A little Sunday afternoon fire-fighting (and lighting) on the farm
There’s always something happening on the farm, and I suspect it’s the nature of these family-run farms that those that manage it need to be willing to take on a wide variety of tasks.
On Sunday it was burning-off, and for a while, I was on fire-fighting duty. Not to stop the fire, but to make sure it didn’t jump the fire breaks.
The tool for lighting up the fire is the amusingly-branded Fire Bug fire control torch.
As the fire was lit up, we moved along the fire break with a truck with a water pump (an upgrade from what we used last time I helped on a burn-off), putting out spot fires if they spread into the break. There was a slight breeze, which fanned the flames.
In between squirting water as appropriate, I managed to slightly drench myself, but my jeans soon dried.
Jack had come along for the ride, and had no problems in keeping out of the way of the flames.
Gradually the target area went from dry grass and shrub to black, and the smoke drifted away.
Once we’d finished, birds moved in to see what good might have been made available by the disruption. (Yum — BBQ!)
Watched
Have you ever had the feeling you were being watched?
Pics from last week
You can tell I don’t have a good blog post ready to go when I post a bunch of pictures. Here’s a few from last week (that you may have seen if you follow me on Twitter).
Mer Chri! — This was on Thursday night — by Friday they’d put up the other letters. Below the picture they’d put in supports earlier in the week — you can see the full set in this picture from last year. They must keep all the letters in a depot somewhere for the rest of the year.
Preparing to bring Thursday night’s train chaos into your livingroom — this is Andrew Lund from Channel 9, wired-up and about to report live from Flinders Street Station
The robots are coming! — Alan Kohler always likes a one-liner in his financial graphs.
Jack’s having a rest — Jack knows in an open paddock, sometimes the only shade is underneath the ute. Meanwhile, I had to continually pick grass seeds off my socks.
It’s Turbo Chicken!
(from the same day as this pic)
Pic: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Yeah yeah, it’s not actually a road. Still thought it was an amusing pic though.
