Thurs  31.1.19   2050

The fire is now at just over 56000 ha - about 139000 acres.  That's the bad news.  The good news is that during today the firies were able to strengthen containment lines in several areas to guide the fire away from homes and villages.  Judbury, Glen Huon and Lonnavale are still under Emergency Watches and doing it really tough.  However, Franklin is back to Watch and Wait: not out of the woods yet, but a much improved situation to last night.
I'm back home now and Sue will come back tomorrow if the situation is the same as tonight.
We received 1 or 2 mm of rain today which cooled the place down and raised the humidity, giving the firefighters opportunity to work on back burning, etc, in several areas.  Water bombing was going on South, West and North-West of our place until about 1830.
Still praying, but less stressed than last night.
Still no lives lost and no more structures lost today.  These firies are magnificent!

30.1.19   2120
The fire increased by 5000ha today, to 37000ha.  That's roughly 92000 acres.
I was up at the house for a few hours this morning and then managed to get back after the highway was closed this evening, just to feed the pig and wet down.
Really strange to be soaking the bale walls again with the  fire hose after 2 years of making sure they were kept completely dry.  We figure that if we lose the bales to mould, but save the house from fire, we're way ahead.
Praying and waiting.

Tues 29.1   1410
The fire is now at 32000 ha.  We're getting a little ash, but no embers at this stage.  Castle Forbes Bay, about 6 km to the South of us has just been evacuated.
Waterbombing is continuing NW and S of us.

I pulled out shortly after writing the above.  We watched the Huon Council briefing session on Facebook this evening and it was pretty grim.  The fire continues to grow, but, thankfully, there has been no loss of life.
We are still hopeful that our place might dodge the bullet.  The fire is still to the S, W and NW of us with a prevailing NW breeze forecast for tonight and tomorrow.  The Tas Fire Service have been bulldozing containment lines to the NW and W of us, so we are hopeful that the fire might bypass us.

We're just to the West of the red flame symbol.

The fire doubled in size today and has made a massive run into CFB today.  That's the community impacted by the northernmost finger of fire front near the river above Geeveston.

Tuesday 29.1  0915
We were door knocked by Police yesterday afternoon and evacuated.  Our neighbour stayed to monitor the situation while we went to a friend's place on the other side of the river.
I'm back at our place now and am relieved to see that we got through last night with no dramas.
However, the situation today is still rough.  Temperatures are higher than yesterday, low humidity, and the wind is due to pick up this afternoon.  The fire is about 4 km away from us.
Before we left last night I fired up the fire pump and watered around the house site, under the verandah and the bale walls.   It felt seriously strange to be playing a fire hose on bales that I've spent 2 years keeping dry.
I'm about to go down to the house site to see if there's anything I can do to better prepare it.

Monday 28.1  1533

This is the current situation.
The fire has made a run and the firies on the ground have been pulled back to protect homes and door knock for evacuation South and NW of us.  We are still on Watch and Wait.
The fire is about 5 km from us at present.
As a trivial aside: my bees are seriously irritated with all this smoke around.

Despite the title to this post, it is Monday morning, 0630. 
We made it through the night.  It's clear here this morning, as the breeze is in our favour, but the fire is still going.
The village is full of cars, caravans, trailers, boats on trailers, etc.  We took Sue's car down to the village last night so we would only have to get the one car out if we had to evacuate.

It's 2130 and dark.  The fire is about 8km from us.  It has grown from 1000ha to 14500ha in 72 hours.
The smoke is quite heavy.  We're packed and ready to go if we need to.
Sue and I are sleeping in shifts tonight while we keep up to date on the radio emergency service.
We are back to Watch and Act status.  The upgrade to Emergency status usually indicates that there is likely to be direct threat within about 6 hours and we haven't reached that status yet.  It's still going to be a restless night.
Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have their homes on the edge of, or in, the fire zone.

How quickly things change.  There are now Emergency Notices for Judbury and Glen Huon which are about 8-10 km WNW of us.  The fire is about 8km West of us and the winds have strengthened considerably to about 45km/hr in the last couple of hours.
Still a long way to go with this one.
Our neighbour has gone to an information session with the TFS in Huonville and we are waiting for her to get back for the most recent advice and information,

Good news.
There is now only one emergency alert for the state, and that is for the midlands fire.  Geeveston has been downgraded to Watch and Act.
The smoke has cleared here, and it's a beautiful, clear, cool summer evening in Franklin.  It's hard to believe how quickly things have changed.
Thank God and the firies.

This is the Huon River at Franklin at lunchtime today.  Somewhere behind all that smoke are yachts, the river, and the Hartz Mountains.
On a positive note, we had four chickens hatch overnight.  Hopefully, all of these will survive.
Stay safe.

This is a screenshot from the tfs website this morning showing the fire locations across the state.  We are in the far South-East.
The nearest fire to us is now entering the outskirts of Geeveston, to the south, and people have been advised to evacuate immediately.
There are numerous towns and villages in the threatened area, and only the one road out.  Our thoughts are with everyone in that area.  They not only face the threat of the fire itself, but the smoke is very thick, making breathing difficult.
We woke to thick smoke this morning due to a shift in wind direction overnight, but are under no direct threat for the time being.  We still have the cars packed in case the situation changes.

