This little piggy holds the mail
Basic mailbox
Woodstock mailbox — where my letters from you will be one day!
Hmmm, I would say "creative"?
I admit, I am having a quiet night, so here goes another posting. I went for another long walk today and decided to take photos of the different mailboxes along Crystal Creek Road. They are such a stark contrast to the mailboxes in the USA. The mailboxes here only need to be able to hold your mail. NO regulations about them (or maybe very little — I don't know the details). They are hung, nailed and placed at just about any height and distance from the road. The mail service is contracted out by the government and mail is only delivered. NO mail is ever picked up from the various "boxes", or, should I say, milk jugs? If you want to send mail you need to take it to the post office.

"Pet" (?) Carpet Python

OK, I know some people are deathly afraid of snakes, but so far, I have enjoyed my very distant relatives (the snakes).   There is a Carpet Python that lives on the roof of our house.  Susan filmed it last fall as it climbed back up the tree to the roof.  The locals say it is good to have these snakes around as they eat the bush rats and mice around the houses and this is suppose keep the poison snakes away (less food to attract them to the house).  The guess is that the one living on our roof is about 15 feet long and it's diameter is about eight inches.  This is all calculated from a good distance!  The photo is of the actual snake as it climbed back to it's residence.   It is very beautiful and graceful if you can imagine that.  I have not seen the snake in person, only in video,  but we hear it slithering across the metal roof-swishhhhhh-swishhhhh- a slow, light scraping sound.  The snake and the other critters is the main reason we keep all doors shut and make sure the screens are on the windows.. we don't want any surprises in the house.

Here is some info from the internet!

Pythons are generally arboreal, that is, they inhabit trees.
In the South Australian Murray-Darling basin, the Carpet
Python lives in the hollows of large River Red Gums and
north-facing cliffs along the river. Often they are found
nestled in quiet sheltered corners like pump sheds and
roof spaces. They can be useful to people in such places
by controlling vermin.

Black Snake Walk

Went for a walk the other night with Susan and it became dusk as we returned home.  The long steep driveway is surrounded by many trees and ferns.  As we walked on, I remembered the "snake witching hour" from Peru--dusk!  Just as we were talking about needed to look out for snakes, one slithered across the road in front of me. There was not pause in it's travel as I am sure it wanted nothing to do with me either.  It was probably a black snake. 

 Here are some "Amazing Facts" about the Black Snake!

The Red Bellied Black Snake is a dangerous snake species found in Australia. It is a red bellied snake, and black on top, hence the name. It inhabits mainly the east coast of Australia, close to a source of water. They can grow up to 1.5 metres in length. This snake usually gives birth to about 20-40 live snakes at one time.

The bite of a Red Bellied Black Snake is very dangerous and requires immediate medical attention.  

Another Day

Jellyfish, pufferfish of some sort and Susan having a siesta on the beach.



Went for a walk on Cabarita beach yesterday with Susan after a brief siesta on the beach. We passed some sea life that had washed up on the shore. There are typically a host of different jelly fish that are scattered on the beach and today, there were big ones! I had to take a few photos of them and also of this very cute, but very dead fish. Is it a Cow Fish? A Porcupine Puffer??

Health Insurance

National Health Care
How novel and sane to have national health care. I am new to Australia and unemployed, and all I needed to do was show my permanent visa to the “Medicare” office yesterday, and now I have health insurance!! It is unbelievable to me that is is that easy. In the USA, for me to carry my current health insurance (not COBRA) would cost around $900/month. It is so civilized to have health care available to every woman, child and man, regardless of income. In this society people do not lose their houses because an uninsured family member becomes seriously ill. Can you imagine what it would be like to NOT have to worry about health insurance? It is the way most of the “civilized” world lives. I hope President Obama has the support he needs to make things “right” in the USA.

Welcome to Australia Party February 21, 2009

The "sing along". Susan and Phil

Simon, "peace sister"
Getting more serious about eating......
Susan and Carolyn making bruschetta. Yummmm
Welcome to Australia Party February 21, 2009

Susan put on a “Welcome to Australia” BBQ for me and invited a bunch of friends to join us at Woodstock. The first party was cancelled on Feb 14th as we were flooded in, and this one almost was cancelled too. The four bridges leading to Woodstock were flooded again the day before. We prayed for only gentle rains and got it.

