News & Updates from Vicki Avcin ~ AusCrafts · Page 84

Well what a difference 24 hrs makes. After being drought declared with little or no rain since last November we finally got a little rain.

While a lot of areas around here have had substantial rain up around the 90mm mark, we havent been so lucky until Wednesday night when we got 30mm.

The ground has been brown and crunchy, well whats left of it, but finally we have a bit of green showing through.

Farmers round the region will have little or no crops this season, a lot of them with cane farms and its been sad to see what is usually lovely and green now dying off.

I dont know if the minimal rain weve had will be enough to save the crops as we are only a couple of months out from crushing season to begin.

Weve been putting water out for the wildlife as dams are empty…have been empty since December, and little or no natural feed for them.

Weve been trying to keep a bit of green around the house with sprinklers from the rainwater tanks for them to eat and they knew where to come for some grass with a little moisture in it.

But now thankfully weve had a little rain.

Photos are off our back yard taken Wednesday and this morning (Friday). We need a lot more rain and it is forecast for the next week or so but well see what happens.

Clear blue skies and sunny again this morning.

Each year one of the big hardware stores here in Australia puts on a Sausage Sizzle, run by, food supplied and cooked by the staff of Bunnings to raise funds for the State Emergency Service and the Rural Fire Service.

Both organisations are volunteer organisations.

Some of the stores run it for both each year, usually the weekend of or just after Australia Day in January, but the store here where I live alternate years.

This year it was for the Rural Fire Service and all money raised through the BBQ/Sausage Sizzle will be going to the Rural Fire Service.

Last year it was the SESs turn.

We set up in the morning and throughout the day each brigade in our area got to come in with their truck/s and members were also able to walk round the store with collections for donations.

We had an information stall set up for people to ask questions and for the kids to get stickers and colouring books.

On January 1st this year we had changes to the Smoke Alarm legislation so it was a good opportunity to talk with people about that and give them brochures to help them understand the changes.

We are not sure how much was raised as yet as this is an Australia wide event and its about 4 to 6 weeks until we know.

But regardless it was a great day!

Pictured is the crew from my brigade with their truck with the Hervey Bay Group Officer and one of the Volunteer Community Educators.

The weather here has been unseasonably dry …..driest weve seen it in the 8 years weve been in Hervey Bay.

Normally our dams are minimum half full but as you can see in the bottom corner of the photo, this is one of them, taken in December, and it is completely empty.

Never had it dry before. So it goes to say that all the animals are looking for water. We have several bird baths around the yard and the wallabies have been making good use of them.

We nicknamed them kangabirds as they drink out of the bird baths, something else weve not seen them do before either.

The little bubba wallaby that came out of mums pouch in December cant reach the bird baths so we have put buckets out for him to be able to reach.

We walked down the back half of the property yesterday and the neighbours dam which is twice the size of ours is down to just a couple of puddles so much so that the ducks can stand in the puddle and the water doesnt reach their bellies.

Would love some rain but we see it go north, south, east and west of us each time. The locals reckon we have a dome over Hervey Bay and it takes something really big to penetrate it.

Lots of local theories as to why we are missing the rain but no ones given a one hundred percent reason as yet.

The photo is our kangabirds having a nice cool long drink.

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. Its the time of the year when families are supposed to get together but not all of us can do that.

Our children and grandchildren live at different ends of the state and we cannot just up and go visit as we have animals that need to be tended to so cant get away.

Some are working over Christmas and we are also on call. So lovely surprise on Boxing Day afternoon when my son and family turned up. Apparently hubby knew about it but kept it a secret. We talked well into the night and then went out to lunch the next day.

After lunch we went across the road to the beach and although rain was brewing, it was still great to just walk and talk with the wind blowing cooling things down a little.

We walked out on one of the little piers they have along the foreshore here and saw the fantastic patterns on the beach from little crabs.

They dig holes in the sand and the sand that is expelled comes out in tiny little balls.

The patterns were all up the beach and it really did look pretty. Just as we got back to the car, down came the rain. We joked that the family brought the rain because we are in drought here. Unfortunately when they left, they took the rain with them and we are back to dry sunny skies.

Was a wonderful 24hrs we had with them and really brightened our festive season. Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and hope 2017 is a fabulous year for you all.

We were sitting out the front of the house (in the cool breeze) talking to a friend a few days ago, when she looked over at her car and said Is that a possum?

Looked over to see this cute little fellow investigating the roof rack on her car.

No it wasnt a possum, it was a little Sugar Glider. After checking out the roof racks it glided to a tree next to the car, then climbed up onto another branch.

Went and grabbed the camera, and got some photos while it just sat here looking at us with its big eyes.

Sugar Gliders are locally common in parts of their range that extends around the north and eastern coastal areas of Australia.

It occurs from the Kimberley region in Western Australia, across the north of Australia to the tip of Cape York Peninsula and south to Victoria and Tasmania.

They are common where there are plentiful tree hollows for shelter and abundant food. Sugar gliders are social, nocturnal and arboreal.

They live in woodlands that contain tree hollows and sufficient food. They spend their nights gliding between trees and climbing in the foliage. During the day they generally share a common nest in a tree hollow or with a ball of leaves.

They glide as they have a membrane from their back legs to their front legs which enables them to glide short distances.

Guess its the possum version of a wing suit. This is the first time in 9 years weve seen one here so it was a welcome (and cute) surprise