Links to satellite views of our weather

These are real time satellite views of aspects of weather systems in our area:

 This link shows weather systems in Australia and nearby seas.

This link takes you to rainfall happening in Australia and seas to the east.

And this one takes you to a lightning strikes and weather events in Queensland.

The links should open in a new tab or a new window - the first two might take a while to load, they contain a lot of image information. I tried to put these under the "Links" heading in the column to the right, with our weather forecast links, but for some reason they don't work there.

Camera Trap Results

We have been using the camera trap for a couple of years now, and have caught a range of targets, including foxes, birds and (mostly) wallabies (and occasionally some unsuspecting visitors).

I set the camera on a tree near the sandy bend in the track a couple of weeks ago because I kept seeing deer, pig and fox signs there.  Just retrieved it today and at least the deer were cooperative.

The trap uses an infra-red flash when it is triggered at night.  Here are two deer (well, one and a half) moving down the track.

Apart from this one night time shot, they seem to be on the track in the early morning and early evening.

Is the one below the same as the one above?  Hard to tell because of the different angle and the different lighting, but I think it's probably the same one.

In the shot below (taken this morning) there's another deer off to the left of the track, just above the left ear of the one on the track.  That one looks to me to be larger than any of the ones photogaphed on the track, so maybe at least three different animals.

I'll reset the trap in the morning in much the same place and see what comes along.

Climate Change - Should We Take Action or Not?

Check this video.  This guy has a really clear way of presenting the options.  His first video on climate change has had 7,200,000 viewings until now, and this one which has only been around for a short time has already had over one million viewings.

No matter what your opinion on climate change, it is worth watching.



Please pass the link on to others to help them to make up their own minds on what their postion is going to be [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF_anaVcCXg&feature=player_embedded#! ]

Current State of the House

Here are some shots of the outside of the house in its present stage of construction - not much more to do on the outside, and most of it will be unnoticeable, i.e. it won't look much different to this.

Here's the view of the north side - note the large windows extending down quite low and the wide eaves (one metre), both features that contribute to the passive solar design.

The gravel around the base of the walls fulfills two functions: discourgages termites (under the gravel is a layer of compacted crusher dust, topped with black plastic); prevents vegetation growing near the walls and windows (for fire hazard reduction and to deter termites).

The western side is toward the workshop and two of the tanks.

That's the evacuated tube solar hot water system on the roof.  Running on only 13 of its 24 tubes because that's all it needs in summer.  The tanks are stainless steel, with 22,500 litre capacity in each.

Here's a view from the south, with the workshop to the west of the house - providing some protection from westerly winds in winter and from radiant heat from bushfires.

No views of the interior yet - it is currently in chaos as I'm working simultaneously on window architraves, skirting, and the splashback for the kitchen benches.  The workshop is similarly in chaos, with painted timber drying everywhere.

One day it will all be finished.

The Creek Crossing Revisited

Took a walk down to the creek crossing this afternoon - what an amazing change from six days ago (see the video two posts back).  But it isn't pretty, and I won't be driving across it any time soon.

Here's what it was like on the 11th of January:

and here's what it's like today:

If it helps, the photos are taken from opposite sides of the crossing.  In the last one, the track to the house is in the middle left of the photo.  In the earlier one, the track to the road is in the middle top of the photo.

Clearly a huge amount of rock has been eroded away, though it is impressive that so much of the foundation of the crossing remains, even in the gully carved into the crossing against the far bank.  Bernie (our earth-works magician) did a great job on this crossing.

Parts of the rest of the track were a bit knocked around too.  Here's the section that I repaired so painstakingly back after Christmas - the rocks in the erosion gullies represent about seven hours' work with a wheelbarrow.

The flowing water has scoured out around the repair on the right.  But what isn't so evident is that the erosion gullies have been extended several metres at the top of the photo.  Living on a hill has its advantages (e.g. no floods) and it's disadvantages (e.g. needs a cross-country access track that has to be maintained).  Oh well....

TALENT!

I'm experimenting with the format of this blog (if anyone out there is watching or cares) so just be patient while I exercise my limited artistic and layout skills and try to learn how this "blogger" thingy works.

And while I'm at it I may as well experiment a bit with content too (see below), and add a new link to our weather (see in Links below right ) that not only gives the forecast but also the current conditions and details of past weather.  I've also added a link to our local weather radar.

