Unwelcome guest!

Just as I am rigging the mosquito net...I spot this on the window sill. It wasn't very big (5cm). Will showed it the door!

Frogknot

We left Dulcie about 10.30 this morning.“It’s going to be lonely here tonight,” she said just to make us feel better about going.We had to drive via Gatton to pick up our friend Andrew’s chainsaw. We had heard from another friend, who lives near Frogknot, that the drive up to the house was blocked by a fallen tree. We arrived in Gatton about lunchtime, got the chainsaw and headed up the Great Dividing Range towards Clifton. We stopped in Warwick about 2.00pm and had a pie for lunch then continued on to Stanthorpe.It was a lovely journey and it was good to be finally heading out on an adventure.I had not seen any kangaroos yet, alive or dead (roadkill) but we saw 2 dead ones by the road just outside Stanthorpe. Other weird things we saw on the journey included an another old ‘prospector’ bloke standing in a roadside layby with a surf board under his arm, a nomadic Buddhist walking along the road dressed only in orange and a man on a unicycle!?We drove through Stanthorpe and on to Glen Aplin where we stopped at the service station to get some petrol for the chainsaw.It wasn’t far from there to Frogknot.Frogknot is the house Will built with Andrew. They started in 1996. Will says it is still not finished. It stands in 40 acres of bush. The corrugated iron roof is supported by posts cut from the surrounding trees and the walls are straw bale. It has solar panels for electricity and water is pumped from the dam (pond) just beside the house.We started up the drive, which is about 1km long and twists and turns up the hillside. It was quite overgrown again after we had spent a day a few years back clearing it. We soon came upon the tree blocking the road. It was not too big and only needed one cut and we were able to lift the rest and swing it out of the way.We carried on up the drive. Roxy coped well with the road and the wheels did not slip once. As we came over the brow and the house came into view. We saw two large kangaroos bounding away as we approached. Last year we had spent a week clearing the area in front of the house and it still looked pretty good.As we got closer Will could see something was wrong with the roof. The ridge capping was at a weird angle. We pulled up outside and got out and could see that the walls had sagged even more than they had in previous years. We opened the door and went in. It looked pretty good inside and seemed just as we had left it but a large lump of plaster and straw had fallen out in one corner.There was a new crack in the back wall which Will was really upset about as that is a load bearing wall. He went straight up onto the roof.That is where he discovered the awful truth that someone had stolen the newest solar panel and in doing so had removed the ridge capping allowing water to pour into the side walls making them slump further and into the back wall causing the new crack.He refitted the ridge capping and came back down. We discovered that whoever stole the solar panel also took 2 broken chainsaws and a big metal drum! Thankfully they had not found the water pump.I don’t know how he did it but within an hour Will had the remaining solar panels connected to the battery and we had power again. He then refitted the water pump and we had running water. We lit the fire in the aga and I swept the place out. Within a few hours the place was looking much better.The area around here is called The Granite Belt. All over Will’s property there are large granite boulders lying around. We walked out at sunset to ‘The rocks’, an area of large granite boulders that look out across the valley.Will was happy to see in the garden that the mandarin tree had finally produced delicious fruit. I reached out to pick one and pulled back when I noticed a small green frog sat on the one I was about to pick! There were weird orange beetles all over the bush too and Will said they were Stink Bugs and they squirted foul smelling liquid if you got too close. Nice!As it got darker the frogs started to call and they are much louder than I ever remember them from my stays here in winter.It’s now 8.45 and the light is still on and we have internet connection, and hot water. I have not seen any huntsmen, or king browns. It’s looking good.I shall be sleeping under a mosquito net tonight...not only to keep out mosquitoes but anything else that is nocturnal and crawls!

First Contact!

Storms.

I woke this morning to hear the news of Storm St Jude and the damage caused across the south of England. I can’t remember any other storm being named when I was there. I know hurricanes and cyclones get named and now it seems storms are too. Ok, so it looked quite windy as I watched some woman get blown over in the street. It looked a pretty bad storm“Good God!” said Dulcie watching too, “The World is going mad!”We have a storm bird here. I haven’t heard it but a few times I have been having breakfast and Dulcie will say “I heard the storm bird,” and Will will say, “Yes, I did too.” He has mimicked the sound for me but it does not seem anything special. How disappointing! It would be so much better if it sounded like an air-raid siren going off or just a piercing scream! (Apparently there is an owl that does that...the Powerful Owl...I’m yet to hear that too).No one mentioned the storm bird this morning...funny because later in the day we had a storm. Perhaps it was the storm bird’s day off...perhaps it was ill and stayed at home...perhaps it did sing out and no one heard it. We will never know...or care.I got some washing out and then helped Dulcie roll out another ‘batch a’biscuits’ before heading down under the house to tend ‘our nest’. You will remember, if you have been paying attention, that we are intending to move into the room under Will’s mum’s house. We have the ‘bargain’ bed but at the moment I am just painting the walls. I started yesterday and did 2 walls and went down today to finish off the rest.I came up for a ‘pickled pork’ lunch and Dulcie said she had been watching the weather and a storm was coming. She put the weather channel on and the fellow was saying we could expect a storm between 2pm and 6pm. It was gloriously sunny outside! If I was a storm bird I would have been fooled! I brought the washing in just in case and went back to my painting.It had been very hot and did feel very close. The temperature was supposed to be 31 degrees but it didn’t feel too bad to me. I heard the first clap of distant thunder about 12.45pm. How quickly it clouded over! The thunder got louder and then it started to rain. I had to slide the windows closed and take my chances with the paint fumes. It didn’t rain long so I opened the window again. A lovely cool breeze rushed in. It deserved a name. I called it ‘Betty.’There was a loud clap of thunder and it started to rain again but this time it did not come in the window so I was able to leave it open. It was heavy rain and soon the gutters outside were flowing. Water here is precious. I can see why houses collect the rainwater off their roof into tanks. It would have half filled a tank no doubt in the short time this storm lasted.The trouble with storms here, apparently, is hail! The house here has fixed shutters that are there to protect the windows from hail. We got no hail this time. The storm lasted about 30 minutes and then the sky brightened again. Dulcie came down to tell me that there had been hail at Tamworth and there had been a hailstorm in Sydney.‘It’s brightening up now,’ I said.‘No, they say it’s not over yet.’ She said.We got no more thunder but it did cloud over again and rain some more. I’ll check the rain gauge tomorrow to see how much we got.Even before the rain stopped there was a beautiful sunset over the houses across the street. I went out to view it and saw some fruit bats flying over silhouetted against the sky. It reminded me...this is Australia.  

(Click on pictures to enlarge)

As I looked at the sunset I remembered that tomorrow we are going to Frogknot!That instant of realisation would have been the ideal moment for an ominous clap of thunder!It didn't come...but out there, under that sky, was a lonely house that had not been disturbed for 14 months!Whatever next?!

Spooky 2!

We were having tea and heard a baby crying across the road. It sounded like a cat which made me realise I have not seen any cats here. I couldn’t remember a time in our last four holiday visits here when I had seen a cat either. At home in Mardale Close there were quite a few cats knocking about.

“Do people not have cats here? I don’t think I have ever seen one here” I asked.

Dulcie said the people over the road had three cats but she had not seen them recently.

Will said “The snakes ate them!” Such a wit!

The sound of the baby crying suddenly got louder and I turned around from the table to look across the street in the direction it was coming from.

There on the footpath, over the road, sat a black cat.

“Well,” I exclaimed, turning to tell Will and Dulcie, “I've just seen a cat!”

 I looked back again.

The cat was gone.

The baby was still crying.