The typical Aussie BBQ is grilled “bangers” (sausages) and as much as you can drink. I passed on the meat bangers, but found some “tofu bangers” at the local store so as not to miss the essence of the grill meat. Everyone brought their own “drinks” and a potluck dish as well. It was great fun, the weather even cooperated for the most part. One heavy, short rain shower, and several smaller ones. It could not have been better. It was nice and cool. Being at the BBQ was sort of like looking at a photograph from the 60’s and 70’s. About half the group were laid back old hippies, complete with strong opinions about the good old days of rock n roll vs rap. You can imagine which way the conversation leaned. Susan played music by Australian artists from her iPod, and then about 1am, the guitars came out, and traditional Australia sing-along folk songs began! It was very surreal! Everyone was pretty wasted one way or another and it all seemed so “normal” at the time. It makes me laugh just to think about it.

Living Off the Grid at Woodstock

Propane hot water heater on side of house.

The laundry room!
5,000 gallon water tank.

Gutter from the roof. It goes to the water tank.

POWER
Woodstock is not connected to any public water or power. This is absolute living “Off the Grid”! There is power available way down the long driveway at the main road. After visiting here and now living here, it would seem odd to be be able to flip a light switch on or have an electric toaster even. Woody (Susan’s dad) built two houses here and both are powered by twelve solar panels which are connected to 6 huge storage batteries under the main house (they store 900 amps, if that means anything to you). On cloudy days, it is necessary to run the 3.5 K generator for a few hours to boost the batteries. On sunny days the sun will put in about 80 amps which is about 9% of their capacity (thanks for the info Woody!). Typically there is enough power to keep one or two lights on at a time in the evening. and power enough for short periods of internet use (satellite). All cooking and hot water is done with propane. Needless to say, we do not have dishwasher, microwave, oven, or other electric appliances. I must admit I do miss the electric toaster! We use the old fashion “camping toaster” designed to sit on a fire or propane stove to make toast. It works, and I am thankful for that, but it takes forever! and you cannot walk away or it gets burnt and then you have to start all over again. Surprisingly enough I really have enjoyed the simplicity of life without all of the gadgets.

WATER
All of our water comes from rainwater which is caught on the metal roofs of the house and fed into a gutter and pipe system to a 5,000 holding tank. the roof size determines the amount of water that is caught. On these two roofs we get 1,000 gallons of water from 25 ml of rain (close to one inch).
The entire water tank is filled with 5 inches of rainwater. Showers here during the rainy times are just as long as you want them to be, but during the rest of the year, water use is an issue. You have to take 3-5 minute showers and you become hyperaware of any water dripping or potentially wasted water. This means catching the cold water from the faucet for drinking or watering plants while you are waiting for the hot water to come out, and doing any laundry in town at the laundry mat so we don’t drain the tank down too far.

Honest to god, this is a beautiful set up and feels like a retreat once we get the work done!

Droughts and Flooding Rains

A wide, brown land of drought and flooding rains is what Australia is all about — so says the iconic poem every Australian kid learns in school. And it's true. One part of the country is almost always gasping for water while another is drowning. But even for Australia, what's been going on here for the past month is extreme.

Of course, it's Victoria and South Australia that have been suffering from scorching heat, with temperatures so severe they went right off the record charts. Combined with strong winds, the bushland outside Melbourne was a virtual tinder box waiting for a single spark on February 7. We haven't seen anything like these bushfires since Ash Wednesday in the mid-1980s. Hell, we haven't seen anything like this ever.

Meanwhile, Karumba and Normanton in the Gulf of Carpentaria are completely isolated by flood waters -- and are expected to remain that way for at least the next month! Ingham on the north-east coast, flattened by a cyclone just a couple of years ago, is cut off, too. Down here in New South Wales, a series of low-pressure systems have pummelled towns around Bellingen. State Emergency Services are stretched beyond stretched trying to helicopter supplies to folks.