I'm indebted to Grumpy Old Ken for the following example of Talent with a capital T.  What an amazing person this artist is - and what an amazing art medium and performance technology.  Enjoy!

It's WET here.

 Well, it is nearly a year since the last posting on this blog.  For a blog that was supposed to keep family and friends informed of what we have been up to it has not been very successful.  That is my fault - too many other things getting priority.

Right now, though, I just want to share with you the flood situation here.

We, of course don't have a flood, being on top of a hill, though there is so much rain that the water can't get away fast enough and is often running in shallow sheets across the ground.  But nothing like other people in the Lockyer Valley and Toowoomba, who have experienced the worst, most destructive floods on record on this area - and some of the most destructive, if not the most destructive, in Australian history.

Here we have had 321mm of rain in the first 11 days of January, which is 71% of the highest January rainfall ever recorded in Gatton since records began in 1897, so it looks like we might be breaking some records again this month (December was the wettest December on record here, and 2010 was the wettest year (by more than 200mm).  Of course our rainfall might be different to the rainfall recorded down in the valley where the official weather station is, but I'm pretty sure that they broke all records there too.

Our front and back creek crossings are currently under water; the back one has been under water more often than not since early December.  There is no way out until the water goes down, however right now that doesn't matter - if I got out onto the road there would be nowhere to go.  All the bridges between us and the rest of the world (Gatton, Brisbbane, Toowoomba) are flooded and impassable.

At present that isn't a problem.  I have about a month's supply of food, and of course we are self-sufficient in electricity and water, so it is no great hardship to just stay here and potter along with jobs to finish the house (those jobs that can be done while it is bucketing down raining).

Here's what our back creek crossing looked like at about 1430 this afternoon.

All for now.

LIZARDS

What a week it has been for reptiles - apart, that is, from the usual monitor lizards (goannas), skinks, geckoes, snake-lizards, etc.

The other night Hanneke went out to the rubbish bins behind the office, and there on the concrete was this beautiful beast.  At first glance we said Blue-tongue Lizard.  But it was too slender and graceful, and didn't have the stumpy fat legs of a Blue-tongue.  And besides, its tongue was pink, with blue along the middle, though it used it in a typical Blue-tongue fashion, darting it out frequently, with the tip turned up.

Nothing obviously matching it in our local guide (Wildlife of Greater Brisbane), and the same in Steve Wilson's excellent Field Guide to Reptiles of Queensland.  So we turned to the bible - Cogger's Reptiles and Amphibians of Australa.  There it was Pink-tongued Lizard Heimisphaeriodon gerrardii.  When we went back to the other guides it was there, but the photos weren't so diagnostic - and it seems that the genus has changed - it's now Cyclodomorphus garrardii - can't blame Cogger though, our copy of his book is the 1992 edition.

This morning Hanneke was walking up the track to the vege garden and saw a strange movement in the sandy soil beside the track. A bunch of heads poking out of the sand.

A nest of Bearded Dragon eggs was hatching.  This species (Pogona barbata) is common around here, and in fact we'd seen an abandoned attempt at nesting in the vege garden a couple of weeks earlier.   In 2008 we actually saw a female in the process of digging out the egg chamber, and she later backfilled the hole and packed the soil level with the surroundings.  These eggs were probably laid in October, though the incubation time is pretty variable, depending on weather conditions.  There are five Dragons in the photo above.

They seem to hang about with just their heads showing for a while, maybe watching for predators, maybe just resting after the effort of hatching and digging up to the surface, then make a break for cover.  They seem to be attracted to any higher part of the horizon - clumps of grass, piles of sand or rocks.

We are clearly starting to see a pattern here.  The nest we saw being laid on 7 November 2008 hatched on 1 February 2009.  And back in 2006 Liz found a young Bearded Dragon on 9 January (photos below).

FROM FLOOD TO FIRE

A year ago - 19 November 2008 - it was a flood that washed away our creek crossing.

This year - 21 November - it was a fire.  Some unbelievably stupid arsonist(s) lit about 60 fires along a six kilometre stretch of Wallers Road through the middle of the Helidon Hills last Saturday morning.  Within a couple of hours it was a huge and uncontrollable bushfire.

By Tuesday midday it had burned its way across the hills and was into the headwaters of Lilydale Creek - the creek that we cross to enter our property - in the panorama below (taken from the hill behind the house) you might just make out the smoke coming up from the creek gully in the far right.

