Fence destroyed by strong winds

Finally after 5 dry months we had our first wet week of 2009.  This didn’t come in the form of a mere drizzle but hit with 120km winds, storm clouds and very heavy downpours.  We certainly needed the rain badly.  Our small dam at our Piesse Brook property had been completely dry for the past few weeks which is a first in the 6 years we’ve had it.  Of course the road drains, house gutters and ground couldn’t not keep up with the deluge so there was quite a bit of flooding around.  By far the biggest damage however, was done by the wind.  An area near us (Riverton) bore the brunt of the storm and the news showed homes without roofs, huge trees flattened as well as one poor sole who lost both of their cars and their home to a massive gum tree which pulverised the lot.  We however suffered our first major storm damage at our new home, exactly one year after moving in.  During the night on Thursday 21st May, well at 3am on Friday 22nd to be exact, squawling winds hit our place.  There was lots of banging and crashing, which we discovered in the morning, was our side fence being smashed to pieces.  This fence is the divider between us an the neighbour on our left. (which is actually the RIGHT side on the top photo as I’ve take the photo from the back fence looking down to the front of our property with OUR house on the left!)

We contacted our insurance company who sent out their assessor this morning.

32m of (ex)fence

They will pay 1/2 of the 32 metres of fencing that needs to be replaced (our neighbours insurance company needs to pay 50% also).  We are hoping our neighbour will agree to replace the hardiflex (cement panel) fence with colourbond instead as this will match the other 2 sides of fence and not only look beter then the grey cement but will be far stronger as it has a cemented in downpost both sides of every panel.

We were very greatful that our guinea pigs were not in their wire cage on the grass up in the back corner because the fence fell in that direction (to the right looking at this photo towards the back fence) and would have squished them flat!

We we also glad we didn’t have Mahli (JR) as she would have no doubt done a runner with the fence down before we woke up!

We’ve had some nice cold nights in the past week that have been brought with this weather front.  Last night was a chilly 5 degrees… lovely!  Nothing nicer than a chilly night, with the windows open snuggled up with someone you love and your fluffy doona!

Is it only me or has Gretel Killeen new ‘pixie cut’ exposed her as a Romulan?

It has dawned on me that our planned trip to Karajini is now only about 6 or so weeks away.  The trip from Perth to Karajini (North and slightly east of where we live) will take about 17 hours by car.  This would be an impossible trip with children and is one of the reasons we are doing it without children!

Cliff decided on New Years that we should have no less than 6 camp trips this year with our camper trailer.  To date we have had one to Dwellingup with the kids and one to Marvel Loch with the father-in-law so Karijini will be the half way mark and leave us an easy 5 months of spring & summer to fit in the final 3.

We had a 2nd, industrial type, isolated battery put into our car that has an outlet into the cargo hold in our 4wd.  This means we can simply plug in 9v appliances (lights and other things that we attach to our 9v converter such as computer or phones to charge up) directly and not worry that we are draining our main battery (always a good thing if you are hours away from civilisation!

We also had a nice set of spotlights professionally installed to our roo bar (much neater cabling and internal switch than a DUI job!).  They should be helpful in avoiding the kangaroos, emu, goats and other wildlife along the way although, we do try to not travel at night (when the wildlife is more likely to be near the road and end up road kill!).

SO…… I sort of getting quite excited about this trip.  The kids are totally sorted out so I don’t have to worry about that (yay for adult children and family!) and that just leaves planning what we are taking and deciding where we are stopping on the trip up, the trip down and where we are planning on going whilst we are up in ‘the top end’ as we tend to call it.  Cliff lived part of his childhood in Port Hedland as well as working there 10 or so years ago and we hope to have time for him to take me to see this area while we are up there.  The colour of the red dirt up and the emerald sea are sights to behold in person as photos do not do them full justice.

After a year of slowing turning blonde I have decided I am ‘over  blonde’ and am contemplating going back to being a brunette.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, blondes do have fun but I think as I was born a brunette and having lived 42 years as one (and 1 year as a blonde) and can say without any shaddow of a doubt I prefer life as a brunette.  Now, just to convince my hairdresser!