It Feels LIke Makuru Has Arrived

Makuru is the Noongar name for the season which covers June and July here in Western Australia but while it's technically not June for a few days another storm front has just barrelled down on us. This makes me think we're already into Makuru, which the Noongar people, the first inhabitants of this area, say is the season of the first rains among other things.  Fortunately this front was not as severe as the last one but it was the third to hit in just a few weeks so things have been getting quite a battering. The good thing about this is we're getting some much needed rain. The bad side is we're getting it largely along with strong, and in some cases very strong, winds, but as you can see from the photo the garden is still doing pretty well.

The forecast yesterday was for rain, mostly in the afternoon and evening, so before it arrived I raced to the veggie garden to plant out as many seedlings as I could. The punnets they were in had been being brought in and out of the shelter of the veranda to avoid them being drowned or washed away for much of the last week and they were well overdue for putting into their permanent homes. Don't let the apparently bare spots in the photo fool you. Except for the bit in the middle at the front and along the right hand side fence at the back, both of which beds are reserved for seedlings not yet ready to transplant, the rest of the garden is planted out. The plants are simply too small to show up on the photo.

All this activity means that along with spring onions (the straggly ones have been left to go to seed), nasturtiums, broccoli, kale, beetroot, lettuce and rainbow chard (all of which are already being picked), together with red onions and sugar snap and snow peas - you can see them well on their way up the fence, I now have two kinds of pak choi, choy sum, tatsoi, more lettuces and more beetroot. Still not quite ready to plant out are brown onions, leeks and some romanesco broccoli - these three I got as freebies from Diggers Nursery and have never tried to grow before so that will be interesting - plus dill, nigella, calendula and yet more lettuce.

Today's forecast was for showers and it's expected to continue that way for the rest of the long weekend. This is a bit grim for those taking advantage of the lifting of some travel restrictions to head south for the break but for me it's good news with my plantings off a good start. It also means I probably should take advantage of any sunny breaks to put in some more more seeds and at least try to keep up a succession of new plants coming on - not one of my strong points. I really should invest in some bug control measures, too. Last year many of my brassicas were wiped out by whitefly, not something I want to happen again. I use poisons so it's time to get online and do a spot of ordering of organic controls I guess. Wish me luck.

2020 is

about to throw us another curve with a storm described as a once in a decade expected later today - and already the winds are very strong. We went around trying to check everything was as secure and safe as it can be but since it's only a couple of weeks since the last doozy things are already pretty well secured. We mostly get strong storm fronts like this in winter - it's been unusual to have them hit in May until recently and even then they've usually not been so severe as this. But, hey, all those climate change deniers and sceptics don't seem to have noticed how things are different these days and are still trying to convince us it's not really happening and if it is we don't really have to worry because it's a natural cycle.

I, though, am quite sure it's happening at an alarming rate and frankly, I'm scared, and in particular I'm scared about the future my grandchildren will inherit. So I got this.

I'm not a part of Extinction Rebellion - they're a worldwide group of climate change activists - but I know folk who are and, while I don't always agree with their methods, I certainly share their frustration at how our governments at all levels seems oblivious and/or uninterested in acting on what the science tells us is an obvious calamity bearing down on all of us. 

So I'm putting their signs on our garbage bins in the hope that a visible message out on the side of the road at least once a week will spread awareness a little more.

"Oh No! "

This is the reaction of everyone if I say I'm not feeling well in this time of pandemic. The thing is I have a chronic illness and when I overdo it - and I do just that much more often than is wise - I become unwell. It's either a flare up of the illness or simply that I need a few days bedrest due to being exhausted. It is hard to explain this, though, in a time when everyone relates everything to the COVID-19 virus. So I have to explain this is not the virus because I don't have a fever, a cough, tight chest, sore throat or muscle aches. It's simply what happens to someone with a chronic illness. However I still get suspicious looks and when the hay fever I've been enduring for the whole of the lockdown causes a cough or sneeze you can imagine the result.

Don't misunderstand me, folk are understandably cautious and so they should be but there's caution and there's panic which, given I live in an Australian state which has handled the pandemic better than most other places in the world, is not necessary. Western Australia has had relatively few reported cases - 551 in total with 9 fatalities - and nearly all have been connected with cruise ships, either passengers, crew or someone who has been in contact with passengers or crew, or who came back from travelling elsewhere. We closed our state borders and stopped travel intrastate into regional areas very early as well as enforcing strict quarantine measures for anyone coming into the state. Along with lockdown of businesses and schools even more rigidly than the national guidelines required, this has been highly successful in preventing the virus spreading.

