long grass

Thank goodness for the fireys!

Thank goodness for the fireys!

For the third time in seven years I have reason to be grateful to our local volunteer fire brigades.  My farm borders the Midland Highway for several kilometres south of Oatlands, on the downwind side of westerly winds, leaving me vulnerable to fires starting from a careless cigarette, or in this case, apparently a fault in the power line running alongside the highway.  The third fire was started by lightning, back in 2019.

A Bonza Year

A Bonza Year

I first encountered the word “bonza” in Nevil Shute’s wonderful story “A Town Like Alice”.  (And no, Alice the sheep is NOT named after the town of Alice, but after Arlo Guthrie’s song “Alice’s Restaurant”—the line about “You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant—excepting Alice…”).