What a couple of weeks it has been for our South Coast community! We were already very much aware of the plight of our local and not so local farmers during this endless drought and everyone had dug deep to contribute money/hay/food/clothes as well as time and petrol to deliver everything to the hardest hit areas when the seasonal winter winds decided to make themselves felt and make things even worse.

Large branches of huge gum trees were snapped off in the 100kmph gale force winds, falling onto power lines and sparking fires in the crisp brittle undergrowth, flames starting in mere seconds and spreading like the wildfire it was. The combination of drought conditions and high winds meant that embers were flying up to 6kms ahead of the fire front, starting several other grass fires and spreading way too close to houses and farms. Schools and businesses were evacuated and we were warned by the rural fire service to action our bushfire evacuation plans and “watch and act”. Despite the fire coming within 5kms of our property I was never really convinced it would affect us as the wind was blowing it directly past us at 100kmph and towards the coast. A change of direction could have made things tricky though and we do live in a wooden house! So we have now added to our to do list to make an evacuation plan – just in case.

As is usual in country areas, everyone banded together to help and it was so gratifying to see offers of accommodation from nearby guest houses and wineries for rescue workers or evacuated people with nowhere to go, offers from safe properties to take livestock from the danger area, local cafes and bakeries relaying coffees and burgers to the wonderful Firies and people with dams and swimming pools spray painting large X’s in their backyards for the water bombing helicopters to use. Our friends in Milton ended up with extra sheep, cows, horses and people (the 1st picture is taken from their farm) and their daughter who runs the lovely cafe Duke & Co Cafe in Milton was keeping the rescue services fed and watered (above)and they are just a handful of the stories we heard that day. Sadly one helicopter pilot was killed in the high winds, apart from some shedding no property was lost but over 2000 hectares of land has been burned out.

The good thing was that this happened in Winter when we still had cool temperatures. The bad thing was that this happened in Winter which means we are going to be in serious trouble come the hot days of Summer. We really need some rain, days and days  of it and soon, to be able to stave off severe fires and catastrophic conditions for our crops and cattle in the coming months. The Drought Drive that I mentioned in the last blog was a huge success and has brought a ray of hope to farmers who were contemplating shooting their animals and walking off their farms that have been in their families for generations. I heard the other day that one farmer was spending $70,000 PER WEEK on supplementary feeding for his livestock. $280,000 a month. No wonder they are suicidal. On the day the Drought Drive arrived however there were many happy faces and an overwhelming feeling of love and gratitude to receive such a huge amount of donations from the  ordinary Aussies who felt their pain and decided to do something about it.

In a different vein but with similar gratitude and respect for our local growers, we supported a Long Table Lunch at the beautiful Claydon Park with local chefs and local growers coming together to give us a delicious and creative lunch with some uniquely Australian entertainment in the form of one Mr Murray (Muz) Hartin, a bush poet and storyteller extraordinaire who manages to capture the essence of Australia in both funny and sad ways. His poem ‘Rain from Nowhere’ sums up the predicament a lot of our farmers find themselves in today. I highly recommend listening to it and I defy you not to cry…….

Just before conditions went pear shaped our good mates Baz and Cath joined us for a few days and we enjoyed some time out at local winery Mountain Ridge, in the afternoon sun listening to some live music and thinking that life was pretty damn good. We had started the day with home squeezed orange juice for our champagne breakfast. I made a lovely spicy tagine with eggs and fetta as a change from the usual Full English and we enjoyed a bonfire under a million stars that night (before the wind changed everything….)

Despite everything, nature continues to do its thing and our garden is springing into life, soft lime green leaves are unfurling on trees and plants, the pear trees are blossoming and the roses and hydrangeas are all full of buds for the next seasons flowers. Our veggie patch has been blown to bits but luckily I had staked anything that grew higher than 4 inches so we still have broccoli, broad beans,spinach and cabbages with a rather optimistic early planting of tomatoes battling the westerly wind to hopefully flourish and give us the yummiest of home grown crops, sweet (unsprayed) tomatoes! Already we have had fat juicy stalks of early asparagus push up through the dry soil much to our amazement and 10mls of rain has been forecast for this weekend so we cross our fingers and toes that they are accurate and nature gets a bit of a helping hand prior to Springs arrival on September 1st. Bring on the sound of big fat raindrops on our tin roof, is there any better sound to go to sleep to??