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Bushfire mosaic
Ceramic items survive fire. However, if the table they sat on or cupboard they were stored in burns, they fall and break. They also break if things fall on top of them. If you sift through the rubble of a burnt house, you can find mugs, plates and bowls some whole, most in pieces. The banal - cheap plates bought at Queanbeyan Target and brought to the shack our first Easter here. The beautiful - a Pacifica patterned bowl I bought at my favourite Mt Eden shop when I lived in New Zealand. The sentimental - my first Mother’s Day mug. The ridiculous - the intertwined people salt and pepper shakers my sister in law gave us. I scavenged our bushfire rubble for these fragments of ceramic memories. Some were discoloured or broken but a few ramekins even survived, and are now in my new kitchen drawers. I kept these pieces of banal, beauty, sentiment, ridiculous and significance, and chucked them in a crate for the rain to wash and for the fire smell to dissipate.
I have previously written of my plan to make a mosaic with these pieces. I’m not the only person to make art from their bushfire ruins. It feels brutal to have lost so much of your past life that you want to hold onto the fragments of porcelain or molten metal and phoenix-like, raise them up again. So I’m not the only person, but I am quite possibly the slowest person to create their bushfire art! To be fair it was an intense and busy time recovering, renovating, moving and building. But there’s been time enough. My initial efforts were frustrating and fruitless. I was inspired by a feature cylindrical mosaic I had seen in a garden setting. Easy I thought, just get some PVC plumbers pipe. I discovered It wasn’t possible to stick predominantly flat ceramic pieces onto curved PVC pipe with craft glue nor with tile glue. The pieces just slid off and in frustration I packed everything up and focussed on things I actually needed to do. After those many many things were done, I developed a new and delightful skill of sitting on our new verandah and doing not much. The mosaic nagged however, and inevitably it was time to unpack the pieces and recommence, this time armed with the most serious builders liquid nails extreme instant hold adhesive available. I had to wear gloves because it doesn’t wash off skin, you just have to wait for it to finally peel off.
Re-starting this project felt wonderful. I think that was due to both the recommencement and the therapeutic nature of craft. There are organisations who now teach crafts as therapy. Those nans and great grandmums knew so much. Not only did they clothe and warm their families or decorate their houses, they kept themselves sane through all the chores and sexism they had to endure! My Gran loved to paint she and was also a prodigious knitter. I remember knitted jumpers all colours and sizes, which never quite fitted the intended grandchild but always worn by another. Her crotcheted rugs are legendary in my family. Sadly I lost one of her paintings and one of those rugs to the fire, but local knitted and sewed generosity has created new family treasures. Like most women of her era, my Gran could also sew and made my mother’s ball dresses even her wedding dress. She passed on her skills to my mother who made many necessary and requested outfits in my childhood. Me, not so crafty. Last year when curtains needed hemming I borrowed a sewing machine, threaded it and surprisingly some sewing knowledge came back to me. But that’s about it. Mainly my adulthood has been bereft of craft.
What I found during mosaic making was something different from sewing - there was no need for it to be perfectly straight or the right length. I could put the pieces wherever I wanted and wherever I wanted to put them was exactly the right place. At times there was tension until I accepted that and gave in to the mosaic making process. I felt satisfaction when I found a snug fit for pieces. I started to confidently choose pieces for contrasting or complementary colour. I considered texture and unique features - a Japanese cup’s authenticity stamp, the signature of the potter, the handle of a cup, the words on a joke mug. I felt gentle happiness as I recalled the origin of each piece - when it was purchased or who had gifted it. Maybe the passage of time was necessary for me to find joy in the mosaic making process. Slowly, slowly the pieces crept up the cylinder and finally I reached the top! To bring it all together I wanted a dark grout and found the perfect colour - ironically named charred ash (I have included an image to prove this). I had not imagined grouting to be so satisfying but it truly was! Covering sharp edges and filling gaps, the grout smoothed away some of the amateurishness of my humble mosaic. It was starting to look good!
After months of working on the mosaic, now it was finished I had to decide where it should live. We wanted to put it where our old place had been, but it took a little while to find the right spot. I wanted it to be visible, but not in the way, and it had to feel right. We decided on the location that had been the corner of our old home. My husband did the grunt work digging it into the ground and fixing it with reo and concrete. Proving you really can’t over-engineer a mosaic cylinder. Then I put a lid on it. A near complete English style cottage that had belonged to my mother in law and had been rescued from a box in our burnt shipping container. A very symbolic crowning of my mosaic! I used a few connecting pieces of a white Maxwell Williams mug gifted by my big sister many years ago to fill the broken side of the house. To complete my bushfire mosaic I planted a spiky, colourful and resilient succulent.
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2 years and counting
On the morning of our bushfire two year anniversary in early December I went to the beach to listen and watch the waves. They soothe and remind me of the perpetuality of nature. On our bushfire impacted block there has been much regeneration and survival of plants and critters. Over the last few years I understand the term our First Nations Australians know and understand as deep time, we have only moments to observe nature as she has endured and will endure long after us, despite disruptions and a heating climate we don’t fully understand the impact of. All of us touched by the black summer bushfires now appreciate a climate changed world is not a happy one. A CSIRO study published the week prior to our anniversary confirmed that climate change is the dominant factor driving Australia’s 800 percent increase in bushfires. The weather that enabled the 2019 bushfires will be four times more likely to occur with the forecast levels of global warming. So vote hard for decision makers who listen to evidence and care for the enviornmanet and the people who live near it. You can also make decisions within your control that will reduce emissions.
On that anniversary day I sat with my new perspective on resilience and recovery while I wore clothes from my old life packed by my husband on the day before the fire came. I had in my pocket something retrieved or stolen back from the fire. I used to have a set of ceramic runes - yes I confess the paganistic prophetic use of them appeals to me, but I’ve always been drawn to them as early forms of writing. One of these runes left on my bedside table survived the fire, and the bushfire rubble clearing, and one day unearthed itself to me in the place where our old home once was. In the dirt I found Hagalaz - the rune for air. It symbolises transformation and is also referred to as the egg of life. Our block has been transformed from what it was pre fires and after fire, and our new life has emerged.
It’s wonderful to be back but not unreservedly so. In early November we experienced the first very hot day since our return with a strong westerly wind. I was on edge. The day before someone had started a burn off, I texted my neighbour who shared my incredulity that anyone would do so, knowing the wind forecast the next day. The day and discomfort passed uneventfully. A few weekends later on a rainy afternoon, while I was finishing some interior painting balancing on a scaffold my eldest son asked me, ‘What will we do if the fire comes again?’ Firstly I pointed out the window at the rain pouring down as La Niña was working her watery magic. ‘No fires this season,’ I smiled. ‘But yes one day, there will be fire again.’ I explained what he knew, that the full external sprinkler system with dedicated pump would soak the building, and talked about all the features we had added (or are soon to add) to make the place fire proof - fire proof gutter guard, steel and cement sheet window shutters, flame zone foam and metal flashing infills, no external timber, flame zone chimney for our internal wood heater, steel or copper external pipework as well as the large cleared area around us. How we will work regularly to keep around the house and along our track clear of vegetation. I told him that on catastrophic fire days we won’t be here. We will go into town to be safe. I suggested we had learned what was important to take, and that we would be ready to take those things in our new trailer. I gently said that we know everything else can be replaced. He listened. ‘But if it burns down again I don’t think I’ll want to live here,’ he said. ‘I think that would be fair enough,’ I agreed.
The difficult feelings have subsided and overwhelmingly I feel gratitude. I’m grateful for people who have helped us get to this point with actual or emotional support - our neighbours, our friends and family, my boys teachers, my work colleagues. I’m grateful for our temporary new home and the time covid gave us to hunker down together and create it. For my flexible job. For my newly grown veggies. Now, importantly, we are not living in a building zone and we are not spending all of our time building - we have exited crisis mode. We made a purposeful decision that helped us reach this point that not every bushfire impacted family could make, my husband stopped work to focus on our place. I’m grateful we could make that decision.
