Riddikulus

"Swish and flick."

J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

We've been watching all the Harry Potter movies lately, which we had lost touch with as our boys turned into lads and then men. When Harry and his compadres use the "riddikulus" spell in the "Prisoner of Azkaban" to charm a Boggart we see the power of mirth over malevolence.

It seems true that dark forces do not enjoy been ridiculed, and ego is firmly in the domain of the decidedly dim. Witnessing lasting and consuming anger when those of thin skin are gentled from alt-always-right to alt-actual-reality has made us wary of using such power.

Having said that, it seemed that we were (as usual) harvesting a ridiculous number of zucchinis (a yearly theme from past blogs). Their thin skins were being sliced and diced to make all number of creative dishes, plus we were giving them away to unwary and nonplussed recipients, but still we couldn't keep up with the production from the garden.

So - the plan was to fashion a wand from one of our raspberry canes and swish and flick our way to an alt-vegetable-reality. The result of this amateur alchemy? Ridiculous!

OK so that didn't go so well!

The rural plot and what is needed to protect it

"A farm is an irregular patch of nettles bounded by short-term notes, containing a fool and his wife who didn’t know enough to stay in the city."

S.J. Perelman

What to do on a smoky day - off to the beach for some much needed respite.

Meanwhile some very clever people were fighting fires.

Regatta tat tat

"I don't think I'm a workaholic. Every weekend, I invite my colleagues and friends to my home to play cards. And people, my neighbors, are always surprised because I live on the second floor apartment, and there are usually 40 pairs of shoes in front of my gate, and people play cards inside and play chess. We have a lot of fun."

Jack Ma

Such irony that we contribute so much to Jack Ma via his online business and yet he seems to have fun weekends (especially the chess)! By contrast our long weekend (Hobart Regatta Day) was spent with many hours stowing away another 3 tonne of wood in preparation for the big cold ahead. The BOM tells us that it may snow as early as tomorrow, while there are fire alerts a few kms away? Holy island paradise Batman - what sort of nonsense is that!

Each year we buy and stow bigger amounts of wood, but this year we are convinced we have cracked a proper winter store - check it out in the picture below.

Would that be enough wood

We also bought a decent amount of hay for winter, and was ably assisted by three canines who got as close to Kym as they could without jumping through and carrying hay themselves.

Kym's rocking the flannie

Then there is beer to make (and drink!), yoghurt making, soup making, garden whippering and the usual assortment of domestic chores designed to waste a perfectly good long weekend. Oh well, at least there are the lovely sunflowers festooned with their bumbly mates to cheer us up.

Turn around and wave while you work, ya fluffy fools!

Dry, hot and dusty

"He envied the bark, which had been, in the course of one lifetime, both forest and fire. One endured; one destroyed."

Karen Joy Fowler

The extent of the fires in Tasmania are beyond comprehension - our local conflagration is around 60000 hectares as of time of writing (and growing). The others around the state are also massive. The damage to one of the last remaining wilderness areas on the planet is staggering. From satellite photos you can see the extent and the ferocity of the long fire fronts.

Amazing scenes from high up

With no rain in sight and February traditionally the worst for local fire conditions, we are still braced for more trouble down here at the bottom of the world. Rain please!

In better news, the clock pcbs from jlcpcb turned up yesterday and today we soldered up the latest incarnation, and it works!

Marvellous, compact and quick to solder

The process took around 30 minutes which is a huge improvement on the three hour soldering marathon early in the project. The new ATmega88pa-au version seems to be holding up well, and we'll see how long the batteries last with the new code and wiring. Anything to take our minds of the flames over the hill.

Take care and keep up the rain dances!