You've got to understand that when it rains here, it really rains. Rain so hard you can hardly think, let alone carry on a conversation, because the sound of it hitting the roof is so incredibly loud. Last January in the Northern Rivers region, where Melonie and I live, we received eight inches of rain in 90 minutes. Can you imagine? That's a quarter of Seattle's annual rainfall in an hour and a half! Huge boulders came tumbling down Crystal Creek, an innocuous creek turned river, with multiple tributaries each fifty feet across. I watched a 10-foot wide tree -- a whole tree, from branches to root system -- bounce through the valley like a toy sailboat. A million dollars worth of damage was done to the valley road overnight. Two brothers in nearby Chillingham, where we buy our Sunday papers, lost their mechanical repair business to rising waters. Only roofs peaked above the waters in Tumbulgum. My favourite story: Our neighbour, Don, lost one of his cattle. It was washed downstream for 50 miles and finally found, alive, several miles out to sea. The cow was plucked from the ocean and returned to Don. No shit!

Australia is a tough land. And it breeds a resilient people. A country of a little over 20 million people has raised more than $100 million to help the victims of the Victorian bushfires in the past week.

Here's where you can donate if you're interested:
• Australian Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal

• RSPCA Victoria

Thanks, everyone, for asking after my friends and family in the Melbourne area. We are fortunate; everyone is okay.

Oh, and here's the poem, My Country.

Banana, Bacon, and Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Yes, it was good.

CRIKEY! Bovines and Ants

Feb 15th
A sunny day! I woke up to blue skies and predictions of temperatures up to 90 degrees F. I woke Susan up and had to tell her what color the sky was. “That’s nice,” she mumbled, turning over to go back to sleep. Well, I guess they do have as many clear days here as Seattle has rain, so it isn’t such a novelty for her. But for me, I could not contain my energy, especially given that it was about noon in Washington by my biological clock, so I got up to watch the parrots in our bird feeder.

The rain had finally abated and we decided to try and drive out of the valley to do some shopping and get out of here for awhile. The water level was low enough to drive over the bridges, even though there was still water flowing over the top. We ended up driving to the beach and watched the massive surf (the result of two low pressure systems and a recent full moon) at Cabarita Beach, which is the closest beach to our house, about a 35-minute drive away.

Geez, the day was interesting, to say the least! As we were driving back inland from the ocean, we spied some Aussie blokes dragging a live cow along the side of the road, with one end of a rope tied around the cow’s neck and the other attached to their truck. Vegetarian me and animal-lover Susan, HAD to stop. As I got out of the car onto the grass, I must have stepped onto an ant nest. Green ants, Susan informed me, judging by the agony I was in. Green ants are known for very painful bites, which they had quickly delivered to my feet and legs. I began slapping my legs in hopes of killing the offending little bastards. Now, I know you have heard the term “crikey” from the crocodile hunter, and I have to tell you that this is the most appropriate term I could think of at the time -- CRIKEY!!!!!! I had been feeding the local leeches, mosquitos and now the ants. Fresh foreign blood, I guess.

Now all of this was happening as we witnessed the oldest bloke kick the poor, miserable and very pregnant cow that was lying beside the road panting uncontrollably. We finally killed all the green ants and approached the blokes who were now tying one of the poor cow’s hind legs to one of her front legs up so she could not get up. We were not impressed, but thought we needed to hang around to witness what was going on. Susan was about to call the cops but then the blokes started to relax and treat the animal more humanely.

According to the blokes, the story was that the cow had bolted when they tried to load her into a truck and take her to market. She had run 15 km down a long, winding road until she hit the main road, which is when we came along. Now the poor thing was in a state of absolute fear and panic, trembling, bug eyed and roasting in the 100-degree heat. I tried to give her water to drink, and I stood to shade her face from the sun. Eventually, the farm sent two other blokes with a tractor. They rolled her over and roughly hauled her into an attached scoop, still tied up, and drove her home.

The blokes reassured us they would put her under a shady tree and untie her legs and see if she would survive. Susan made them promise to take good care of her.