Most of all I am grateful for the sweet and plentiful rain that has soaked the land, rejuvenated the trees and brought water and frogs back to our gully. At night the noisy frogs outside our bedroom window I am less grateful for! This summer the bugs are back, the beetles, the crickets, I am astounded anew at the amazing variation and colours of hopping and flying creatures. The kangaroos and wallabies are back on the track. I can hear two lyrebirds again. I was excited to find the first hyacinth orchids in the undergrowth. I was less excited to find the leeches are back. When I look into our treed gully I can see fresh green new foliage on the crowns of the trees. We found microbats living in our portable cabin. Everywhere nature is making a resurgence. I am grateful to be here and experience it again.
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Getting our veg on, version 2.0
Unbelievably our veggie patches survived the bushfire. Situated just outside the fence surrounding our shack probably 4m from the dwelling, and 1m from the wood shed, it defies logic that they could survive. Even the tree stumps next to the veggies are partially burnt. The laser light covered greenhouse only slightly melted. Some posts and corners of the two veggie boxes were made from tree trunks and branches from our black, some corner posts burnt out, but must have smouldered slowly because the rest of the timber didn’t, and the boxes still stand. We left them as they were and when we visited our block after the heavy rain of early February 2020, we found tomatoes thriving and strawberries persisting. We took some plants back to start a new veggie patch in our bushfire refuge home, transplanted like we were, they took a while but did bear fruit and gave us happiness.
We completely abandoned the veggie boxes while we awaited the bushfire clean up. Finally in June 2020 in a jangle of emotions, I met the state funded clean up organisation representative at the site to confirm what needed removing. He was kind and understanding, I can only imagine what a horrible job it must have been for him. “Everything can go except the veggie boxes”, I explained. I left him to his documentation and wandered down to the veggie patches and found them green and overgrown. Then among the weeds I noticed the cauliflowers were looking very healthy. I had struggled with them the prior season and in mid November the week before the Currowan fire started I had seen small florets finally emerging. Seven months later I peeled back the leaves to find an enormous cauliflower. No one has ever been more surprised or emotional about a cauliflower. Seven months of neglect is clearly the growing secret for this veg! The cauliflower was the dinner hero that week and it was delicious.
Since then, every time we visited the block we would raid the tomato bushes. The vacant greenhouse became storage for building materials, the roof was watertight but the plastic film walls had started to tear. The rain kept coming and the veggie boxes became jungle patches! Husband started talking about moving them to a different location. They looked a bit hopeless with their burnt corners, but their resilience was to me proof they need to stay right where they were! With a house to renovate and a shed to build there was no time for gardening and they stayed put and jungle like.
Now we’re finally back on the block with life starting to settle down. A month ago the boys found the gardening tools and wanted to chop and cut stuff down. Why is the destruction part of gardening always the most appealing for young boys I wonder? I pointed them in the direction of the veggie patches. They started sawing but the wattles were too thick and the grass was taller than them. I strapped on the whipper snipper and started. If the boys hadn’t given me the initiative who knows how long I might have put off the overwhelming task. Being reasonably close to the new shed they needed to be cleaned up to prevent fire risk. It took me two attempts on different weekends to get through the mega overgrowth. Then I had to weed them, in one veggie box I found Sydney blue gums growing one meter high!
The closest veggie box to the old place needs some structural work, as two corner posts did burn at ground level and much of the soil has gone, but the bottom box now that I’ve weeded it is in pretty good shape. Not bird proof as the blue gums wreaked some havoc with the wire roof, but I couldn’t help but get some spring veg in the ground! I posted a story in January 2019 about these veggie boxes when we first put them in. I was full of such enthusiasm about our bush life. The naivety has definitely gone, but again I’m looking forward to home grown veg. I think I’ll plant cauliflower.
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The return
It’s coming up to 3 months since we returned to our block and it took us 8 weeks to slow down. On the weekend we slowed down we enjoyed the first official Friday night catch up with our neighbours as the full moon rose. On Saturday we went out for brunch. No sport on Sunday morning meant a sleep in. I played handball with my boys for the first time ever in my life. Lamb shanks slow cooked on the wood heater. We squeezed in a late Sunday afternoon fishing trip. It took us 8 weeks to find some calm. We had forgotten how to do normal. I haven’t written for this blog since um wow December?! My leisure time since then has been extremely limited and when it occurred I prioritised my mental wellbeing and sleep.
This journey has brought me to the edge of my psychological and physical limitations. I watched my husband do a terminator style non stop renovation while trying also to commence a rebuild. His promises to take time off over Christmas dwindled to 2 days. There was so much to do. I helped with whatever jobs I was able to and then focussed on the household and occasionally, our boys. Midway through January this year we realised trying to work on both the renovation and the rebuild was insanity. The local real-estate market was booming. Post COVID, Sydney city dwellers realised they could put in a few days in the city then work from their coastal holiday pad the rest of the week. We decided to get our investment property, come bushfire haven, onto the market before the summer ended. We mapped out each remaining job and the days required to accomplish them. We calculated selling time, settlement time and remaining bank balance. What were need to do’s and what were optional extras. If everything went to plan, we could pay to get some work done at the block and make it habitable enough to move into. It was an extreme test of time, energy and resources.
It worked. We listed by the end of February, sold in three weeks and settled five weeks after settlement. I write that all in one glib sentence. Of course all of that only happened with considerable focus and effort. Life for the boys was hectic. 99% of their toys were packed and moved into storage weeks before the house went on the market. As the house neared completion we stressed about them damaging something. When the house was on the market we stressed about them getting things dirty - the walls, the windows or the cupboards. I banished them from the bathroom, they had to brush teeth in the laundry and shower outside. Luckily it was warm and didn’t rain much in those few weeks! Anyone who has sold a house while living in it knows how painful open homes are. The logistics and effort of cleaning and styling, while working full time from home, scheduling everything between work appointments, getting the dog out of the way and the boys to school, nearly broke me. Thankfully the selling process was short, but we packed a lot of opens into that time and by the end of it all, I had become a shouty, grouchy mum and wife. It was also a real highlight to hit menopause and bring some phenomenal hormonal energy into the mix. Phew.
Before we packed up and left I was lucky enough to have a week away with the boys. My fully wired self hit Melbs and my family gave me refuge and forgave my intensity. We managed some fun and the change of scenery was a big relief. Husband, however, stayed behind to work on the temporary shed home. Holiday behind me, I returned to packup and clean and polish the house for the financial return of our lives. Literally.
Can you then imagine our triumphant and spectacular return to our block bathed in happiness and light? Um well perhaps instead picture this - we arrived exhausted to an unpowered, work in progress temporary residence in the middle of a mice plague and endured 200ml of heavy rain in four days leaving us surrounded by mud. Happy to catch the rain in our tank? I wish! The new tank leaked 8000L the week before we moved, and only our neighbour’s spare tank loan meant we had any water at all. But being so small, it overflowed and made even more mud. The heavy rain was so loud on the tin roof it frequently woke the kids in the night (who then woke us), mice ran across the floor, huntsmen spiders dropped from the ceiling. With nowhere really to unpack things, cooking became like the biggest ever memory game, which box were the bowls in? Where did I pack the cutlery? The rain delayed our solar power install so for 10 days we lived out of an esky and by torchlight. We both kept working full time, getting the boys to school, after school sport commitments and then husband kept building after he got home and into the night. After a week of stress and chaos we knew something had to give, fortunately husband could take time off work to focus on our build and family life.
Fast forward to now. The financial pressure of the summer has eased. The temporary living quarters are functional and steadily improving. We have a beautiful wood heater. Our off grid solar system is powering us even during these short winter days. I have more kitchen cupboards than ever before, plus a dishwasher! I have hung up my clothes in a full wardrobe for the first time in nearly four years. The boys each have clean new wardrobes. Their separate rooms are still being built so they are in what will be our room which is insulated and wall paneled. We can cope with an outside shower and toilet. My husband is a legend.