No-one would deny that the restrictions on movement have been, to say the least, irksome but I cringe every time I see protesters demanding we're given back our 'freedom'. They seem to have no grasp of what freedom is and the lack of personal responsibility they're showing is frankly scary. If you want to live in a functional society you can never have complete freedom of action - we have laws for the good of the community and the protection of all, something these folk do not seem to grasp.

Things are starting to be a bit relaxed now and instead of staying home and only venturing out for food and other necessities and exercise we're now allowed to mix a bit more in the home and in public spaces. That was how it came about on Friday some of my immediate family met up at one of the local public open spaces. We sat out in the sun on the grass - appropriately socially distanced - chatting and drinking a mug of tea, having not actually seen each other since the beginning of March when we celebrated Pisces' birthday. My family is very close and to go that long without seeing one another in person is just about unheard of. We've had phone conversations, of course, but both these couples are more than a little technophobic so there have been no video chats.

As of this week even more is opening up. Restaurants and cafes can have sit down customers as long as they're suitably spaced. While social distancing means this is not an economically viable option for all businesses it means we can slowly begin to resume a relatively normal albeit somewhat different life. Apparently bars are also able to open but since neither Pisces nor I are drinkers we won't be checking them out any time soon.

This is all good and brings some hope but we are being warned that unless a vaccine is developed - and that, despite optimistic hopes, is likely to be at least a year or more away - life will never be quite the same and we'll have to learn to live with the virus in the community. As well there's the likelihood of a second or even a third wave hitting us. Looking back at the influenza pandemic that started at the end of World War One the most disturbing thing to me is that there was a second and a third wave and that the death toll in the second wave was worse than in the first. We still know very little about this virus and its potential to mutate or even if those who have survived it do gain some form of immunity. As well we're now discovering that for many recovery is a very slow process stretching into months in some cases, not the more usual few weeks, and a number of other symptoms different from the initial ones are showing up.

So, yes, it is time that those places where it is controlled should be relaxing the restrictions which have had us in isolation for so long but we cannot afford to be complacent. The health experts agree this virus will be with us for some time to come so we need to be watchful and ready to act quickly if or, as seems likely, when it spikes again.

Technology

- great when it works, not so great at other times. That being said I wouldn't be without it which is why my recent email problems have been and still are annoying me mightily. I've been unable to connect to my email for a fortnight now and it has been to say the least frustrating. I've had several very long sessions with very pleasant people who work for the ISP to no avail. The rest of the internet is working perfectly - well, as perfectly as it ever does here which more accurately can be summed up as adequately most of the time as long as it's during the day. The email however is not and we've now reached a point where I've have exhausted their free support and am expected to pay for fixing a problem they caused. (They blocked my email because they thought I'd been hacked. I hadn't been.) I've found a work around for now but that, while useful, is also time consuming and as a result I find myself checking in on it far less frequently than usual.

This has come up at a time when we're looking into connecting to the NBN, which has at long last come to our area, and is making me question whether I still want to stay with this company. We have been with them for some time and until now we've been happy with the service and had intended to stay with them. But this is the second time in a couple of months that they've cut me off  and then had problems reconnecting me. Don't get me wrong because I'm more than happy they are taking care of perceived security issues but the least I expect is that they should be able to restore it once it's been checked out or corrected. I also expect that fixing a problem they caused should be without cost to me. That's reasonable, isn't it.

So I'm looking around. There are a multitude of companies offering NBN services and the thing we really need to consider here - quite apart from cost which is obviously important - is that internet access and speed are functional. We live in a bit of a black spot for internet connectivity - something to do with our being on the edge of the areas covered by two different phone exchanges I'm told although whether that's true or just an excuse I have no idea. Honestly I don't care about the reason or reasons. What I want is a usable internet connection with reasonable speed that can be accessed at  different points in the house at any time, something that at present is variable at best during the day and after about 5 PM vanishes everywhere except when I'm sitting right next to the router.

So there's the problem. What the answer is I'm not sure yet but I've been hearing very good things about fixed wireless - and there's a local company which has been recommended to me by several of my neighbours. I've enquired and we are apparently in an excellent position to access this so I guess that's my next stop.

A Few Small Joys

Given our high risk status Pisces and I are still pretty much in isolation and the fact that we can't go out is irksome however much we see the need for staying put. That said there are still small pleasures to be had and here are some.

