Disaster on my mind

Yesterday as I was having my morning coffee (the whole french press, I catch myself forgetting to share when others are around like my husband) the wind is whipping all around the house and the birds are not about their normal activities so I decided to check our local paper for the weather. The report for my area was as follows:

Tuesday: Southeast, Huon, Channel and Lower Derwent Valley: Fine until patchy rain extends from the west from late morning. Mild to locally warm and mostly cloudy. Fresh to strong and gusty northerly winds before an evening westerly change. A Very High Fire Danger.

The house is cooler inside than the temperature outside and although the sky looks as if the day should be cold it is almost 68 degrees and getting warmer as the storm gets closer. The fire warnings come with the storm because of lightning strikes and then the wind to carry any fire started from the lightning. I always find it disconcerting how disaster can strike next door yet leave your house untouched. I remember the guilt over my relief as an earthquake passed and there I was unscathed only to find that a friend sustained enough damage to ruin their home.
Tasmania has not had any huge fires this summer or should I write our lack of summer. But Victoria is on high alert again, I received an text message alerting me, I suppose because we are all in the same area code, I was comforted to see a new warning system already in place. This is silly because I live in a suburb not in the bush. Still I am happy Zok is due home tonight, and I am charging up all devices, setting out the candles and scrabble board in anticipation of a power loss. We lose power a few times a year, usually in winter when Zok is abroad.
Without a scrabble partner I go to the beach to star gaze while the neighborhood lights are out. We may not lose power but it is my habit to have everything in order for when Zok comes home.
I think disaster is on my mind because I have been (trying) to read 'Shock Doctrine' by Naomi Klein. I hope there is some documentary made soon (as seems to be common these days) because the book is dense and I won't make it through in the time given to me for a library loan.
I went to walk the trail at Tinderbox, I was feeling really tired, so I was initially relieved that the trail has been shortened. Today, the weather is an after storm day crisp and bright, very windy which I think is energizing and now the reality of the shortened trail makes me pause, there is a lot of development in our area. I am ready to move further in the countryside. All I need is my lottery numbers to come up.

The Smell of Pink

Six p.m., I was showered and drinking coffee by 9 a.m. yet somehow the nectarines took my whole day. Even as I sit here gazing out to the yard another nectarine has just fallen, bouncing along the lawn. Hours and hours of boiling them, skinning them, slicing to preserve them and still I see a dozen or more on the ground and if I was to turn my head I'd see that many again on the counter. The birds eat their share, sadly though they tend to peck from many, leaving most of the nectarine behind to rot. If I could get them to concentrate on the bruised ones on the ground we would all be better off. I line those bruised ones up, over night, near the bird bath but they don't seem to take the hint.
The smell of nectarines has permeated the house in a good way.
I am not sure that my day was not wasted, I definitely spent my hours in the realm of having no idea what the end product was. Laughably, I was startled half-way through when I tasted my nectarines to find that they tasted like, well like canned peaches, well sort of fresher and also I had infused the syrup with basil. My point being that I was just following the recipe and not realizing that canning the nectarine would indeed be like store bought canned fruit. I love fresh fruit, nectarines are a favorite and I have never seen the point of doing anything with a nectarine other than eat them, one after another. I have only come around to this idea of preserving them because I am physically unable to eat them all before they go bad.
The water I boiled the nectarines in to get the skins off, turned a beautiful, clear pink and smelled almost as good as the tree. I don't know how this first attempt went, as I only got three jars worth and I think the fruit may have been cut too fine, but I was trying to use up fruit that had to have bits cut away, because I can't bear to see any worth eating going into the compost.
I am trying to find a hand cranked ice-cream maker so I can make nectarine sorbet and nectarine ice-cream. If anyone has ideas for the nectarines there are many left on the tree to deal with as the week goes on. I think I'll go out and just grab the new ones that have fallen...

A life without seasons

I love rain, I love the sound of the rain, here that sound is amplifeid as our roof is made of metal. Occasionally, there is a spectacular storm, with lightning brightening the sky for moments at a time, throwing the whole neighborhood into view by backlighting the horizon in a bright, purple, flash.
Many of the storms happen overnight, and selfishly I yearn for more rainy days. I never feel guilt spending a whole day reading if that day is a rainy one.
Yesterday, we had rain most of the day, but most of my day was wasted at the Dentist's. This rain is unseasonable even for here.
I may never get used to the seasons of the Southern Hemisphere. Internally I feel as if either winter or summer could be on the way. I am lost without the markers I am used to relying on, such as leaves turning or shop windows done up for a holiday. I have to look at the calendar constantly to remember what the month is. I have noticed that the days are getting shorter and the milky way is in a different position. The days are not very warm but the nights have been and I have spent some part of each night, in the yard looking into the sky for satellites.
Zok has already gotten in our winter supply of wood. Many houses here are heated by wood burning fireplaces of some sort. Ours is enclosed by glass, so that the whole box can be stuffed full of wood and set to burn for hours and hours. Which is just as well because I am not very good at making fires.
The wood delivery reminds me that winter is approaching, as do the storms yet I feel an internal resistance. A resistance because I will have to make a special trip to see non-native trees with their leaves that turn colors and fall. Because Tasmania had a short summer this year and my tomatoes are only now starting to ripen as are the strawberries. Because I know that March is coming and Easter in my mind a synonym for spring only here spring is autumn. Tulips are blooming in time for Christmas not Easter.
Our short summer also meant that the lawn stayed green, we had no water restrictions, and I never got into the full swing of a beach routine. All that combines to making me feel even less attuned to what time of year I am in. This may be a contribution to my paying more attention to the night sky. I see the constellations move in a predictable way that my surrounding by day; lack. I will also be confused when the pick up in emails, when my friends are blooming amidst their summertime, they become more lively and communicative while I am surrounded by darkness and feeling like the matchstick girl as I hunt for pine cones to light my daily fire. I miss people being around and I am counting the days until Zok returns.