What’s it like actually being back? I confess I was nervous about my own and the boys emotions. Eldest son is extremely happy to be back. Youngest son has taken time to adjust but that has more been due to his fear of the dark. The noises of the bush are unfamiliar and there are no streetlights out here! There has only been one time where a prebushfire memory overwhelmed me. Every person’s bushfire experience and recovery is unique. Unlike many others we are fortunate have the opportunity to not have to build on the exact footprint of the old place and I think this is psychologically helpful. It’s not the same space, and with some trees dead and gone the landscape is altered, its a slightly different perspective. The boys are older now, so our lifestyle is different too. Slowly we are finding a new rhythm on our land. The boys are absolutely loving being back on their bikes on bush tracks.
I was excited to resume my morning walks, although maybe not as excited the dog! He’s happy to have his off-lead roam again. But the first week of walking I found tough, the burnt and recovering state forest I traverse didn’t bring me the joy it used to. In the heavily logged areas where only isolated saplings were left unlogged, they couldn’t survive the heat of the fire or they didn’t have community trees to share nutrients through their roots to support recovery. The undergrowth is now the canopy and is booming with all the extra sunlight but when I look at it, all I see is fire hazard. Then as the weeks went by, my view softened, I recognise the bush is healing like me. I am appreciating small wonders of nature. A spider’s web highlighted with morning dew or the fascination of new plants thriving. There are trees that have fully recovered, others seem to be doing well, and there is much green in the landscape to enjoy.
On my morning walk I also see which animals are about in the night from what they leave behind. There is at least one very busy wombat! We see wallabies reasonably often and last week one morning I found big roo prints in the clay right near our place. We hear a boobook owl calling most nights and more frogs chirping croaking from the gully than I ever remember. Which now makes sense, we definitely were in drought for some years prior to the fires and the creek has this year been running for months. Less exciting is hearing foxes at night, my son especially dislikes their eerie calls. In daytime the bird life is altered. We are down to one lyrebird, there used to be two with adjacent territories battling loudly with their extraordinary mimicry. But at least there is one, how a ground bird survived I can’t imagine. The yellow robins aren’t around us now, we have wrens in the cleared spaces and in the lush shrubs busy brown gerygones dart and chirp. A shrike thrush has made a nest in our bushfire remains pile, her song is piercing and wonderful. Rarely are the yellow crested black cockatoos here now. This past weekend we did see two circling wedge tailed eagles the silent assassins of the sky wheeling high over the gully with that phenomenal wingspan.
Surprisingly my greatest source of happiness in these first few months being back has come from the sky. Unobstructed by buildings, the sky feels bigger in the bush. I’m loving the late winter sunrises. My very favourite time is just after the sun has risen when the horizontal sun rays set tops of the trees bright orange. Those are magical minutes of golden tinged trees. The sunsets. The stars. The moon. the sky has been a revelation and a source of happiness. Maybe because I’m spending more time outside I notice it more. Seeing glittering stars through the steam of a hot outdoor shower makes the cold walk inside completely worth it!
Slowly I am regaining my sense of gratitude for this place. The quiet. The privilege of not seeing another house. Having no curtains and that not mattering. Not worrying about noise and neighbours. Lack of street lights at night.
All of a sudden things aren’t hectic and we are settling in. It still amazes me after 6 moves in 5 years how intense moving is and then how imperceptibly things transition to not being new anymore. Normalcy sneaks up on me every time. Clearly this isn’t really normal but we’re enjoying this new start in our old place.
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Happy anniversary
When I started writing this blog we were approaching the 1 year anniversary of the bushfire destroying our home. The bushfire psychology experts advise the 6 and 12 month anniversaries as challenging times. Having heard this, I was curious to see if that would be true for us. As it approached I had a sense of the challenge. You recollect the time and the decisions. Those days before the fire impact and the decisions we made are sharply focussed in my memory. The day the fire started in forest 60 kms from us and my work colleagues alerted me, the first night we evacuated, returning home to a week of watching the fire moving inexorably closer, the evacuation in earnest with a panicked clean up, then the moment our neighbour contacted us to report the fire had hit and confirmation the following day that our place had burnt. There are also memories of actions that in hindsight are ridiculous, such as unpacking between evacuations, doing a full week’s grocery shop then Christmas present buying the day before our final evacuation. Clearly we were in denial it could happen to us.
Speaking with colleagues about memories of 12 months ago, I recalled the moment we had to tell our boys that our home was gone. That memory not considered for many many months brought me to tears. Our eldest son in particular was extremely upset, I’ve never heard him howl like that before or since. Memories can unexpectedly catch at your throat. I thought in the weeks after the fire about what the experience would do to my children, were their lives going to be forever marked by this event and if they would recover. Yes their lives have been touched, there is definitely scar tissue, but they have recovered. ‘Our house burnt down in the bushfire’ they say to other children in social situations in the same way they might say, ‘I fell over playing soccer’. Undoubtably it will always be a significant event in their lives, and I look forward to the time my youngest son draws me a picture that isn’t a house, but its not defining them or holding them back. They are seeing what happens after. They know the answer from me saying it so many times, what do you do when life gives you lemons? They are learning how to move on, how to pick up the pieces and start a new normal. They have learnt how generous family and community can be, and how to say thank you.
Having our shed slab poured in mid November just two weeks before the 12 month anniversary was an outstanding milestone. There have been other events, the bushfire rubble clearing, the first night we returned and camped on our land, when the burnt trees were cleared, when a generously donated cabin was delivered. But none so clearly auguring a new start. I was surprised by my emotions the morning I saw the concrete truck. The enormous white pump arched against an optimistic blue sky spewing grey sludge that crept steadily across the Reo steel (agonisingly tied in the days and evenings prior). A strange twisting white beast tended by loosely known men in a place special to us laden with memories and loss. Emotions surfaced and I breathed them slowly out. The slab is a significant step towards getting back to the place we love, but in a stronger and safer way. I think the anniversary was easier because of that big chunk of concrete. It is irrefutable evidence of our progress and intent to return.
One of the strongest feelings I had on December 3 is that I’m actually really proud of what we have achieved in a year. It’s been a fairly epic journey of emotion, coping, navigation, learning and a phenomenal amount of physical work. We had to work through trauma and loss, both our own and our children’s, cope with the secondary loss of a bush lifestyle as we relocated to an urban house, renovate the house we moved into, as well start work toward the rebuild. Then there was the issue of a global pandemic. Perversely though, I think COVID-19 worked for us. It forced us home for lockdown then kept me working from home saving me hours of commuting. The increased time with my children was beneficial for them and me. In lockdown I purposely focussed on survival and wellbeing over academic gain. To say it was the toughest year of my life would be an understatement!
The other overwhelming anniversary emotion was gratitude, so many people have kept supporting us after the immediate emergency and donations. In different ways, family, friends, neighbours, work colleagues and the boys’ school have been there for us over the last 12 months. We could not have got here, in this shape, without you.
A small but wondrously timed gift of plants received the on the anniversary of the day the Currowan fire started felt significant. Arranged by a charitable organisation but watered at my children’s school by the boys and their friends over the course of the school year then gifted to us, signified both regrowth and community support.
We are busy with normal life and as another bushfire impacted person said to me and it resonates for me, it’s not a space I dwell in. Apart from the weekend before the anniversary when the weather turned very hot and the wind picked up, I haven’t felt anxious about fire. But that was a horrible hot day with a fierce westerly strongly reminiscent of last year. We were at the block that morning and as the heat increased and the wind picked up I felt utterly yuk and couldn’t get away fast enough. Yes the experience has been difficult, traumatic and sad, but for us thankfully we have been able to make a new start. Mother Nature has herself given me much joy and hope. Every new animal sign, bird or insect find at our block feels like triumph. On the morning of the anniversary she showed me nine black swans flying in the soft grey sky, necks supremely outstretched. She gave me the cool green ripple of an inlet’s outgoing tide as I sat and reflected on the year. For the rest of the day I busied myself because after all, it really is just another day. Then in the evening I looked up at clouds tinged gold in the purple sky. Our anniversary was quiet and personal and is happily over. Many others in the region have spectacularly tragic and public anniversaries ahead. I wish for them space and time to reflect in their own way, and comfort in company or things to do that are meaningful or at least mind absorbing.
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Progress
It’s been a while since I’ve written and in that time there has been - slowly, slowly - progress at the block. We waited some months for the excavator to clear the dead and dangerous trees. This was a heartbreak for me as some tress were fighting back but they were precarious and they had to come down. It was a big week but the result transformative. A clean slate and a new beginning is now imaginable.