By midday it was advancing rapidly down the creek, and though the wind was keeping it away from our place, there was no certainty that the weather would not change.  By 2.00pm the fire control centre had decided that they were going to back-burn from behind the houses on our side of the Hills - something they had been preparing for during the two preceding days.

Two teams of fire-fighters arrived at our place about 5.30pm, one from Parks and Wildlife and one from the Rural Fire Service.  They decided to burn on the western side of the ridge (and buildings), as this was the downwind side, and then to come back and burn the windward northeastern side.  By this time a strong northeasterly wind was blowing.

They used a backpack leaf-blower to clear a line down the path from the header tanks up on the hill down to the workshop, where it then followed the edge of the firebreak around the buildings.  We had asked them not to burn the firebreaks, partly because of the erosion that would be likely if it rained on bare soil there, but also because of the effort Hanneke had put into bringing them back to native grasses and shrubs.  They were willing to do this, even though it meant a lot more work for them in keeping a wet line between the fire and the firebreak.  The photo below shows the beginning of the back-burn at the top of the track below the header tanks.

As they moved around the western firebreak below the buildings it became harder, because of the steep drop of the hillside below the edge of the break.  It must have been like standing on the edge of a furnace.

When they began to burn the windward side it became a lot more difficult, but by this time two Rural Fire Service tanker trucks had arrived with additional water, so they moved one of them close to the fire line and ran out a hose.  Nevertheless it was a spectacular sight, and one that would have been terrifying if they had not been so clearly professional about what they were doing.

After both sides of our buildings had been back-burned, as well as the western side of our access track, the teams moved off to burn from the breaks around our neighbours on both sides.  By this time it was 10.00pm and we were both exhausted.  I've no idea how the firefighters managed to keep going till after midnight when they changed over with fresh crews.  Hanneke went to bed and I sat up till midnight to make sure no embers got into the buildings - and all this time there were fire-trucks coming up every 30-40 minutes to make sure everything was OK - and they continued this after I went to bed.

I'll try to expand this posting at some future time when I have a chance to talk about our preparations before the fire, and the behaviour of the fire over the next couple of days.

UPDATE - at last



It has been a shockingly long time since anything was posted on this site. Large gaps in the story of the process of establishing our "Vinegar Hill Complex" - too many to fill at this time. However, here's a shot of the house, from July/August, but looking more or less as it does now.

We are working on the kitchen benches and cupboards now - more on that later.

There has been progress with the workshop too - slowly getting into better shape for doing serious work - latest addition was this new three-metre work bench. It's currently being used to make up the components of the kitchen benches.

We've spent the weekend putting up a shade house in the vege garden - the first thing that has been added there since the 3000 litre water tank late last year. It's made from the frame of one of those temporary car garages that was given to us.

We are going to try out "wicking garden beds" - where the soil sits in a 100mm pool of water that slowly wicks up into the soil as it dries. This is said to signifiantly reduce evaporation and thus result in far less water use - something that really matters here as we move further into a hot dry summer.

Below are a few shots of the new structure - taken using my mobile phone, so maybe not as sharp as they could be.

The tank on the right is the 3000 L garden water tank (it now has a pressure pump attached to it, so we can use it to water all of the gardens), and on the left is a heap of lucerne straw, waiting to be used as mulch on the garden.

The shade house partly completed - still needs the ends closed in.  At the back is a section of one of our first water tanks - actually it was here when we came and had gone through a bushfire.  We cut it into three sections and used them as surrounds for permaculture beds, to keep the wallabies and possums out. The blue containers are trial wicking pots (still more work to do on them), made from recycled 200 L plastic drums used for shipping food ingredients. The tree on the left is one of our lime trees.

House Slab - at last!

The pouring of the slab was supposed to be done in mid-November, but was prevented when our creek crossing washed away in the middle of the month (see last post). After we got a load of rocks and sand in and formed a new crossing, the continued rain meant that the creek flowed over and through the new crossing until after Christmas. This meant that it could not pack down, and it was not safe to risk a full cement truck (20 tonnes) on it.

28 January 2009 - The team arrives to start the slab. These guys are amazing, totally prepared, bring all their gear with them, make up reinforcement and formwork on-site.


Digging the outer footings.


Bit tricky getting the footing trench to match with the plumbing already installed. That's the shower and composting toilet in the background.


