much to her surprise), so as I worked in the garden I kept a careful eye on nearby trees. The UHF radios (the correct name for our walkie talkies) kept us informed as we can hear the local firies still. Their conversations indicated that the Rubicon end of the Murrindindi north fire was burning back on itself.

Kerrin has just come inside saying the wind has changed. I hope the people at Jamieson are spared. I was talking to a girl who lives on the Thornton/Eildon road, she set her alarm clock every hour last night, turning on the ABC to check what was happening. I remember doing that on 7th Feb and then another night up here. Our adrenal glands were on overdrive for a number of days and I imagine hers are now.

The owner of the Marysville Bakery was in Alex today. She is receiving calls from all over Australia about customers, people trying to track friends and relatives down. Every day or so she hears of more people she knew who have died. It's just going on and on for people in the hardest hit areas and will continue to go on and on for a very long time.

Back at Taggerty our neighbours were all prepared for the worst again yesterday, today and tomorrow. We called on our closest neighbours just in time to see Doug's burnt arm - he burnt it on steam from the fire pump That Saturday. It's still a nasty red so we've suggested he leaves it open to the air more and given him some healing cream for it. We've decided to pool street resources (not the first time - our old red tractor is often seen up the road at work somewhere) to repair the fences. It's so much easier with a few people working together, and the load seems less when there's a community effort. Doug has a wire spool feeder we were thinking we'd have to buy and he's happy for a community effort in our street to use it.

This morning the street chatter on channel 13 of the UHF's had a communal feel to it. Lots of friendly banter as we all made contact and assured each other we were on air. I think we'll be sleeping with it on tonight but hope there won't be anything to hear.

When you are walking or driving down the street tomorrow, remember that the person in front of you might be trying to come to terms with loss of one sort or another. Last week Kerrin met up with the local pet supplies owner and held him while the two of them cried. Andrew's mother and stepfather lived in Marysville. She had been in Healesville hospital the night before and had just been discharged. He was a cfa chief and quickly assessed the danger of the fire, running across to the neighbours and telling them to leave, then turning and seeing the fire coming up the street and telling them to stay, it was too late to run. He went back inside to be with Andrew's mother who was crippled with arthritis. Their bodies were found in the laundry, holding each other.

The neighbours survived although their house didn't. They were inside when they heard the hissing of gas, they had forgotten to turn it off. They, with their two children, made a dash to the carport and into the car, sitting there with the airconditioner on and watching everyone's house burn around them. Their tin carport and car were the only things left standing. They have photos but Andrew isn't ready to look at them yet.

I'm not sure about including these stories, they are disturbing and very personal, but then what has happened is profoundly disturbing. Perhaps part of the journey for all of us is to remember that so many people around us have suffered in one way or another, and to be just a little more patient, a little more caring, a little more in touch with the personal. I intend my communications to bring joy but also to bring home the reality of what has happened.

I feel blessed to be sitting here at my dining room table with my computer. My piano is still behind me, our things are all around me, how wonderful.

It's beetle week - a beetle is swimming in my water, I think it's time to finish,
with love,
Marg

Helping hands as we thank our lucky stars

It's hard to find time for writing with so much happening and so much time spent travelling - the Black Spur road will be closed for another 9 weeks so we drive through Yarra Glen and Yea then cut across to Taggerty.

We headed bush again Thursday night after work, both pretty tired, stopping for fuel at Eltham. It wasn't until Kerrin began to replace the nozzel he was holding that he realized someone had tangled the hoses and replaced the diesel in the wrong spot, so he was holding an unleaded nozzel. Oops, $47 worth of unleaded in the diesel. We couldn't find anyone with a syphon or even an old bit of hose, so did a quick calculation and decided to run on mixed fuel till Flowerdale (yes the garage there survived) and then add more diesel.

Just a few k's short of the turnoff to Flowerdale, at the top of a hill, the motor coughed and the lights came on. Kerrin cut the engine quickly and we coasted down hill, looking at the burnt out trees either side of the road and thinking it would be hard to find anyone who could help. Then we noticed lights through the trees on our left and at the bottom of the hill rolled around a corner, stopping outside a house that obviously had someone left in it!!! A small miracle.



Opening the gate we were greeted in friendly fashion by a guy who scratched his head when he heard our dilema. He introduced himself as Paul (the one with the head light) a mechanic who was just starting to get a business going at home, but had left his syphon at work. He scratched his head a bit more, then decided to consult his friends who were round the back having a beer. They all looked a bit bemused and were making noises like 'can't really help', 'drive you to the garage' when one of them, Damien, the one in orange, said 'what about...'. Then they all got enthused with finding a solution for us.



A few minutes later and we were out the front with all four male heads under the car and me deciding to be sexist and leave them to their dirty gravelly confab - enough heads underneath. Just as well really when another car came round the corner - I made sure it could see me standing out far enough from the car to protect several pairs of male legs sticking out into the road.



