You may have noticed all the works equipment has dissappeared from the end of Ellsworth Drive. I was about to write about the mess that was left behind but this morning I see what seems to be a cleanup effort. We'll have to wait and see how much they manage. Besides the piles of dirt and gravel are they going to take care of the dodgy makeshift fencing? We're watching
Wow, walking out this early into this mad light is so weird. Took me a minute to realise it's dust. Now I'm feeling it in my mouth and nose.
A good day to stay inside.
http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/latest_releases?sq_content_src=%2BdXJsPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmViaXoucG9saWNlLm5zdy5nb3YuYXUlMkZtZWRpYSUyRjc4NjEuaHRtbCZhbGw9MQ%3D%3D
One of the lads who rides a motorbike in the Reserve has died. There were two of them on the bike, the other one was injured but ok, but the other died. They hit a ditch ...
New dates for the Tregear Reserve Bushcare Group:
10 October, 9-12
7th Nov, 9-12
"Don't forget to wear a hat, closed in shoes and long trousers."
No Bushcare events for December or January
For further information please contact Council's Bushcare Team on 98396074.
I got up there about 9.30am and there didn't seem to be a lot happening. Smaller than last year. I couldn't stay long as i had somewhere else to be. I hope everyone that went had a good time. At least the rain held off this year.
As i was leaving the performers were just setting up. Didn't get to see any of them this year.
yeah it's the festival again. Hope it's a fine and sunny day.
Have you been losing mail? Not received something you were expecting? Finding mail not belonging to you thrown into your yard or had mail returned to you by someone up the road? It happened along Ellsworth last Thursday. A conversation with one neighbor showed a cheque hadn't arrived not long before and he'd had to ask for a replacement, we found mail for two other places on the ground and returned it to them. Someone else says she walked out of her front door on Sunday just in time to see two little girls, both under 10, taking letters out of her letter box! There were other letters scattered on the street, things they didn't find interesting no doubt. The letters they had were taken off them and they were roundly roused on, and reminded that what they were doing was stealing and they could get into trouble with the police. The two girls showed an amazing amount of arrogance. Demanded the glossies, saying 'they are mine!' Normally I like tough girls, but they are heading for trouble.
My friend picked up mail and returned it to houses they'd been taken from, and letting them know who has been pinching the letters. My friend is also keeping an eye out for them to see if she can figure out which house they live in so she can speak to the grownups. We'd all be hoping that the grownups involved aren't actually getting the kids to pinch the mail, and that they just don't know what the kids are up to, and really do wish for their kids not to get into trouble!!
Here's hoping, and keep an eye on your letter boxes.
Amazing the difference a bit of cloud cover makes - it was 6.3 deg C outside when I got up! And that really does make a difference!
This morning the temp was 0.2 deg C outside my window, and the frost is heavier than yesterday.
I finally got round to reading the sign that goes with the mess that is still happening around the west edge of Tregear. Sydney Water is doing a water recycling program. Interestingly - notice the bit where is says "Work will be carried out in your area for approximately 4-6 weeks, weather permitting." I guess the weather wasn't being 'permitting' coz they've been here since the first half of April. And maybe someone noticed my April posting, or maybe it was coincidence, but the company name has appeared on the fences with the Sydney Water sign - Killard Excavations Pty Ltd.
I have a new toy - a thermometer that has a sensor outside as well so I can see the temp inside and outside at the same time, and it also gives me minimum and maximum temps for the day as well. At the moment it's 11 deg C inside and 1.9 deg C outside. It was 9 inside when I first got up but the heater is slowly fixing that! I just got the dog outside and there's a light frost in the back yard and the reserve has a white overlay. It's been frosting whenever it hasn't been raining or too windy for a couple of weeks now so I guess winter has finally stabilised!
There's frost this morning. The reserve is all white, the back yard is crunchy, and the thermometre on my front porch says zero.
Rug up!
We haven't had frost yet. It's all the cloud cover of course, but it's too strange to be this far into June and not have any frost when it usually hits in May and sometimes in April. I kept hearing people say that it was predicted to be a cold winter, but it isn't so. We are still mowing grass! At least if the frost hit the grass would stop growing! Bring it on!
Saturday 4 July 9am-noon
Saturday 1 Aug 9am-noon
Saturday 5 Sep 9am-noon
For more details call the Bushcare Team on 9839 6074.
Tregear seems very quiet lately. The mob digging up the footpaths are still there and they have progressed to digging across the roads, both Ellsworth and Forrester. Still don't really know what they are doing. Someone spotted a sign with writing way too small to be useful and the only words they could see while they were driving past were 'flow control'.
I've been way too focused on work (and after work recovering) to pay much attention to anything. Not good when that happens, I always tell others not to let work rule their lives. I get very cranky when I realise I've let work take over most of my attention to the point of not keeping up blogs so today I'm writing about something completely different.
