Cate's Diary

I know, Tru. It's more & more so though. Tassie is getting hotter & hotter. I am going to see if we can get a community get-together & hatch a couple of exit plans. We are meeting the firefighters this morning at 8. We could cut a track through our bottom block that would meet the back of another block on another road.
Thanks, Petal. It's actually looking like it may rain today.
 
It's so weird I am diverting water so my neighbor's garage doesn't wash away and you are worrying about fire. That's a great idea to make a second exit route. Our property spans 2 different roads, so I really should keep the path mowed down the property in case the people on the lower road need to get out for any reason. We are one of the only properties that is not too steep for people to walk between the roads. I really need to get people to weed the poison oak, because otherwise mowing makes me a mess for a couple of weeks afterward.

Really glad you are safe and crossing fingers for rain for you and Tru!
 
I write in this forum because i'm new in this; the last week i decided to get fit but the problem is that i don't now how to start. A friend who had the same problem 2 years ago, send me some links to start getting fit. I write in this forum because after read part of your diary, i feel the willpower to lose some weight, and not seem a fat person. Can someone recomend some routines?

These are the links my friend sen to me:
Links removed
Thank u so much for helping me.
 
Thanks, Petal & birthday girl :D
We drove down to where the firies were going to be & then G went all weird & said it felt like we were intruding & we drove home before they got there. I sent our friend a message, but haven't heard back yet. Hopefully, he'll call up here sometime soon. They are so busy. I'm going to spend most of today raking dry stuff away from the house. It's looking like Tassie will get some rain, but not much. Queensland, where Tru is, is flooding!
MissLoss- welcome to the forum.
 
cate said:
We drove down to where the firies were going to be & then G went all weird & said it felt like we were intruding & we drove home before they got there.
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The best person to talk to is usually the fire warden at your local station, crews who are blacking out may not give the best response.

I don't know how big your place is but when conditions permit, it is usually possible to get help from your local station to do preventative burns on your property. A couple of times my husbands station has come to our place to help burn stuff in a safe way, cost was a case (for those not from Aus reading this, the beer economy is a thing) Most Volunteer fire fighters like setting things on fire lol
 
That made me laugh that the firemen love starting fires. Boyz! Sorry to hear about all the droughts and flooding. It seems like maybe we should all get holding tanks for collecting rain during the sporadic rainy seasons. We have a spring that runs out into the lower road all year, and I was thinking maybe we should dig a pond for wildlife and pump that water in if we ever have spare money to do that.

Thanks for more birthday wishes, Cate, and hope you get more rain than expected!!!
 
Tru- I'll talk to our firey friends soon. We have 50 acres & are up on top of a hill. The guy below us is a bit of a hermit & has no stock & really long grass.
We have been doing a lot of cleaning up & don't have long grass near the house, but it's starting to become a bit much for us.
Having an escape route would be the best plan I think but we'll get some advice on that.
Marsia- we only have rain water as we are 11km from the nearest town. Luckily we have a large roof & have never run low. We could always add another tank if we needed to.
I think it would be an excellent idea for you to catch some rain water & have a pond. We don't have a pond as it would attract snakes. All our snakes are venomous!
 
My parents have a pond which the barn roof drains into. Looks lovely and could be used in emergencies - although the salamanders wouldn't be thrilled.
 
Sounds like you need a barrier between your neighbours long grass and your property Cate . 50 acres is a lot to manage . The fire crew will help . That's amazing that all your water comes from rain. We have a well . Last summer I did worry it would dry but it didn't but we did plan some water butts to for outdoor stuff .
 
We have water thieves here - they suck out all the water from people's holding tanks and started a fire in the forest below us a few years ago because they turned on a neighbor's defunct well to see if they could steal water and left the pump on and it set fire to the dry leaves around it. Luckily we all saw it and called the fire department in time.

Venomous snakes -yikes- I would have about 20 cats if I lived where there were poisonous snakes. We had big sweet gopher snakes, but the barn cats scared them all away.

When we were looking for our house in the mountains, we came upon a house that was part of an old trout farm. It had a pond and stream that still connects to the remainder of the old trout farm and it was still stocked with fish. I dream about some day having a natural swimming pond with fish and cat tails on the edges to filter the water.

One thing I wonder about is why they don't seed the clouds anymore. When I was little, there was a huge drought somewhere in the US and they seeded the clouds (maybe with dust to attract water droplets - not sure I am remembering this right). But I think what happened next is that that place got the rain from the seeded clouds and then in a few days, a naturally occurring storm came and dumped excessive amounts of water on them and they flooded, so they didn't do cloud seeding anymore. But now that they understand weather patterns more now with all the computer modeling, maybe they could bring cloud seeding back?
 