Leeches

Yesterday, Feb 13th, we took a walk down the road to check the flooding and returned with leeches sucking on our flesh. They’re a huge nuisance around here ... quick little suckers that find a way to your blood even when we wear galoshes -- stylish designer galoshes, of course! Anyway, Susan had a leech on her leg during the walk and took it off. Several hours later she was commenting on how she had never seen a leech bite clot so quickly (they will typically bleed for hours from the anticoagulation effect). When I looked at it, it looked like a big clot hanging from her leg, but Susan then discovered it was moving. The leech was still attached to her leg (gross!) and was all swollen with her blood. They are so disgusting!

After our walk today we both had more leeches, You have to always check your body after a walk. These things wait on the grass until they sense the body heat of someone or something and then seize the opportunity to attach themselves for a meal. I guess they eventually fall off when they get heavy enough with your blood. Just know they move quickly under your clothing to warm, moist places (use your imagination!) Frequently, the first sign is a little itchy spot.

Well, I thought you would enjoy being grossed out by these blood-letting stories ... :)

Floods

Well, onto my life so far in Australia. It’s still summer here, which is also the rainy season and the time for flooding in this region. By the way, this “region” is about two hours south of Brisbane in the lush subtropics. If you Google Earth Upper Crystal Creek, NSW 2484 you can locate our valley and see that we’re living on the edge of a huge volcanic caldera.

I arrived to cool temperatures (in the 70s) and grey skies. I was totally prepared for a hot, sunny day!!!! Well, it beats the snow and freezing temperatures in Olympia. It did not take long for the heavy rains to begin and within 24 hours we were land-locked, as the main road was flooded and there no way to get in or out of the valley. Now, over 48 hours later, we are still land-locked as there is a ton of rapid water still running over the causeways on the road. Cabin fever is starting to set in a bit.

Cockatoos and Parrots

On the day of my arrival, there were over a dozen black cockatoos that visited the closest trees around the house. They are very noisy and are not that common, at least in the numbers that visited us. The locals say their appearance often signals approaching rains. Well, they were a very nice welcome for me. On my last visit here, I bought Susan a wild bird feeder to attract the King Parrots. Susan has continued to feed them, and now there are a dozen or so fighting for the right to eat there. They are beautiful birds and one will eat from Susan’s hand now. (King Parrot in the photo)

Melonie Arrives in Brisbane

I must confess I expected my entrance into Australia to be met with significant fanfare at the immigration counter. A new immigrant (me!) to Australia has arrived! Typically the immigrations officer will ask what your visit is about, so when I approached the counter I announced that I was immigrating to Australia, which is a obviously a huge freaking deal to me! The immigration officer could care less. She glanced at my visa, handed my passport back to me and shuffled me through. I was in disbelief! Surely my arrival could not be that anti-climactic! I had anticipated at least some level of challenge that my visa was in fact legit, or at the very least a gesture of welcome. Oh well, Susan made up for the lack luster immigration non-event. She and Gary (a good friend of the family and the owner of an all-important truck that we desperately needed to lug my suitcases to my new home) were on the other side of customs to greet me and welcome me to my new life.

Our house is on a property called “Woodstock”. It is wee. How wee? About 400-square-foot wee. 700 square feet if you count the verandahs, Susan reminds me. So we do count the verandahs. It makes the house feel more spacious in our heads. Susan was very gracious as I unloaded my eight suitcases, although I suspect she was really wondering how the hell everything was going to fit. But so far, so good at finding creative nooks and crannies for my things. I will take a drive to the IKEA store (about 1 1/2 hours north) sometime in the next few weeks to find treasures to organize our stuff in.

Melonie Leaves the U.S.

I left Olympia on February 10th with eight pieces of luggage. Sort of weird to try and pack my life into 480 pounds, which included my bike and portable massage table.  One day it would be interesting to try and travel with one suitcase or backpack. I wonder if I will ever be able to do it.  This move to Australia represents so many things in my life.  I hope to be able to sort through all of it with time.  I am happy to be here.