The shed arrived and will be the biggest ever LEGO challenge my husband has ever faced - there are over 3000 bolts! Before building can commence the footings had to be dug and now the form work and pad preparation must happen before the concrete can be poured. All of it we are taking on, it’s the most cost minimal way but it’s time consuming and exhausting.
We did take the October long weekend off. We stayed in the cabin gifted to us by a lovely friend, however in the heat of the day it was stifling, and the dusty clearing was a challenge. We need the shed up and the grass to grow. But being back there was reassuring and affirming, it is where we want to be. Despite the progress, so much lies ahead that the looking forward can feel overwhelming. While there we reminisced about times passed, how we built the place up by improving something every time we visited. The year husband installed hot water was a particularly fond memory. This is what normal people do on their holidays - shower!! Now we’re right back to basics again, no water, power or toilet and in the cabin, no insulation. Could be why the first time we stayed in August it took me nearly an hour to feel warm enough to go to sleep, and that was after I added an extra blanket, two extra clothing layers and my beanie! Now the heat has arrived and it’s cooking in there. Maybe a shade sail will make it bearable? Anyway it was a good realisation that we really do need the shed up before we can even think of renting out the molly house. So we took the whole weekend off to socialise, go to the beach and importantly, sit down. I guess that’s what normal people do on long weekends?!
It was enjoyable, but we probably won’t have another weekend off now until Christmas. I did hit a spot where everything felt arduous and not exciting or heroic anymore - just bloody hard work! I don’t know how my husband keeps going, he’s been renovating for 90% of his spare time since June 2019. I guess everyone feels overwhelmed like this in the middle of a big project, it’s just hard when it’s a project you didn’t sign up for. The same sentiment was expressed by another bushfire homeless in an article I read recently, and his place was most probably burnt as the result of a back burn gone wrong, so he really has a right to feel that way. I haven’t for many months now but in the weeks after the fire I used to get those ColdPlay song words stuck in my head, take me back to the start… what would I do differently? Who hasn’t thought that at some point in their lives?! We just have to keep digging deep, focus on the task list and tick them off one by painstaking one.
It was wonderful to hear and see nature returning. During the day we saw skinks , spiders and a red bellied black snake. In the heat of the afternoon the termites came flying out of their mounds, I had never realised this was their time to start new colonies, any of these flying ants has royal potential apparently. In the night we heard flying foxes squabbling in the trees, the boobook owl calling, and a fox call in the darkness. Nature slowly reclaiming the forest just as we are slowly reclaiming our place.
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A small miracle and beginning again…
Finally it was our turn, the state funded bushfire clean up crew reached our place. Almost 6 months after the fire raged through our valley devastating habitat and wildlife. It also consumed our dwelling, stored building materials, and a shipping container full of everything that didn’t fit in the shack (including all your stored stuff that means something to you and your history but that isn’t needed on a daily basis). We had sifted through the house rubble finding a few items of sentiment and interest, but the container was almost impossible to enter. The smell was intense and overpowering, probably because of the plastics, said the clean up crew. Before the burnt out container was removed they flipped it and it was sitting like that, awaiting removal the following day when husband inspected the site. He spied boxes at the back of the container, they appeared intact some even had writing on them. He waded ankle deep in ash to retrieve 6 unburnt boxes, one labeled in my handwriting, mementos.
Unpacking these boxes was like collecting your stolen hand bag from the police station, and finding money still in your purse. I had accepted things as gone and yet here some things were, a few were blackened and all smelt as awful as the container they were plucked from, but they were back. A bunch of significant and random items. My wedding dress, miraculously unscathed in tissue paper inside a blackened gift box inside a blackened bag inside a blackened moving box. My tears flowed as I unwrapped items. Three of my journals including one that had been my first wedding anniversary gift. My hens night photo book from a faraway time in a faraway land. Gifts and letters from my family. Sushi plates I bought while living in NZ. My karate medals. All my school reports - proof to my children that as I still do, I talked a lot in class. A box of books. Crockery that didn’t fit in the shack. A slightly melted plastic container of photo negatives. Souvenirs from a trip to Japan, among them, silk and a paper fan, unbelievably intact inside exquisite Japanese packaging designed for aesthetic but solid enough to protect contents inside a box at the smouldering end of a shipping container on the south coast of NSW. My childhood money box, the plastic had melted but I smashed it open to find foreign coins and Aussie $1 and $2 notes in perfect condition. Why had I kept these things and why were they coming back to me? I remembered packing some of these items in the last few days before leaving Melbourne, I was running out of time to properly sort them and the bins were full. I’ll reassess these later, I thought. Then as we were moving onto the block I sorted through more boxes culling items but feeling unable to part with others. Standing in a garage in a Mollymook house I never thought I would live in, I gazed upon these relics of my past and thought, why bloody why? Most discoveries were magical but others I couldn’t have cared less for, so the emotions crashed over me like waves. Only a few found items belonged to my husband, so I felt sad for his lost history. Things aren’t always supposed to make sense or be understood. But it felt like a small miracle and as though my trajectory shifted a few degrees to the positive.
The container was removed and then it was all gone. The pile of twisted tin, precarious chimney flue, blackened rock wall, random house remnants and the foul smelling burnt shipping container - gone. When I first visited the cleared site the track marks were still on the ground where the excavator scraped (almost) clean away the detritus of our former lives. A few clues remained, a molten piece of aluminium window frame, crockery pieces, the logo sticker from the washing line, an unearthed and cracked grey-water pipe. “9 years of work gone,” sighed husband.
The vacant ground seemed at once smaller and bigger than when we resided there. It’s so much easier to manage, looking at absence rather than destruction. But it brought its own emotions. As I walked around the vacant space, I remembered the years spent on that land, standing in certain spots I recalled memories of ordinary and extraordinary occurrences. Sorting out recycling in the wood shed, where I filled the bucket for hand washing clothes, where the lace monitor got cornered inside the fence one day, the night I found Penny the diamond python enjoying the warmth of the generator box, watching microbats emerge from between the old weatherboards at dusk, bathing my toddlers in a bucket on the edge of the deck, when husband created a bike track around the shack and we did laps - then I stacked and my five year old son gave me first aid!
I miss living in that wonderful shack nestled in the bush and off-grid life. I have been trying so hard to cope in our new living space and with the world’s current challenges, that I had actually forgotten how much I miss it.
So it’s good the mess has gone because now we can start to move forward with our plans to return. First step was to camp there. It was like going back to the start, when we used to visit from Melbourne and there was no water, toilet or power. The boys loved it. Both the adventure and being back. We sat at the fire pit, which was ironically untouched by bushfire, and toasted marshmallows like we had done many times before. This time the night bush was silent. Most animals are gone. We did see wombat poo so at least one critter survived or has moved here. The lyre bird is still the loudest and cleverest bird on the block. We’re down to one, there used to be two. The yellow breasted robins are back, flitting from low branch to branch watching to see if we move a log and expose a tasty insect morsel. Despite the changed landscape, we felt relaxed and at home. We rebuilt old bike tracks and made new ones. The boys were happy and there were no requests for TV or iPad, just biking and sick tricks, each boy vying to achieve the biggest air.
So you will go back? People cautiously ask me. What about the danger I read in their silence when I answer. We’re mitigating risks this time. We will have fewer trees around us, we won’t be in exactly the same spot, we will have sprinklers, we will have window shutters and best of all, we have insurance. A shed first, then the access road and then one day on the far horizon, we will build a proper house.