Too Much of a Good Thing

After Monte & Roberto left one of the tasks that Zok and I started was apricot harvest. The tree only produces apricots every two years, but I am sure we have enough jam, preserves,dried, stewed and then frozen to last until the tree fruits again.
Our neighbor says that 'every neighborhood should only have one apricot tree' and she is correct. I let the birds take what they want, because truly there is enough to go around.
I usually have sort of a vague stomach ache for weeks due to my apricot consumption. I can't stop myself. Zok made tarts, and I made an apricot nectar, side car. Can you smell the desperation? Feel free to contribute recipes.
Now I have to start picking the nectarines...

Steps to the Top

I am sitting here trying to sort out how long I have lived in Tasmania. I remember four Christmases. I am probably off by a at least a year-longer.
Many, many times have I taken the Channel Highway, which is a winding, two lane road, which I understand to be once the only way from the city to where we live before the Southern Outlet was built. We consider Channel Highway to be the scenic route. On this road there is a tall, stone tower. The 'Shot Tower'. I always have wanted to climb up to the top but even in my slow paced life I found excuses not to pull over. We made Monte & Roberto our excuse to stop by. I forgot that Roberto is not fond of heights, I forgot Roberto completely when I looked up because the entire tower is filled with the worst spiderwebs I have seen outside of a fake Haunted House at Halloween. We were told there was a 'possible prize' if the steps were counted correctly, Roberto who many times was my ally in many a phobic/tired/hungry moment, stopped counting early due to the height of the tower, I never really started as I could only focus narrowly to avoid spider induced panic.
I felt pretty proud when I got out of there.
Zok (of course) was the one to get the count correct, because my husband, well he is 'that' guy. Monte wrote about what the Tower was for on Flickr, there was a short film, but I ignored that while all the while going on about the webs.
I believe the information was something like 1870, blah blah, 3 guys built the whole place on their own in just a few months, blah, lead (or some metal) drops, drops, drops, while cooling lands and then hurrah creates a shot i.e. early bullet. Hmmm. Anyway the view was nice.

Open Container

Australia has low speed limits, and a .05% drink driving level-they do many random breathalizer tests, and if you get caught driving over the limit, you lose your license straight out and have to start over with provisional plates on your car. That said, passengers are free to party in the car! We stopped in some nice towns, although town is truly the word, Hobart now looks very cosmopolitan to me in comparison. Compared to America, Australia has an amazing amount of public toilets. Here, I suppose it is necessary due to the lack of 'services' we don't have Mcdonalds every exit, in fact we don't really have exits, the road just runs through each town. As the drinking passenger, I appreciated the convenient bathrooms.

"O perpetual revolution of configured stars,"

The famous Cradle Mountain Crag

I took the above photo as they were going up yet another very steep stretch, which I sat out...this photo of course was for the authorities in case they went missing...

I loved our Cabin, next will be a posting just for it.

The nice, even walk of most of the Cradle Mountain walks.

Zok is at his flying lesson, he left without waking me, I woke up around 9 a.m. which is later than I have in weeks. This is my first reflective moment, even my blog entries have been squashed between two other matters needing attention. Tasmania is still having weather in the low sixties, unseasonable cold while the mainland suffers extreme weather.
Over the last eight months I have gone so many places. Truly, the pace has been pretty fast. I wonder if this will make the quiet and the darkness of winter a shock. I have signed up for my sewing class and a yoga course that will go from March until May. So as the days get shorter, and Zok is away, I will have interaction with the outside world, and crafts to focus on.
Cradle Mountain is up north, part of yet another large national park. They get snow, and the region is considered alpine. People travel from all over the world to walk the overland track, a 4 - 5 days walk. We were on the overland track to Marions Lookout, which I hear is one of the hardest bits, as the that bit of the trail is very steep with a lot of rocks. Most of the track is that same sort of boards that are seen in my post about South Cape.
A large part of our small state is park land, much of that is on the UNESCO list. These facts attracted Zok and I, and with all the development going on in Kingston the suburb right to our right, I was relieved to see so much open area while we drove through the state.
I have a crush on the button grass. The wombats burrow around them-the huge clump of grass usually has this one long round, flower poof. Very Dr. Suess.
The button grass photo here is courtesy of the mad skills, of Roberto aka 'The Tracker'.