How's the weather?

Sitting here in the middle of a forest there is nothing I fear more than fire.  Thankfully with all the rain we have had the last few years it hasn't been an issue.

More snow predicted for today.

Fingers crossed Rod for your safety.

Bob

Prayers for you and your family Rod.

STAY SAFE! I am praying for the best possible outcome for you and your family.

Wow, what a contrast! Your country made the US evening news. We’re looking at another batch of sub-freezing temps and snowfall, and the weatherman brings up video of Australia and the fires burning up the homes as your pictures show. Reminded me of the skit from Monty Python “and now for something completely different!” I certainly hope your family and home stays out of harms way.

Again, thanks everyone for your concern. Unless there's an unfavourable wind change we should be fine. Smoke seems to have settled low to the ground today. Can't see much beyond a couple of hunderd yards. That means the fire is burning cooler, not convecting the smoke high overhead like yesterday. Also no breeze to clear it, which is fine because breeze means the fire will advance. Strong wind means embers can start spot fires many kms ahead of the fire. The Black Saturday fire we had 10 years ago was starting fires up to 50km (31 mile) ahead the wind was so strong. 173 killed back then. Thankfully no fatalities reported this time. About 7 houses gone in our region. Glad ours wasn't one of them.

While we were packing to evacuate yesterday my son asked if I was taking my collection of engines. I grabbed one only & threw it in the glove box of my van. Priorities change during a crisis. Oh, it was a Taipan 1cc diesel. Nothing special or sentimental, fairly uncommon, but it would have given me a good start on a replacement collection if the worst happened.

Thought of you last night Rod as snow was falling and lights flickering, thinking I wish I could send some of this Rod's way.






Bob

We got some snow overnight here in Northern Rhode Island..

Gosh you guys having all the fun were headed back to cold for here 40s day 20s night and that puts me back to the WOOD PILE Hea !!

My helper !!

Love those pictures roddie, looks like you got half again as much as we did. Whoever is shoveling in your last has courage.

Sun came out so I took a walk, wind and temps in the mid 20's.  I always like to see the tracks animals leave.  Camera battery gave out just when I was trying to catch the Canadian Geese in the pond behind my home.




Tree killers.

Your "helper" has grown Eric. What a beautiful German Shepard you have.

Love those ears.

She's a NUT but i love her , a little more resent ..

Good lookin dog Eric.

Eric,

That wood pile would last my dad less than a week. We burn 30+ cords of wood a year heating the farm house and and mobile home. We have an outdoor wood boiler that can heat 10000 square feet. Johnson Big John stove. Fire box is 5’ deep. The door is 24” x 36”. If you can lift it, it will burn it.

We had to get 6 cord of wood out 2 weeks ago. Snow was 3’ deep. Not fun cutting in that.

We received another 4" as expected. This was wet heavy stuff. Sun was out all day so most melted away. Just the precursor to the big one.

Thanks Joe , Jason thats more than i want to do , i did get some help yesterday so were able to get enough to the house for a few days since the weather has dropped some cold on use but least its not snowing , its pretty but makes a mess !

Bitter cold (for this area)...23 degrees at sunset, with 13 when I rolled out this morning.  

At sunset yesterday, I had warmed up my Mavic Drone in the house before launching it off the back concrete.  I'm still teaching myself to fly it sideways with an eye toward doing some side-by-side videos/photos of my buds' planes.  

My training session quickly lost steam as the temps got to my hands, but I managed some photos before beating a hasty retreat to computer desk and space heater !





C'mon Spring!!!!

A bit of humour for the rest (link only because of copyright issues).

https://dilbert.com/strip/1993-03-12

Oldenginerod wrote:Thanks guys.  Haven't had a chance to get any of my own photos, but we were blanketed in smoke for much of the day, as well as everything getting a layer of ash.  Fortunately for us the forecast strong winds didn't happen and it was dead calm most of the day, meaning the fire grew in all directions and wasn't driven twards us.  The light wind has swung around to come from the south west, which sadly puts a lot of other people in the way, but will help us.  There have been an unknown number of houses destroyed.  In this area there are a lot of folk who have horse studs within the forest.  Their homes don't stand much of a chance.  Burned 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) so far and still growing.  850 firefighters on the ground, about a dozen aircraft in the air, including a couple of these huge bombers spreading retardant. [....] Just got these pictures off a news sight, but are all from today on this actual fire. [...]


[...] Just settling down now for the night.  Things seem calm and there's no sign of any immediate threat, so we're feeling a little more calm than earlier in the day.

Glad to see you are okay, Rod. We had a huge fire 7 years ago that scorched south-eastern Arizona and south-western New Mexico, took some houses with them. 8 years ago, the U.S. Government decided to do a controlled burn in northern New Mexico during high wind conditions, that got out of controlled and burned portions of northern New Mexico.

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0530/Enormous-forest-fire-in-New-Mexico-sets-state-record-for-acres-burned

We have a problem here with people building their houses within forest areas with trees right against houses, without firebreak clearance (i.e., cleared yard) around the homes. Even if they had, evacuation is essential as a fire takes away breathable oxygen when fire is raging nearby and surrounding. And, seems we don't have the brightest decision makers as leaders, either.

OLD army buddy visiting this week...from Smith Station Alabama...tough watching news of home town destruction from tornadoes.... his place escaped ....not so with many neighbors

I been watching that mess Fred , Not a pretty site https://weather.com/news/news/2019-03-03-southern-storm-bring-tornado-warnings   I feel for those people along with Rod in Australia , One day a place to live next gone ! Nice morning sunshine pic from the drone Kim Thanks for freezing your lil finger .

Just goes to show, as much as we think we're in charge of this world, nature has other ideas. Nothin' we can do to stop it flexing its muscles. Best we can do is try to get out of the way.

I went ice fishing today in Ontario.

Well I know most of you "Northeners" are probably glad to see the end of winter and have seen enough rain & snow to last you for a while. Well, I sit here typing this listening to the wonderful sound of steady rain on the roof. What a welcome sound it is. Haven't had more than a light shower for probably over four months now.

Last time I checked in here I spoke of local bushfires. Well, I know lots of you guys we're thinking of us and praying for our safety. Glad to say that following the initial couple of days (30 houses gone) there hasn't been any more property loss. Actually, only yesterday I noticed that there was a lot of smoke still coming up from the area that was hardest hit. All it takes is a bit of a breeze and any smouldering stumps and logs flair up again. We've been lucky that we haven't had much wind, as the fire is probably about 4km-5km away from us. The past four weeks we've been pretty smokey around here, but this rain is welcome relief and will hopefully put an end to things up in the hills.

Around 100km down the road to our east they're in the worst drought for decades. Nothing for stock to eat and they're even carting in drinking water for their stock. They've been buying in fodder for a couple of years now because nothing has grown. There's a huge program going on to donate fodder and cart it to those who really need it. It never seems enough and many farmers have had to sell off their precious breeding stock just to survive because they can't afford to buy the fodder they need.

So in short, this rain is an incredible blessing. Hopefully it hangs around for a while and kick-starts a bit of pasture growth in these parts.

Thanks to everyone for your concerns. This is Australia!!