Hot summer days

The weather has been unbelievably hot - high 30s low 40s for days now. Tomorrow's forecasted top of 28 will seem positively mild in comparison. The heat combined with the ongoing lack of decent rain means that the place is as dry as tinder and we seem to be spending more time than ever on fire "standby". Which unfortunately means that I am more or less house bound from 10am until 6pm every second weekend as I have to be at the depot (10 minutes away) in fire overalls ready to go within 20 minutes of being called out. On the upside it means I'm catching up with the housework, the newspapers and some reading as we thankfully haven't had many fires, and those we have had have been very small :-)

Frank and I went out for a walk for an hour and a half early this morning - back in time for standby. We went out around 8.30am and it was already 28 degrees. After a late breakfast we went down to Dunkeld to check the electric fence and water at the Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby enclosure. As usual no sign of the little guys, they were no doubt hiding out from the heat in one of their 2 big rock jumbles. The quolls were nowhere to be seen either but they have been eating the small amount of kibble they get every second day.

We had turkey, brie and sundried tomatoes toasted on mountain bread for lunch - yummy Christmas leftovers. Just the rest of the ham to go now as we have already polished off the remaining chicken and pistachio terrine, and Frank is making good inroads into the christmas cake.

The veggie garden is going well and we have had lots of fresh lettuce and rocket, and the first of the tomatoes in the pots looks to be turning red. The veggie garden proper is now sporting a new outfit - shade cloth to prevent the veggies from cooking in the heat. It looks quite smart too. Well only 15 minutes until beer o'clock, so until next time...