Internal footing trenches dug and mounds of road base packed down. Workshop in background - stainless steel rainwater tank on the right.



Morning of the second day - plastic membrane being laid.


Footings being poured - afternoon of Day 2


Beginning of Day 3 - first pour of the slab onto the footings. 11mm of rain overnight, and the driver of this truck said that he had trouble getting up the track from the road.

The second cement truck arrived before the first one had left, and said that he doubted that anyone else would get up the track because of the damage he had done to it. It had already started raining again. While he was there the first truck left - and got stuck trying to get up out of the creek crossing. Gordon arranged for our earthmoving contractor, Bernie, to bring his big back-hoe - before he arrived the truck driver managed to get out. Bernie agreed to stay around in case anyone else got stuck (two more cement trucks due), and while waiting he touched up the track to eliminate the more boggy bits.

No more problems with bogging - thanks Bernie.


The finished slab, looking west to the workshop.

View to the North across the porch.


View to the Southwest.


Looking East at sunrise.

THE CREEKS ARE FLOWING!!!!

Last Wednesday evening (19 Nov), it started raining - hard! And rained and rained and rained. Hanneke was up at 5.00am and the first thing she noticed was the sound of running water from the gullies to the north and south - something we have never heard before.

Time to go and check the creek crossing. What creek crossing? It was gone - completely washed away.

This was the view of the crossing at about 7.00am on Thursday the 20th. The heap of debris piled against the tree on the far bank shows how high the water had been during the night - more than a metre higher. Gordon tried wading across, but got only a quarter of the way and decided it was too dangerous. Exciting, but the reality was that Hanneke needed to get to Brisbane that day, so as to be at the University to give her Masters confirmation presentation early the next morning. We decided that there was nothing we could do at this stage but enjoy the spectacle of flowing water - and we had plenty of that.

Time to check out the creeks in the gullies leading into the main creek.

Above is the creek some of you will have seen (Sandstone Pool Creek) - it usually contains water only in a couple of deep sandstone pools where the wildlife comes to drink - that's one of the pools overflowing at the top of the photo.

Every gully was flowing and the Back Creek was rushing. Hanneke's Mum and I walked along this creek in August when it was dry. Totally unrecognisable now.


Further up Back Creek there's a rock ledge that we have never seen water flowing over. It must have been truly spectacular when it was at its height during the night, with another 50cms or more of water flowing over it.


Higher up Back Creek there was still a good flow of water.

By lunchtime we decided we had to do something about getting Hanneke to Brisbane. There was no way we were going to drive across the creek that day, so we packed our bags and waded across and then walked out to Vicki's place and she drove us to the bus stop near the Gatton University campus - where we waited, standing on the seat of the bus shelter to avoid the wind and rain as three storms swept through the area - and eventually the bus arrived 55 minutes late. In all it took us about five hours to get from home to Brisbane.

Hanneke gave her presentation on Friday morning (she was accepted) and we got a lift home with one of her examiners who lives in Toowoomba.

Of course we had to walk into our place and wade across the creek, but the water had dropped a good half metre or more. It was now obvious that the flow had scoured out a 60cm deep hole on one side that would have to be filled before we could think about getting the Subaru across.


So we loaded up the trailer with a good heap of rocks -


some of them a bit bigger than others -

and kept dropping them into the biggest holes until we had a "reasonably" level surface on which to drive across.

And that's how we are getting in and out until we can get Bernie (our earthmoving wizard) to re-build the crossing.

Southern View

Just one of the reasons we live here - view to the south across the Lockyer Valley early on a cloudy morning.

Slab for the New Shed

Progress on the new shed at last. Here's the site levelled - the house site is to the left of, and behind the trailer.
Formwork in place - though it took a bit of pressure to get them to put in all of the holes for the piers under the columns.

Plastic moisture barrier under the reinforcing - also helps to control termites.

Pouring the concrete - all done in one day - all 15 cubic metres of it. The slab is 100mm thick, with a 200x200mm beam under all edges, and piers 300mm deep and 350x350mm square where each of the columns will go. It's 12m x 9m overall.

These two guys did all of it. Very hard work.

Nearly finished. It started raining gently just after this, then got heavier as the night progressed. We had to put covers over the two awning slabs around 7.00pm.

Most of the material for the shed was delivered the same day. The erector expects to start putting it all together around 11 June - should take about a week to put it up, weather allowing.