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Saying Thank you In February I sat in a chair in a psychologist’s rooms and cried uncontrollably. One of the things I was worrying about was writing thank you cards. There were many sane reasons for my tears but in addition to those, I distinctly remember being distressed about not having wrritten any thank you notes, since it was already two months after the fire. So many people had given so generously. Not having been a recipient of charity before, it weighed on me. Those cards were in my head, I needed to express gratitude. But I didn’t have the time or energy to write them. Don’t worry about that, said my sister, people don’t expect thanks, they just want to help. But a few days later my mother phoned me, her church friendship club had decided to give us some of their fundraising and she was sending the cheque, “Just send a thank you card care of the church,” she said. See, it is expected! In my mind it was a mix of needing to be well mannered, but also genuinely wanting to thank people for being wonderful and letting them know how utterly meaningful that generosity was to us. We did experience an expectation in December when friends had someone from Sydney come down to the coast who wanted to donate to a bushfire affected family and they had bought clothes and toys and they wanted to meet the boys. At that time we were working full pelt trying to get a house ready to live in so that sort of request felt weird and conditional, we don’t know you, we didn’t ask for your help and now you want something from us. I agreed to go alone, but In the end they didn’t want to meet us so with relief I collected the mainly very useful items. Another random request from a retirement village in Sydney I deflected to a family I knew had lost their home too. Charity is an interesting phenomena. After the Tathra fires in March 2018 it apparently took 2 people working full time for 18 months to shift donated items. People mean well but they don’t think it through. Anyway I digress, back to the cards. It took me months to get them done. FIrstly I wasn’t sure I would have time to write so I thought to get them printed but that wasn’t cheap and felt impersonal. I looked in local shops but there weren’t any cards I liked. I eventually found some cards online I was happy with. They turned up in the post and were fantastic, but half the size I thought they would be. So I was writing the most significant thank you cards of my life, on cards A6 size. Hmmm. The only upside was, that meant less words to write! I decided on a heart to be drawn on the inside of the cards and that my children would do the drawing - thereby passing on the expectation and requirement to express gratitude?! Gradually they got drawn and written on, but it took time. I didn’t have enough for every person who donated to us. I started local, but then COVID-19 hit and I couldn’t hand deliver cards in lockdown. So I had to post them, they were so small I worried they might get lost in a post bag! My husband was completely fed up with my guilt written half hearted attempts to write them - they felt so difficult to write because they were so important and yet what I was sending felt so insignificant, night after night I wrote a few cards then stopped. I felt overwhelmed. Then I went back to the gofundme page list and realised I had nowhere near enough cards. That amazing list of beautiful generous people known and anonymous floored me again and the tears flowed. I had to prioritise who I could thank in writing. My immediate family got cut from the list! In the end I focussed on the task and I have written (and my children have coloured in) 60 cards. That still wasn’t enough. I cheated with a Facebook post, and to be fair, I don’t actually have everyone’s addresses. But I’ve still missed people and if that is you dear reader, please know your kindness was wonderful and significant for us and is deeply appreciated. And I’ve accepted you didn’t even want a card, you just wanted to help.
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Bushfire and Mental Health
I’ve been waiting for it. The mental health stuff. I’ve listened to the psychology experts and what happens after bushfires…
The need to talk incessantly about it - did that. (Although I am already prone to talking as most of you know!)
Show people pictures - did that. Some people wanted to see, some shied away, we couldnt help but ‘document’ our experience I guess.
Get angry about stuff - did that, actually stil doing that - about recovery being uncoordinatored and slow - we are still waiting to hear from the state contractor while around us, properties impacted one month after us have already been cleared.
Who recovers worst - the ones who leave. Well we’re still here.
Who recovers best - those with strong community connections. Our friends, our neighbours, our children’s school - have been and still are, there for us.
The 6 month mark is significant - 2 weeks away. Doesn’t feel that much different.
When the money comes in fractures occur in communities - yes I can’t deny I feel something when I hear blaze aid is fixing other people’s fences, when other communities get the attention and most of the donations. Overwhelmingly I feel like they deserve it, because having no notice and not even having a choice to evacuate and then only having the clothes you stand in is extreme. And there were many who were disadvantaged before the fires who are clearly far worse off now. But not everyone is in that situation and still others seem to benefit more. Or are they? It just messes with your head. Recently we’ve had some beautiful and unexpected donations - a voucher from Treading Lightly for plants was really special. Mr 8 suggested we split the $ and each chose one plant, we agreed. He chose indoor plants we are enjoying now, my husband and Mr 6 chose fruit trees for the orchard we’ve always planned at the block. I chose a beautiful fern to go in an anniversary gift pot - the pot survived the fire, the original plant did not. A few weeks ago we went to buy new trainers for Mr 6 at the local shoe shop, the lengthy decision process revealed our ‘situation’ to the shop staff and only then did we discover they had funds for a new pair of shoes for each of us since we’d lost our home. Wonderful and unexpected kindness.
We moved to our block to do our thing and I think our recovery will be the same. Although I’m starting to push a little and ask for help. The private and independent me has realised there is help out there and maybe asking for some is ok and it could make things faster, cheaper or smarter. Moving forward is not easy or quick. This I know from watching our neighbours who kept their house, but had to work through insurance inspections, claims, plans, orders, coordinating trades and finally installation of amenities. It’s arduous both mentally and logistically. We’re about to embark on that journey for just a shed, then we have to build a road and only after that can we even contemplate a house.
Which brings me back to mental health. There was a time I wondered if my son would be forever marked by this event, but then one weekend I saw he would be fine. Last night I had that realisation about things for myself. It’s a scar. It hurts. It’s set our plans back a number of years. But I don’t have a diagnosis other than regret and sadness. While evacuating twice was stressful and losing so much is devastating, we were scared but unlike others we didn’t flee with fire behind us - we have experienced loss rather than trauma. I am ok. I will be busy, stressed, grumpy, sooky and occasionally angry. But I will recover from this. I will be ok.
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Same same, but different
We rode our bikes on the forest road on the weekend. Like we used to on a Sunday afternoon - same same, but different. it is strange being back on that road, it’s curves and contours so familiar but the all other visual landmarks erased. What was our life, isn’t any longer. It’s mentally easier to just live in our new life, going back to the old is challenging.
We went to think about where we will put the shed. We listened to the advice of our neighbour and RFS volunteer, including discussion on where was the fire the hottest, where did it come from, what might happen next time. We have our eyes wide open this time and we won’t take chances. We can’t afford emotionally or financially to lose everything again.
We rescued more plants from the veggie garden, to be transplanted in our new veggie patch at the Mollymook house. A bit like us really! We combed the rubble again, This time for crockery. I’m on a mosaic mission. I saw a cylindrical mosaic in my brother’s garden and it’s sparked some hitherto dormant crafting spark in me. That mosaic cylinder was all clean and gorgeous but so far many of the broken bits I have are darkened and dull. And I am no artist so this could end up being a big ugly mess! But I feel like I need to craft something from what is left, some symbol of our former lives. I shall definitely post a picture of the resulting mess or magnificence!
The house and container are still confronting and stinky and, still there. We wait with all the others for the state appointed contractor to reach our name on the impacted property list. We are not impatient, there are many others who need their site cleared more urgently than us. But it is a barrier to moving forward. Every item is memory laden and brutal to consider. The time it took to chop 3 years worth of firewood, the glass bought in Melbourne destined for our big house and moved three times to its final destination, covered and stored, now melted. You get the trajectory. Hanging around the rubble isn’t a fun or healthy pastime.
But the ride was lovely. Being back riding with my boys and our dog alongside us loving the freedom of the bush. It was a good Sunday ride.