Marsia said:
Venomous snakes -yikes- I would have about 20 cats if I lived where there were poisonous snakes.
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lol, cats are prey for snakes here, the most common ones at my place are Taipans, Eastern Browns, King Browns, Red Belly and the occasional death adder. but I like my big carpet python in my crafting room in the shed.
 
LaMa- the pond sounds lovely. We don't have Salamanders in Tassie. They are so unusual looking, aren't they?
Petal- I think the neighbour should be asked to cut his grass. It is dangerous. If it caught fire our bottom fence would go & I don't think we could clear enough to stop it as then there's a hill that goes straight up to our home. We have a hundred metres clear then, but embers from the trees would then be a problem. He also lives near bush that goes through to lots of homes. I don't want to think about it, tbh. There isn't much choice re. using your own water. We had a water diviner up here & the ground water is too far down to tap into.
Marsia- water thieves? Fair dinkum? How disgraceful.
Re: cats. I think I would rather have snakes. Cats are hell for the lizards & birds. We have not set eyes on a cat up here for about 10 years.
Tru- I was thinking how I was going to say anything about cats & snakes & was thinking of your Q'land snakes when you posted! Now, your snakes are bloody scary! I have always wanted to have a carpet python though.

G & I are off to see a different doctor at the local medical centre as we need to check if we need any new inoculations for our trip & to renew our scripts. The guy we are going to see has been there for years, but I have never been to see him. I'll report back later.
My system is still sluggish. I have been drinking lots of water. I always do. I feel uncomfortable & bloated.
 
Lucky for us st.patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland if you believe all that baloney lol . The only snakes now are the politicians.
Yeah Cate get the neighbors to cut their grass . They sound so irresponsible. Thanks for the reminder to drink water . I'm not drinking enough .
 
cate said:
Re: cats. I think I would rather have snakes. Cats are hell for the lizards & birds. We have not set eyes on a cat up here for about 10 years.
Tru- I was thinking how I was going to say anything about cats & snakes & was thinking of your Q'land snakes when you posted! Now, your snakes are bloody scary! I have always wanted to have a carpet python though.
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:D I love that. I see snakes regularly in the summer but the ones we have here are harmless unless you actually step right on them.
 
Hello my lovely. I’m thinking of having another go at doing a diary. Miss you sweetie
I’ve only the last few posts and big squishy hugs. ❤️
 
LaMa- I would much prefer to have native species than cats any day :) I just looked up snakes in Austria & see that you have five which are all non-venomous. I do actually love snakes. They are beautiful creatures, but it is wise to be very wary of them in Tassie as all 3 of ours are venomous. We haven't seen one up on our block for a few years now, thankfully. It means you can't go walking in the bush with bare skin though so curtails my walking around our block safely in Summer.

Kate- I have missed you in here & hoped you would come back. Even if I get back to my ideal weight I know that I need to stay in here to keep myself accountable (to myself). You will never catch up with my diary, so I wouldn't even try. Big squishy hugs back to you, my lovely friend :grouphug: I'm going to catch up with Jess in May in Athens. How exciting is that?

I am actually in my workout pants today as it is a bit cooler. I am going to do at least 5 km on my exercise bike! No bloody excuses!

It has rained overnight & more is expected. Tassie needs a lot to put out all of the fires, but this will make it easier for the firefighters. We have lost over 200,000 hectares in these recent bushfires.
 
cate said:
We haven't seen one up on our block for a few years now, thankfully. It means you can't go walking in the bush with bare skin though so curtails my walking around our block safely in Summer.
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What did I say?
G & I decided to do some raking & brush cutting above our house & I went over to sit on a big rock after a while & frightened a Copperhead snake. He would have been well over a metre long & he took off, fast! Needless to say, we quit for the day! I didn't get a big scare though, which was good.
PS. I also did 5 km on my bike before that. I had made a rule today that I wasn't "allowed" to go back into the forum until I had done 5 km ✅
 
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Google has been letting me down a bit lately. I did look up "snakes in Vienna, Austria", rather than just Austria.
It's the mating season at the moment here (for snakes :D ) & that's why they are very active.
The biking felt good, although I was in a lather. It is still very hot & humid. I will try, try, try to get back into being more active again as I have been really slipping!
 
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