Day 13 - Wednesday

The best laid plans went awry as before I got away from the house, Mick, the good Samaritan arrived with offsider Arthur. Mick works as a fencer in his day job with his first cousin, Peter. Their fathers who are brothers happened to marry women who are sisters....I still struggle to work out all the combinations with this scenario. Your brother is also your brother in-law etc. Mick assures me there's nothing unhealthy about these unions and it is Tassie after all. Anyway, back to the point, Peter was at a funeral and there was no fencing for the rest of the day, so Mick & Arthur took to our fence with a spanner again and drove the tractor in and started chainsawing dead wood and removing a very substantial felled wattle tree. We now have a nice stack of firewood which I am assured is not ideal as it becomes powdery once burnt but what the hell, open fires are messy, this stuff will just be a bit more messy than usual.

It seems the more you look and with the wattle gone, it appears there are a number of dead trees and huge branches here. There are 3 dead poplars but 2 are far too tall for this pair to tackle. They cleared out a number of smaller trees in the same corner and will be back (as the tractor and various other tools are still here) to continue the destruction. This would be unheard of in Sydney (not the only taboo the guys crashed through) ..they took away some of the bigger branches in the ute and then returned to set fire to an enormous pile of debris! Apparently this is perfectly legal if the fire is confined to 1 metre by 1 metre....don't know who was measuring but it got well beyond that size (not helped by the fact that I kept feeding it with my pruned material).

I brought coffee to the guys around 2 pm - how then, could I resist? Mick kept asking me about what I wanted done and there was nothing for it, I had to join in. I don't think there is a plant in this yard that doesn't bite! My hands are already like sandpaper, they now look like sandpaper with holes worn through it and splinters throughout. Not only did Mick start a bonfire, he set up the sprinkler against a huge gum so the fire didn't spread to it. Wow, tree lopping, fires, sprinklers - feel like I've returned to the days of my childhood in Portarlington (Much about Cygnet reminds me of Portarlington but that is another story for another day). He told me that the boys from the fire brigade visit locals' properties on Monday nights and do this sort of controlled burning for practise. Might be an option we take up after the next tractor outing, but right now, Mick was too impatient to get this bit out of the way. Floyd wasn't going to miss out on the fun either. Perhaps because we are next to a park which is next to a school, or a previous owner with dogs or kids but there were all sorts of balls uncovered in the process and Floyd at near 10 years old, played with them like he was a puppy. He particularly enjoyed the tug or war with the miniature squeaky American football. He missed out on an afternoon walk but he was completely stuffed after his adventures in the back/front yard.

Mick eventually went home, leaving me with a raging fire with the wind constantly changing direction in the twilight. He really wanted me to let it smoulder all night, eventhough he wasn't entirely sure he could do that himself. He was convinced it was well confined and couldn't do any harm but wasn't sure he'd sleep that well worrying about it. What a bunch of mixed messages.... Went to check it at midnight. What a stunning night...a pademelon bounded across the yard and any number of critters were making critter noises. The stars were as clear as 3 carat diamonds and the moon was a bright shining crescent. It was really mild. Turns out it was one of the warmest nights of the year, whilst the previous night was the coldest... this is Tassie after all! Anyway, how could I possibly sleep (probably quite well considering how stuffed I was) with the thought of an ember from this still very active fire landing in the park next door and setting fire to half of Cygnet. I could make a true impact on my new home. How to win friends and influence people.....so I set to it with the hose...and slept like the living dead until almost 9 am.