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It’s been an extraordinary ride since we lost our beautiful forest home on 3 December 2019 to the beast that was the Currowan fire that took 312 homes and consumed 500,000 hectares. It has taken time to reach this point of writing. I scribbled here and there but only in the last month have found a place from which I can write. We are moving slowly but intently towards recovery - which feels like the right sentiment to bring to this blog. Not my anger as ferocious as a bushfire about governments and organisations that contribute to bushfires through negligence or inaction. Aerial firefighting equipment could have been a game changer on 26 November when the Currowan fire ignited by lightning in drought ravaged forest. The fire was all but inaccessible to fire trucks that were almost futile in the absence of water to replenish them. But the federal government now famously didn’t listen to fire chiefs in May or November. Additional aerial support was approved on December 5, too little too late for us. The State Forestry Corporation will shortly receive a letter from me asking why a forest can be logged then the uncommercial debris (approximately 2/3 of the tree) be left to cure in the sun for 2 years to become the perfect bushfire conductor towards and through our block. But ahem, I’m not writing from this angry place, or I would write about the delays and disorganisation of governments, agencies and organisations as they grapple with a disaster of geographical and time magnitude they had never prepared for. I am not writing from the sludge of post adrenaline exhaustion caused by two evacuations and 6 weeks of fire threat, compounded by the mental energy required to manage my grief as well as my children’s, and sealed by the physical demands of renovating our investment property that needed to be fast tracked for habitation. After a Melbourne Christmas escape we also endured 8 days of stress returning via a circuitous journey of bush fire avoidance in order to finally return to our new residence. During the journey there were anxious days when we couldn’t contact our dog’s kennel, which is located in a particularly badly impacted bushfire area. Eventually we made contact and learned the kennel and our dog narrowly survived. That return journey brought additional tiredness but critically more instability to children’s minds, something we are struggling to manage still. Nor will I write this blog about the deep sadness I feel at the loss of trees, animals and habitat. I, who like many people on the south coat, choose to live here to be connected to nature and experience its beauty, initially found the flora and fauna loss completely overwhelming. My daily commute through at least 50km of which was burnt out forest and villages, initially was too much for me to bear, my workplace supported me to work locally. Quite apart from our forest including the favourite 300+ year old ‘grandmother’ spotted gum, the extent of the impact on the south cost forests and wildlife is immense and while epicormic regrowth is already occurring, wildlife and habitat recovery looks precarious. It’s brutal but I can’t write from this place. And I won’t write dwelling on loss of things miniature and enormous, trivial and significant, useful or valuable. Each item is a stitch in the tapestry of our former life. We still periodically feel a stab of remembrance when another thing is realised as lost. A wedding dress, a mother’s gold, favourite snowboard gear, treasures from world travels, Santa’s homemade toy cupboard, a hard earned black belt, a bifold door, our own milled timber, a barely used split system, children’s birthday books, our solar power array & batteries. Many things are easy to relinquish but some tug at the heart or mind. The night my sister in law returned my husband’s beads which she unwittingly had in safe keeping, or when I found I had indeed packed my husband’s wedding ring were insanely emotional moments. But at the end of the day things are things. While I am disappointed I don’t have my wedding dress, I’m really glad I didn’t pay to dry clean it, and practically it’s less important than a saucepan or a vegetable peeler. The more painful loss is our home, painstaking and lovingly made beautiful and comfortable by my amazing husband. Even he sighs at the prospect of beginning again. But we endure beyond property and things so I won’t write about this. So if I’m not writing in anger, exhaustion, sadness or grief, why have I included all of the above? Because, you can’t appreciate recovery until you understand loss. And this is the perspective I am writing from - recovery. My family’s recovery is predominantly due to the generosity of others. This generosity, which is still coming, and still brings me to tears, has enabled us to be living in a house, importantly in our own space, and starting the process of creating a new normal. The support has been wide ranging from the immediate shelter provided by amazing friends during evacuation, through to tradies and friends helping us get into our house in those first few weeks, then astoundingly generous physical and monetary gifts and presents from family, extended family, friends and their families, my workplace and our phenomenal community. There were three angels who started a gofundme page for us – the angels didn’t ask me, they thought I would say no, so they asked my husband and then told me it was for my kids so had me cornered. The page generated staggering donations from people near and far, known and unknown. Family and that page gave us the financial means to finish renovating the rental property which has now become our new home. Some of you reading may be one of our generous donors – thank you from the bottom of my heart. Key also for recovery, we both had jobs and incomes to go back to. Many in our region are not so fortunate. Many were vulnerable before the fires, they are even more vulnerable now. Recovery centres are still open along the south coast and the need is great. Slowly the help is coming and councils and agencies do recognise the road is long and are working on support for the long haul. We have been back to our block only twice. Mainly this was due to practical reasons – initially it wasn’t safe and then we didn’t have time as we were too busy renovating. The first visit was hard, intense and overwhelming. We went to witness destruction and loss. As my 6 year old marvelled, it’s all gone down to nothing. The second visit was purposeful, we wanted to explore the rest of our block and see if the rainforest gully had survived. Two months had elapsed since our first visit. We were a bit nervous about how it might impact our mental health being back, but staying away wasn’t ideal either. We promised the boys we wouldn’t be near the house for long and that we would explore the block. Thankfully it turned into a healing visit. While still confronting, the burnt out home didn’t bring the same horror as the first visit. Wonderfully we discovered tomatoes and strawberries growing in our veggie patch! We brought them back to Mollymook to be the first plants in a new veggie garden. The rainforest gully had sadly been completely burnt out, but I cried with relief to see fern fronds emerging from black stumps. Due to the absence of vegetation we could actually explore the gully like we had never been able to before. And best of all, with the significant rain we had in February, the creek was running through the gully - it was clear, rocky and beautiful. The rest of the block had been burnt, but many trees were fluffy with newly sprouting shiny green leaves. So what’s next for us? People ask, will we go back? Will we rebuild? Will our house build be different? Answers: Yes. Yes. And yes. It’s one step at a time. We’re still in the queue for the clean-up with everyone else. But in the meantime we will probably get a shed up and we’ve been given an onsite cabin so we will work towards an interim but movable habitable space. We can’t afford financially or mentally to lose everything again. But we want to get back onto our land and it would be very handy to get some holiday rental income from the Molly house. When things are settled and the world is back to normal we will sell our investment property and commence the subdivision and house build. It’s definitely a marathon not a sprint. We think we will have the means and the energy to achieve it. Plenty of blog opportunities ahead! Right now we are living in the right now. We are missing the treechange but we are still living the seachange intent of our move from the city. Mollymook isn’t our first choice, but it’s still a lovely place to live - after school beach visits are easy and the boys are loving that. We are exceedingly fortunate to have this house – it was without a doubt the best decision we made last year. It is an adjustment to come from 72 acres and only one house in sight on the hill above us, to a goldfish bowl backyard with houses all around. Gradually the feeling of being on display is subsiding, feeling hemmed in is not. Fortunately it’s a quiet road so we’re not too disturbed by traffic. Gradually we are getting used to the streetlight across the road. We have an especially lovely neighbour and her youngest son is a regular and welcome visitor. The boys still go to their same school and in fact I drive them past school and out of town to catch the bus from their old bus stop as it’s on the way to work and is 20 minutes closer to the office. I have sadly gained an extra 40mins per day commute time. Some bush habits haven’t changed, in the shower I still start washing my feet in the cold water before it runs hot – preserving rain water will be a hard habit to lose. Being back on the power grid is a novelty, sometimes I put the dishwasher and the washing machine on at the same time, and at night! Few readers powered by the grid will have understood the significance of that sentence – night time appliance use - got it? OK never mind. It is recovery, but it’s fragile. We are up skilling on child psychology and parenting big time. I probably started writing this blog a month ago, when a new virus wasn’t worrying that many people. Right now everyone’s worrying and for our community it feels like a body blow. We’ve experienced disaster, we know the feeling of the world being upside down because nowhere feels safe. We’re exhausted, we need to connect, but that is being denied us. How will we all cope with this? Hopefully the same way we coped with the bushfires, with the help of friends, family, community. To those of you reading who helped us in this recovery, thank you. It means everything to us. In the midst of the fires I used to end conversations with, “Keep safe”. Now I say to you, “Keep healthy”.