Volcanoes! I've been getting Google news alerts using volcano as the keyword. (For those not in the know, go to Google, click on 'News' link at top, middle left is a link for 'News Alerts', pick a keyword that interests you and follow instructions.) We don't get all the volcano news in the regular news by a long shot. I'm amazed at how many volcanoes are erupting on our planet! Some we will hear about if it's a slow news day or if they threaten US interests, but a lot we don't hear about. There's also other odd things come up because there's a couple of companies with the Volcano in their name and the word is also used in a descriptive way in all sorts of situations.
Mt Redoubt in Canada, near Anchorage erupted a little while ago. It's still being active. They are pumping out oil from a terminal at it's base in it's quiet times.
Mt Chaiten in Chile has erupted to the point where the town Chaiten had to be permanently evacuated and they've arranged to rebuild it about 10 Km away. About 50-60 people refuse to leave. They have to use generators for electricity because it's been cut off and they have to carry water from clean streams because there's no running water any more. But they aren't leaving.
A poet who was researching for a book of poems about volcanoes went for a hike on a volcano on the Japanes island of Kuchinoerabu-jima and is missing. They have now given up the search. (No that volcano isn't erupting).
Mount Nyiragongo in DR Congo is being very active and they think it might erupt again soon. There's more than one active volcano there. Half the city of Goma was destroyed in 2002 when one of them last erupted.
The 'child of Krakatau' Mount Anak Krakatau is being very active again, it's closed to tourist traffic and is worrying people on nearby islands.
A volcano on the Galapagos has erupted and is threatening the ecosystem there. Lots of people are concerned because of it's historical connection with Darwin and the theory of evolution, but somehow I don't thing they can do anything about it!
Kilauea on Hawaii get into the news all the time, mostly because of it's tourist connection, but the scientists are now warning that it might not be as 'friendly' as they thought. It is capable of throwing ash and rocks around. They aren't saying it will happen again soon.
Tanzania’s Oldoinyo Lengai Volcano is delighting scientists at the moment because it has a very rare type of lava. The details are a bit over my head.
Barujari volcano on Lombok in Indonesia has erupted and caused the area to be closed to tourist traffic.
Mt. Kerinci, in Sumatra is increasing in activity, Mt. Slamet in Central Java and Mt. Rokatenda in West Nusa Tenggara are also increasing.
On the Caribbean island of Dominica is an old volcano, Morne aux Diables, that is highly likely to cause a tsunami when it erupts (they don't know when, but they stress 'when') because there is slippage and cracks all down one side and they are sure it will fall into the sea.
Shiveluch (or Sheveluch) Volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula released continuous plumes of ash and steam in late April 2009.
There's undersea volcanoes erupting all the time, they make great photos and fascinate scientists.
We even get new of volcanoes on other planets! Malea Patera on Mars has been featured recently with photographs and description.
Fascinating, eye opening, sometimes sad when there's news of people dying or being displaced by volcanic activity. We live on an interesting planet.
Australia is the only continent without active volcanoes. We're ok here in Tregear. The only natural disaster likely to be a problem here is flooding from Ropes Creek. It does flood. Locals say the floods haven't crossed Elsworth Drive in the 50 years they've been here, but it has come up to the top of the embankment in the reserve.
It's raining again. Just in case you hadn't noticed...
Someone is digging up our suburb. I should take pics but I haven't got round to it. Heavy equipment up at the corner of Forrester and Ellsworth, dug up footpaths along Ellsworth and up Forrester, huge holes on Forrester with what looks like cages in them. The equipment doesn't have a company name on it and I haven't asked them who they are and I suppose I could ring Council to ask but I haven't got around to that either. It's all turning to mud of course, and the covers over the drains are hopeless and all pushed around.
If anyone knows what it's all about leave a comment, if I find out I'll pose it.
ps, the May meeting for the Tregear Reserve Bushcare Group is on 2nd May from 9am - 12 noon. If you want further information call Council's Bushcare Team on 98396074.
Check this out:
http://stmarys.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/we-dont-want-a-bar-of-it/1461199.aspx
"residents fear that the core of the proposed hotel's clientele would come from outside the suburb.I guess that's us!They fear it will also attract antisocial behaviour, making the area unsafe."
Frankly, I think they moved in next door to us, if they don't like the area they can move out again!
I spotted this at about 7.20 this morning. I noticed it driving up the street it looked like it had taken off from the hill in the reserve as it was very low to the ground and just clearing the houses that face the reserve. By the time i took the pics it was higher in the sky and above the school. It was still low enough that when he burnt the helium you could hear the whoosh noise. Nice way to start the day.