My sourdough starter is finally bubbling away nicely. I was a bit, well, to be honest, a lot slower than I had intended with this. I had trouble finding a suitable sized jar, one that had to be able to hold the starter but also to be a size that would fit in the fridge. I felt a bit like Goldilocks looking for something that was not too big and not too small but just right. It turned out to be quite a challenge since I couldn't go out and buy anything but a bonus of starting to sort out the linen cupboard has been finding things I'd forgotten about and among those were jars, many, many jars. As I worked my way through them I seemed to be getting nowhere and I was starting to get a little desperate. But then there it was and it was just right. See?

Then there was Miss Four's first online ballet class. Her mother sent us the video and the cuteness was close to overload as she so very seriously concentrated on doing the exercises.

We've just had a major storm front pass through - they usually come during the winter so it was unusual - and came out of it pretty much unscathed. Apparently the wind gusts reached 120 kmh at some points and left 55,000 homes without power so we were lucky to have only had our rubbish bin and a tree in a pot blown over out the front while the garden shed had its door pulled off its track, all of which was easily fixed.

The seeds I put in a week ago are coming up. So far there are two kinds of pak choi, choy sum, tatsoi and red onions poking their heads out. I moved the tray containing them onto the veranda during the storm and they stayed there which is more than I can say for my thongs - called flip-flops in other parts of the world I do believe - which I looked out to see blowing across the yard yesterday.

The seeds I ordered over a month ago arrived. Deliveries from the other states are very slow at the moment due to our border being closed plus once they enter the state they have to undergo a period of quarantine as we try to keep plant diseases out but they are here now. There were freebies included, too. Yay!

Miss Eight has been given a kids' Message account on her mother's Facebook page and we had loving message after loving message from her over the weekend.

So there you have a few of those things giving us pleasure - while I'm not sure that Pisces is as thrilled by the sourdough starter as I am he's certainly happy about the rest. I hope you, too, are finding pleasures where and when you can.

Updating - the 100 Day Challenge Begins

I've talked about the 100 Day Challenge before and we've just started a new round as of May 1 - and by we I mean a large number of people I don't know and never will get to know who are doing this and also the members of the small closed Facebook support group started by a friend a while ago. The group I find keeps me accountable because we post updates and the need to do that can turn a day when you think you can't be bothered into one where instead you do at least one thing towards your goals. That's the whole point really  - to do at least one thing, however small towards your goal every day. We all know how easy it is to let things slip and that's why the group is so important.

My goals this time are more concrete - the last couple of times they were too big and so I never felt I was achieving enough. I was making progress but it was swallowed up in the magnitude of the tasks I'd set myself. So if you're interested - and to keep myself more accountable (if I tell you what I've got planned I figure I'll be able to guilt myself into keeping going) - here they are:

1. To dig out or otherwise get rid of the couch grass infesting the sweet potato bed. I don't like to use weedkiller so I'm not sure exactly how I'll do it if digging doesn't work but I've got 100 days to figure it out, haven't I.

2. To finish the decluttering and reorganising of my office/craft room. I was doing well with this but then I hit a wall for no apparent reason.

3. Declutter and reorganise the linen cupboard. Linen cupboard is something of a misnomer because, while it does store towels, sheets, other bedding and table cloths and so on, it is also home to some camping items like sleeping bags, a small portable gas stove, mantels for the Aladdin kerosene lamps as well as a few other smaller bits and pieces that I was afraid would get lost elsewhere. I'm definitely going to have to rethink that, aren't I. I'm sure there are more practical places to store them. There are also the picnic basket, several cold storage bags, a coffee maker which makes very good coffee but is really too big for two people, some first aid materials and a lot of jars - and that's just what I can see. Who knows what's hidden at the back. There was a wine rack complete with bottles of wine until a few hours ago but those bottles - mostly gifts back in the day from people who didn't realise neither Pisces nor I drink alcohol - were obviously no longer fit to drink due to the corks having rotted so they've been emptied and dumped in the recycling bin. If anyone happens to look in there they're going to think we had quite a party.

4. To finish the novel I've been working on - it's about three quarters done that should be feasible. Shouldn't it.

5. To find somewhere I can practise spoken French and German. I'm doing quite well in reading and writing and understanding other people speaking but I'm very nervous about actually speaking either language myself so I need conversation groups of some sort.

So there you are. Wish me luck.