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Last weekend I was hosted by a lovely new friend at a nearby property for a girls afternoon, she wanted to do something for her new friends to show us she cared about fledgling friendships and the welcome she felt in a new area. She hosted a make up party (no purchase required) and one of the key messages from the beautician was self care. The women present were all mums and most of us didn't prioritise time for ourselves. Families, jobs and chores keep us busy nearly all of the time. My self care is a Pilates class once a week and my morning walk. I've written before about how much I value my morning walk, but this year the walk has got shorter perversely in spite of the fact I have more time! I get up a bit later and I get distracted by the boys and sometimes one of them joins me. Which in itself is actually special, just one on one (ok one on 2 if you count the crazy kelpie) in the state forest we have some lovely chats and do all sorts of nature observations mainly involving animal poo being the most obvious remains of nocturnal animal behaviour. Thankfully the echnidnas triangular snout shapes in the dust are a welcome non poo related animal sign. But back to the self care. Apart from the walk, I don't prioritise self care. After the kids are showered and readers read and teeth brushed its dish washing and folding clothes, watering plants, paperwork and whatever else. My treechange seachange hasn't meant I escaped the work and school treadmill. Some bits are different here, but mostly I'm consumed by the same stuff parents in the city are. Adding to that, in the middle of the year we bought a house to renovate so we can eventually have enough money to complete our subdivision and realise the dream of living on our land. Which means there's additional finance planning, product research and weekends completely dominated by manual labour. Time is now our second most precious resource. So this is a really long way of getting to the point. Screw all those chores and tasks - the girls afternoon has crystallised a new resolve. I am going to prioritise one night a week where I will write! At least 30 mins but it will be my time and my choice to do something that is just for me. It might not be my blog it might be my journal or my future novel (hahaha! We all have an unwritten novel right?!). Writing satisfies another part of me. Not my rational, manager, striving work self. Or my over zealous parent self. Instead for the creative, playful, intuitive and neglected self! I have always loved writing but my analytical side has dominated and told that other self there isn't enough talent. Echoing what my year 11 English teacher told me, you're too analytical to be a writer. Why do we remember the negative things people say to us? I bet I got a thousand, ok that could be excessive, maybe 17 positive teachers' comments in year 11 but the one that cuts through like a lighthouse beam in fog was that negative reinforcement about my writing aspirations. Do the teachers out there realise the power of their words on fragile teen minds? She's right I am analytical. It has served me well in both scientific and business pursuits. But that doesn't mean I can't write. Sure I'm not JRRR Tolkien inventing new worlds and changing a literary genre forever. I have a bit of a self limiting perfectionism thing happening - I think things have to be outstanding. I am a tough critic, not exclusively but especially of myself. There are so many different forms of writing and regardless of what, where and how, if I write with honesty and genuineness then that will be enough. It's been so affirming for me to write a blog and put a form of writing out for others to read. The positive comments I have received have been like precious jewels to me. But I should also write for me, for enjoyment and because I feel compelled to. I have decided I'm going to commit to continuing my writing journey on a weekly basis. I know I know, you've heard these promises before. Last year I promised I would write a monthly blog, I got close. But I wasn't committed to the writing. I was committed to coming up with some weird internal rules I had set for the blog. It has to be about nature or the coast or the bush or the whatever. It's my blog I can write whatever I want because the rules are my rules! Crazy brain. Stop thinking. Start writing. Start feeling and expressing. Who knew I had to go to a make up party to generate resolve. Oh and my brows are looking much better, thanks for asking. Self care people, self care.
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What do my kids think of their parents’ treechange?
Last term for homework my eldest had to draw a picture of his ideal home. To my surprise he drew an apartment block! Here we are living off grid in a shack with a composting toilet on a bush black adjoining state forest. He’s living our tree change sea change but maybe this wouldn’t be his first choice? So I decided to ask my children what they liked and disliked about living in the bush…
Mr 6 said his favourite thing about where we live is all the animals. He also liked the “…trees and they give us lots of air to breathe”. He enjoys the big back yard. (Glad he’s noticed not every child has a 72 acre back yard. Granted most of this is treed steep gully, but there is definitely enough room for the bike tracks, soccer playing area, construction site and pirate ship tree house!) Mr 7 likes where we live because there’s lots of things to do and play. He likes that we have good neighbours. (He’s right, they’re awesome.)
But what didn’t they like? They had to think hard about this…
Mr 6 doesn’t like when its windy because its very noisy especially when it makes a howling sound like a ghost. (To be honest I also don’t like high winds, I get nervous about falling branches, but obviously I don’t voice this to him!) He doesn’t like thunderstorms either and once when the lightning hit something near us it made a big bang and scared him. Lately he’s been complaining about the noisy boobook owl at night. The owl roosts in the grandmother tree near us and calls with its low whoop whoop in the early evening before heading out to hunt. “It’s so annoying and I can’t get to sleep,” he complains. (How inconsiderate of the wildlife!) Mr 7 doesnt like the sound of rain on the roof. (He is on the top bunk under a tin roof so I’ll admit it probably is noisy for him. But I do try to encourage gratefulness for rain in this time of drought.) With a little bit of prompting about tank water he said he doesn’t like that we run out of water if it doesn’t rain. Although Mr 6 pointed out we just get the water truck to come and deliver some more. Mr 7 doesn’t like it when people (aka the State Forestry Corporation) cut down trees. (I’m sure readers know how I feel about that.) I asked them what they thought about our least conventional house feature - the composting toilet. Mr 6 doesn’t like having to hay and spray after going to the toilet because it’s a waste of his time. (Time inconvenience bothers him more than being confronted by his waste!) Mr 7 thinks it would be better if we had a flushing toilet so that Dad doesn’t have to change the composting toilet because it makes him grumpy. (It is the worst job at our place and I confess I delegate it to husband, thank you and you have every right to be grumpy.)
Their responses allayed any concerns about subjecting them to our seachange treechange. Their likes and dislikes are refreshingly simple but probably reflect the thoughts of their parents. We feel extremely fortunate to live here, so I’m sure that’s rubbed off on them, although not entirely in ways I might have anticipated. Their responses aren’t because they don’t have anything else to compare with, they do remember living in the normal house in town two years ago. Perhaps when they are older and any friends who live in town can’t just cycle around to visit them they won’t like being here, and I’m sure by then we will have had to install high speed internet. By then they will probably want their own rooms and bemoan our small living quarters. I already wonder how they don’t suffocate from all the fart smells in their small room - I can’t imagine what its going to be like when hormones and body odour kick in! Right now as young boys, having lots of space to play and nature to live amongst is enough for them.
Whatever their own living preferences turn out to be, I hope this way of life has given them a different perspective. When my eldest inevitably moves into his city apartment perhaps he will have a greater appreciation for town water and flushing toilets!
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Pictures of a ring of six trees in our gully.
I’ve just finished reading ‘The hidden life of trees’ by Peter Wohlleben and I found it fascinating. In first year university biology, if I had learned how trees communicate with each other via fungal filaments in the soil and by emitting odours from their leaves when under attack by insect or animals, maybe my studies would have diverted from biomedical to the plant world! Only thing is, the book is written about northern hemisphere forests and trees. So now I'm bursting with curiosity about the spotted gums, turpentine, Sydney blue gums & iron barks on our block. I wish I knew more about them!
My feeble observations back up some of what I read…
I can see treees of the same species have an understanding between them, their branches lightly touch and their crowns don’t overlap. Whereas with different species, its every tree for themselves. There is a spotted gum growing right up between the branches of a turpentine next to our shack. Their branches rub in the wind. The Dharawal people from north of here believe branches rubbing together can start a fire, so far fortunately these trees just creak and squeak in the wind.
I’m on tree watch now, trying to understand these beautiful organisms that surround us. I’ve observed them through the seasons. Last winter in the thick of drought trees were struggling, wattles and some young trees died. In full summer heat there was a noiseless rain of leaves spiralling down as trees surrendered them. Then I wonder why some trees fare better in some locations. There is a steep bank on one side of our land and it’s predominantly treed with turpentine, do they prefer a slope or is the soil heavier and more to its liking? They are a more balanced tree than the spotted gums who shoot straight up and drop branches as they grow leaving a high canopy and a small number of remaining branches. Spotties are drought experts, growing even when there’s little rain. Much of our forest is populated with spotted gums. Down in the gully where our forest is most untouched - our land was logged 50 years before we bought it - some glorious old giants still stand. Down in the gully where the lyre birds scratch amongst the ferns and leeches thrive in damp places the sun barely reaches, we have found a stand of 6 trees in a circle. We call it a fairy ring, not sure if that’s due to our imagination or the boys’! Since reading Peter Wollheben’s book I’ve headed back down to take a closer look at the ring of trees, I hadn’t remembered all the details and thought maybe they were sister trees supporting and feeding each other via underground fungal networks as described in his book. But I found the ring of trees are not all the same species. Four are turpentine all knobbly and rough barked, regularly spaced branches and dark green leaves. But two are Sydney blue gum. Straight up and smooth trunked where the bark falls away. Why are these two interlopers allowed? They are all impossibly close together on a small mound in the centre of the gully. I suppose they are all clinging to the available soil and stretching to the sunlight. It feels very special standing among these six sentinels. Perhaps they are all working together? The pictures above are the tree ring.
