Stop the world

"There may be a great fire in our hearts, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke."

Vincent Van Gogh

Exactly nine months ago we blogged about the terrible fires in our neighbourhood. It was a shocking summer, very stressful and quite a wake up call across this state in respect of the resources available to fight a conflagration not too dissimilar to the tragic 1967 fires. The report on the summer fires makes sobering reading - interesting that little if any of the recommendations have been enacted. The phrase "climate change" or variations on this theme occur a number of times in the report, and we have paragraphs such as:

The summer of 2018-19 was Tasmania’s second-warmest on record, with the mean temperature 1.60 °C above average; and only slightly cooler than the record summer of 2015-16. A feature of the summer was persistently warm days, especially during December and January and few especially cool days.

Lately we have been seeing ferocious early season fires elsewhere as well, in Queensland, NSW and Victoria (and further afield in California and Brasil) and wondering if we are now in the new normal. Although scientists in the field confirm the link to climate change - our Prime Minimal and his spineless team seem unlikely to waver in their view that the best policy approach to large complicated issues including existential threats consist of lack of policy.

Yelling incoherently via 140 character rants seems to have replaced informed debate and our flagship western "democracies" across the globe are mired in dysfunction of their own making - anyone seen a bi-partisan bill passed lately?

So this week we were a little alarmed to see significant fires (230 hectares burnt out so far) within 10km of our property so soon this year!

Oh great.

What is that going to mean for this region when summer officially starts in one month? We shudder to think - but do take care and keep an eye on the relevant sites in your area. Last year we had an octogenerian friend of ours who had absolutely no idea that an out of control fire was within 4km of their suburban home. Oblivious and with no support or plan for the worst. Even a "have you packed a bag" was met with confusion.

In other matters confusing - we are transitioning from a semi-orderly gardening season to a complete shambles in order to enact a 3 year old plan to shift our garden 10m in an Easterly direction (to be closer to the morning sun?). This means that our normal schedule of whacking weeds etc has fallen by the wayside. But every cloud has a silver lining and our darling egg factory workers (Factory Workers?) have been out in force with their own brand of crazy gardening amongst the forest of weeds. Well done ladies and gent - stage one of garden madness well and truly underway.

Something to look for in future pictures is the lack of hoops over the orchard seen in the video below - today whilst pruning, watering and feeding the fruit trees we plucked them all out! Watch this space.