Confab concluded, Paul headed off into the garage and came back with a little gadget he'd invented - a pump that could be hooked up to the fuel feed with a feeder down into numerous gerry cans which appeared out of no-where. Some time later, Mark, the one with the cap, headed off up the road for his tractor - the one with the burnt out tyre that they'd replaced with some sort of old car tyre innard and some cans holding it together. No good having a tractor without a tyre if the fires came back. Did I get that right, is that really what they fixed that tyre with?

So the next task was to syphon diesel out of the tractor into the truck. Another while and a few beers (glass of water brought to me by someone out of a nearby house), and it looked like we were ready to go. We discussed the fact that they now had 50+ litres of a mix of diesel and unleaded in 3 gerry cans and what were they going to do with all that if the fire came down on them again??? Kerrin saved the day by suggesting the culvert down the road - shove them up it till the fires are past, and if they do explode it will be out the ends of the culvert and won't create any danger.

I was reluctant to leave them there although they'd already whethered a horrible fire storm by evacuating then sneaking back in behind police lines to save their houses once the fire had passed. So I stopped taking photos, gave them all a big hug and some words of motherly wisdom like, be careful, keep yourselves safe, and we were off.

They'd given us enough fuel to get to Yea, but all was closed when we got there. Another quick calculation said we'd have enough to get home and we did. When Kerrin went to get fuel at Buxton the next morning, the truck took 56 litres. It only holds 56 litres. I guess Mark's guestimate that he'd given us 30 litres was a bit out, but still it got us home.

While we waited for the gerry cans to fill, we got chatting to Damien who was excited to hear what we do and asked us to bring some cards back some time. We're planning on visiting on the way past and dropping off some homoeopathics for burns and snake bite. I'm sure we'll sit over a couple of beers (and waters) and chat for a while, hear more of their fire stories. If you ever need a good mechanic over Flowerdale way, we know a good one, his name's Paul. I'm imagining taking both our vehicles over to him for the next service, taking a picnic lunch and a couple of good books and a couple of beers of course. We were exhausted when we left Melbourne at 8, but when we left the boys in the bush we both felt uplifted and energized, even though it was 11pm. That bush spirit of helping and caring, of friendly interest and relaxed communion, so beautiful.

The next night we were sitting on the veranda at the Taggerty store with half our street and a few others, sharing bread and dips and fire stories. Talking it out is so therapeutic. One of the things that hasn't been said about Taggerty is that even though the township is saved, there were a lot of people south of town who got left out of the equation. Our road was outside the containment line that first night. The police called on two of our neighbours to tell them the fire was 8-10 minutes away, but the rest of the street missed out on that and just sat in the dark waiting. They waited for another couple of hours before the fire reached them. The phones were down but a number of them had walkie talkies. Some of them, including Kerrin didn't.

I don't know what it was like waiting. Sandice spoke of the glow behind the mountain (with their house just the other side) and the sight of the fire coming up the 2kms from the highway but not knowing it would stop before it got to her. Kerrin watched it come down beside our place through the eucalypts, and simultaneously come up from the highway. He focused on the grass fire till he'd stopped it before our house, then looked at what was behind and just sat on the ground and said: 'I can't fight you, you're too big'. He heard explosions from down at the road and thought our friends and neighbours across the way were gone, wondered how many others were gone.

Hours later he heard from another neighbour and realized everyone was alright and in fact no houses were lost in our street. I think he probably greeted the firies with tears when they arrived at 4am - his first contact with anyone. They were the first firies in our street, we were out of the equation for them as the cfa instructions were to stop at the containment line on Cathedral Lane. By the time the fire got to Cathedral Lane, our road looked as though it was Armageddon except the houses were all sitting there in amongst the black.

One of the reactions that our street has had to work through is anger and frustration about how we were left out and not told we were being left out of the protection plan, but nobody could have been prepared for what happened on Bushfire Saturday and most of us realize that. With Marysville and Kinglake wiped out so thoroughly, anyone in charge would have been in overdrive and just did what they could at the time. What is needed though is for our street's story to be told - the local paper ran an article telling of how the cfa saved Taggerty but failed to mention how there were a lot of civilians saving each other's houses which contributed to the fact that when the fire did reach the containment line it was more containable.

Each person contributed - the people further up our street thanked Kerrin for his efforts as by stopping our part of the grass fire, it protected people to our east, we've thanked Josh who lives east of us for putting the fire out at our little house making it easier for Kerrin, Gary thanked us, we thanked Eric and so it goes on, a little web of rural protection that worked.

Walkie talkies are going to be included as part of a sensible fire plan from now on as they were literally life savers for some people and emotionally wonderful for us all when the lines went down.

And we're all thanking our lucky stars.

This has been a long catch up, written while Kerrin teaches astrology downstairs in Blackburn. It's time to pack up again now so we can head bush when he finishes. I guess we'll be dancing back and forwards a bit more over the next couple of weeks until autumn weather really sets in. So I'll go pack up my bucket of seeds and gardening books (the next crop of greens needs to go in), put the rug and the water in the car, get the dogs organized and we'll head off.

Take care wherever you are,
love Marg