I’ve seen proof this winter in Peter’s assertion that there’s safety in numbers for trees. A forest protects each tree from high winds. Because the State Forest adjoining our land was logged but environmental rules meant habitat trees must remain, a few old ones suffered in the July winds this year. Left standing alone without their neighbours the wind was too much for their top branches. The smell of the fallen branches brought back to me the reek of the forest when it was logged, a pungent almost oily smell. Initially I thought it was the diesel from the logging machines. But then I realised it was the trees. I don’t know if the trees were sending out a warning or pain signal with this odour as Peter writes about, or if it was just the smell of the inner trunk. I have never forgotten that smell as we visited the freshly logged State Forest. And while I’m remembering the logging can I remind my dear readers how I bemoaned this State funded process? It’s been 21 months and the unwanted logs and branches haven’t been burned or cleared up as promised - apart from right on our boundary due to my protest. The felled trees are still lying here minus their trunks, slowly being removed by opportunistic locals for firewood who punctuate our weekends with chainsaws. To me this is a shameful contribution to habitat extinction and removal of carbon storing trees.
Ahem, I digress. Back to the hidden life of trees.
The author talks about trees losing their connection when logging has occurred, saying a logged forest is like a group of badly behaved teenagers, all in it for themselves. At this point, not yet 2 years since the logging, the regrowth is all saplings and scrub, the teenagers won’t be fighting for another decade. And that’s the point about trees, they grow so slowly that most humans don’t see their lifecycle. The largest grandmother spotted gum on our track is 50m tall and must be a few hundred years old. Only Austalia’s First Nations people truly understand our forests with their oral histories going sixty thousand years back. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people only ever used fallen branches for their fires and never took more wood than they needed. They knew when bushfires would come and how and importantly when to use fire to keep the bush in balance, not in the height of summer when the gum of eucalypts is flowing and can explode to create very hot fires that animals can’t outrun. With trees as clan or individual totems Aboriginal people have huge knowledge of trees and how to look after them, rich and meaningful oral books about the hidden life of trees. I feel like a newborn compared to that knowledge bank. I will keep observing and seeking ways to better understand our forest.
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City reflections
I’m writing during the return journey from my old home town. It always stirs up emotions as I view the smoggy city horizon fading in the rear view mirror. My elastic heart strings stretch as we drive away from my family becoming thinner with distance until they are so thin they break. This trip we spent special time with family and friends. Maintaining these connections and love is precious for me and particularly the boys, and also provides support for us - we even enjoyed some luxurious couple time. But there’s always people we don’t manage to catch up with and my worrying brain always reflects as we depart - did we make the best choices with the time we had, did we do enough for the boys and why do we always arrive on holiday tired and leave exhausted?! We roll through the lengthening suburban sprawl and new land releases. Each visit it takes longer to leave the city. “Resort style living!” Billboards proclaim, but there’s not a palm tree or beach in sight. I check my cynicism - it is possible resorts have changed, its been many years since I’ve been to one. Finally paddocks emerge, but this year there are scrawny sheep in over-grazed eroded fields under the confusingly hot autumn sun. The drought has a hold here.
The city was self absorbed as usual. Drowning in traffic and punctuated by construction. City living feels insulated to me. Compared to our off-grid forest dwelling where weather matters - sun brings power and rain brings drinking and washing water. In the city you don’t have to think about these things - your appliances are always poised for action. You can do anything you want to, at any time, so long as you have the means (although you may have to queue). But equally, no one cares if you do or you don’t. Potential or obscurity are there for you to choose, or collapse into. City life baffles me now, being so disconnected from the natural world, then being intensely close to people but also fiercely detached from them. Why the philosophical approach in this blog? I confess I’m not entirely sure! It’s time to write and these are my city reflections as we burn fossil fuel driving many kms home in our big 4WD - an acknowledgment to counter my developing environmental superiority complex.
I shared with family and friends news of our block situation, so I can now share this with you the reader. We have withdrawn our building application … due to a misunderstood technical issue. Completely our error and a very frustrating waste of time and money. A house build is years away. I used to hope for a home by the time I was 50, looks like I’ll have to postpone that a decade! We are now considering an investment property to help build equity. I’m confident it will all work out. Eventually. As previously blogged, we are content where we are. We love our land, our coastal life and our developing place in the community. A city visit reminds us why we moved as we return home to tall trees, clear ocean waters and soft sands. And to our veggie garden which keeps on giving, thanks to some neighbourly watering while we were away. Everyone can find their peace somewhere, I know where mine lies and I hope you have found yours.
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Heart starter Last November I completed first aid training, I'm the first aid officer at work so I'm on a 2 year renewal schedule. We were trained on the use of the defibrillator and advised how it's use can increase survival chances by 70% compared to CPR alone. I had a think about where the closest defibrillator is. About 20 minutes away in town, or 10 minutes away at the local fire station, but it would need to be unlocked. The ambulance station is also 20 minutes from us. There is however, a 24 hour service station 5 minutes from us - that would be the place for a defibrillator I thought. I spoke to the service station staff and they agreed to keep a tin at the cashier for loose change donations. The tin was filling pretty slowly until one of the staff came up with an idea. "No shirt = $1 defib donation!" Anytime someone comes into the servo without a shirt he demands a donation! With this brilliant beachside summer strategy the tin is filling fast. He's also had some interesting conversations with customers. One Sydney man donated $10 to the tin and explained his wife had a heart attack and the paramedics saved her with the use of a defibrillator. They explained to him how lucky she was, as not every ambulance had one. He has since donated one to his local ambulance station and was happy to contribute to our collection. One full tin has so far generated $250, only 10% of the target, but its a start, and the boys had such a fun time counting it! We have so many summer visitors but actually the peak seems to be extending further every year, I hope we can achieve a defib by next Christmas. I'm hoping it will be a positive contribution to my community.
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Getting our Veg On
Sometimes I feel like I’m a pretend bush lady. People ask, “How many acres do you have?” “72,” I reply. “Any animals?” “A dog.” (Oh, and courtesy of my youngest this summer we also have three skinks called Lizzie, Lizzie and Lizzie.) “Chooks?” “No.” “Growing your own veggies?” “No.” Hmm people think. Internally I protest, we do have composting toilets, tank water and we’re solar powered off grid! To be real a bush lady, at the very least I need to to grow some veggies.
Being on tank water and with a small roof in a year of drought, we didn’t actually have spare water to grow veggies. Happily, since October we have had excellent rain and most excellent husband has installed an old water tank which now collects run off from the extended lean to off the shipping container, and that tank is now full! Dripping a little, but full. Water? Tick!
Back in the city we had raised garden beds built from corrugated roofing tin. We brought this tin with us when we moved in an enormous truck full of stuff I berated my husband we may never use again. Proving me wrong, the tin garden beds have been resurrected. One is lined up against a section of our yard fence which incidentally was originally a balustrade in a Mollymook house husband renovated. Some Sydney blue gum branches from our block are the frame for the wire covering. Our veggie patch needs to be bird, rabbit, possum and wombat proof. The old shack flyscreen door is one opening side, a tip shop $10 flyscreen door the other. Two tin garden beds are now side by side framed with recycled timber and critter proofed by discarded incorrectly sized flyscreens from a city job and a hundred year old flyscreen door from Melbourne’s historic Yarraville. Another of these beautiful old doors is now the door to our greenhouse polytunnel. The polytunnel has been constructed using tubing found on the block held in place with tip shop star pickets and a recycled timber base. The plastic covering is reinforced by recycled decking from a Moruya Heads residence. The tall garden beds I half filled with rocks, easy to find around our block but a good workout to collect, and leaf litter which we have in abundance. The only new items used in construction were the wire, staples, plastic and the soil. So if that’s not real bush building it’s definitely country style - use anything you have and pay for materials as a last resort. Cobbled together, slightly whimsical but entirely functional. The boys had a great time raking out the soil, then selecting and planting seedlings. This bush lady says bring on the veg!
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