First fire for the season. As you can see it still isn't quite dry enough for the pyros, but it is along the lines where the new saplings were put in. Lots are burnt. The total are isn't as big as it could have been, probably because it isn't dry enough for it to spread fast. It looks as if it was the grass left lying after it was mown down for the planting that actually burnt. I wonder how the rest of autumn will go?
Oh yeah, in the post about the planting I gave the saplings a year ... someone else gave them 3-4 months? She won, it's 3-4 months since that post.....
I only found out about this event because I drove past the school. It looks like the WASH house and Blacktown Womens and Girls Health Centre funded it. There were singers, which i missed, speakers I also missed them and drummers got to see them. they're very good the drummers I've seen them at other events locally. They got some members of the audience up and dancing on stage and some others to help with drumming.
Not sure what the speeches were about wither as i only caught the last 30 mins of this event.
But it's good that the hall/centre is being used. I got a couple of bags, some stickers and badges all saying Feminism is not an F word.
Maybe I'll find some info in the local paper about what else happened at the IWD day if so I'll post it here.
so happy International Womens Day.
This wasn't originally why I planted apple trees, but seeing as I'm really bad at keeping the bugs out of them and therefore don't get to eat any myself, this is definitely a second best reason for having them.
I would have liked to get some pics of how the rain affected the area, but that's the problem with rain, you don't want to go out in it to take pics! Ropes Creek rose quite a lot. I think it's highest was about 8 feet under the bridge on Forrester. If it hadn't stopped raining it could easily have flooded again. I think it's been over 10 years since it flooded last. When it does go the bridges on both Forrester and Debrincat go under about the same time, but now the bridge is up at Ropes Crossing we should be able to get in and out of the burb easier - it's higher than the other two. The planners did plan for once! We had to go all the way to Mr Druitt to get over the creek last time.
I wonder what the temperature was predicted to be? On my front porch it was 45 deg C at 5.30pm. With my portable air con unit it was 33 deg C in the lounge room.
This pic wasn't straight forward either. I was surrounded by dragonflies the whole time I was down by the creek, but they move too fast. No way I was getting a pic. Then when I was walking away I saw a flash of redfly pst me and land on the ground about 3 metres away. I couldn't see it on the ground but I knew it hadn't moved so I just stood still, zoomed my camera as far as it would go, pointed where I knew it stopped and snapped on auto. It was only when I got the pic onto the computer that I saw the dragon fly. Cropped the pic, sharpened (even on auto the focus wasn't very good at all), and here for your enjoyment is one of the many draganflies from Ropes Creek.
I've never seen them with their wings forward like that. Because I couldn't actually see it I don't know if it was moving it's wings and that's where the camera caught it, or if it was simply sitting with it's wings down.
ps, Hello Cathi!
Another pic from Tregear Reserve. The flower this spider is sitting on is maybe 2cm across. It's more luck than good management that I got this pic. I did know the spider was there but it ran under the flower when I took the first pic. Amazingly, for such a small critter, it ran back up on top of the flower just as I was ready to take the next one. I haven't looked it up yet to find out what it is, when I do I'll post it's name.
Has anyone local seen the huge glaring yellow light that's been put up, presumably to highlight the sculpture at the entrance to Ropes Crossing on Forrester Road, but instead it's angled into the eyes of drivers coming up Forrester? Pretty bad. I think the RTA might be the best people to report that to?
We went to see the Topp Twins at St Marys Leagues club last night. They getting better as they get older. The whole room was cracking up most of the evening, and you could tell the ones who'd never seen them before, they laughed the hardest. My cheeks ended up sore from laughing so much. And on top of that they are excellent musicians and amazing yodelers. Wonderful night.
I walked in the Reserve on the weekend, took a few photos. I'll put a few up here.
They look so free, as if they fit, even with the bike frame in the tree, as if they belong, as if it's their space - but of course they aren't protected either. There's no fence since they left the ADI site. And there's dogs roaming.
So, after the lovely cool break in the weather last time I wrote it got insanely hot again, and now we're having another cool break! Happy Australia or Survival Day, whichever way you go, I hope you're all having a lovely day. Public Holiday for me, I'm not at work, makes me happy!
It's been so hot and dry I've been watering parts of my garden with grey water. Bath and washing machine water pumped out of the washing machine using a long hose. You have to be careful with that though, you'd have to be very sure of the pump on your machine. My daughter blames pumping grey water for her washing machine breaking down. Mine is pretty strong I think and it only pumps water down hill. My plants are very happy for it.
See what going back to work does to me?? It's been so long since I posted!
Tregear has been very quiet at my end, the only thing I noticed was a boy on a dirt bike being seen by ambulance people in the reserve across the road a couple of weeks ago. I didn't see what happened, but he didn't have a helmet on of course. Of course it's soooooo much safer riding a motorbike in the reserve than on the road that, of course, no one needs helmets over there.
I'm loving this cool change. It was actually a touch chilly in the back yard this morning.