What do you do while you're sitting up late at night listening to bushfire updates?

You get a batch of mead started, bottle your black currant wine and make a loaf of bread.

Not a lot of sleep last night.
We have strong winds, high temperatures and low humidity today.  Predicted max of about 37C. There's a bushfire West of us at Tahune, about 20km away, which has burnt out about 2000 ha and is out of control.  At present it is tracking to pass just South of us, if the wind direction holds.  Several communities in our area are at risk, including Geeveston.  We are under a Watch and Act notice.
We have the cars packed with clothes, personal papers, etc and are ready to bolt if we need to.
We spent yesterday packing gaps in the bale walls of the house with rockwool and making sure the windows were locked shut.  I set up a fire sprinkler on the western verandah, and we have a fire pump and a fire hose set up.  However, if it gets really serious, we won't stay around to fight.
In the midlands, there is a fire which has burnt out over 20,000 ha and is expected to double in size today.  Several villages are under Emergency warnings.
The predicted winds today will limit the use of water-bombing aircraft.

 We have been able to shift some of our honey, including with some return customers, and have one customer who wants to buy beeswax from us as well.
I also have enough 2nd grade honey that I can start some mead.  We used to make it from supermarket honey in El Salvador, and are looking forward to giving it a red-hot-go from our own honey.  The 2nd grade honey came from our top-bar hive which has too much uncapped nectar mixed with the good honey to sell but is perfect for mead.   It's a very strongly flavoured honey, so should provide an interesting brew.
I have a Llangstroth hive alongside the top-bar so should get some nice strong honey to sell from it when I rob the hive next.

The top-bar hive.

My first attempt at blackcurrant wine is ready to bottle.  Woo hoo!  We have enough currants frozen to allow another batch, or two, if this lot is ok.  Cheaper than buying plonk at the bottle-o.
We have so many blackberries on our block, I think I'll make a 25 litre batch of blackberry wine when the berries are ripe.

This is the interior of the house as it is now.  Kitchen to the right; bathroom behind the stairwell; lounge/dining straight ahead.

Yesterday was much cooler and the wind was an easterly breeze which cleared the smoke.  We also received a light shower at night which dropped 0.4 ml.  Not enough to settle the dust, but we'll take any moisture we can get at this point.  Much more tolerable.
Tomorrow, Friday, is still the worrying day.  39C and 50km/hr winds from the west.  No rain expected for the next week, except the chance of some very light showers.
The only fire of real concern to us is West of us and about 20km away, near the Tahune airwalk.  It has burnt out about 1000 ha (2600 acres) and is rated as "Going": i.e. not contained.
The Tas Fire Service website says that an aerial response to the fire starts today.
I drove from the house, across the paddocks and out our escape route just to make sure it's clear in case we have to use it.  Otherwise, our only road route takes us west through forest.
Anyway, still hoping that everything goes well.
There's a couple of much larger fires in the middle of the state which are threatening  some small communities, so our thoughts are with the residents and the firies who are battling those blazes.

This morning's view of our house and the normal view.

We have numerous fires burning West and NW of us with very heavy smoke in our area.  Visibility is very poor: maybe 100 metres.  We have spent the day preparing the house site as best we can: setting up a fire sprinkler and making sure the fire pump and hose are ready to go.
We are not directly threatened for now, but Friday looks like being the really difficult day with temps in the mid-30s, very low humidity and strong winds.
Our granddaughter, Alex, and her partner Brad are coming down to help clear vegetation from around the building site this afternoon, for which we are very grateful.
The Tasmanian Fire Service website has more info on the fires for those who are interested.
Your thoughts and prayers are appreciated.

First use of our new honey label.  Thanks, Michelle, for the design work.

Sue used to feel that dogs belonged outside.

But Susie's still here and Buddy has given everyone new energy since he arrived.  And he's a fair navigator, as well.

It was devastating to lose Jack.

The top-bar hive under construction and with a colony in residence.    2017

Or, if you prefer the coast, there's Tasman National Park.

A tarn in the Hartz Mountains National Park.  2016
You've gotta love Tassie!

Dec 2016 After the bypass.
January 2017 The family pitches in with bale laying.

The first bales going in- December 2016.
The interior now - January 2019.

Two years of slow house progress.  Thanks, Duncan, for the hundreds of hours of help.

2015. Dancing with Carmel, Sue's mother, at the Spring Ball at Allora.  The Homestead nursing home provided wonderful, loving care for her.  
February 2016. The family together after her funeral a few months later.  Nine of the ten grandkids are present.

Two granddaughters escape the Queensland heat by visiting Gramps and Lao Lao in Tassie.

2015 saw some snow on the farm.

This is Blossy's first calf, Roastie, just prior to the arrival of the mobile butcher, and as our first piece of Brasaola.   He was delicious.

I'd almost forgotten this blog existed.
Time to update things after 9+ years.  We are well underway with the house, but severely delayed by lack of finances.  I lost my job in late 2017 - the non-disclosure agreement that was part of the settlement process means I can't share what happened.  The upshot is that the Independent Education Union got me a fair separation payment.  If not for our local Union Rep, we would have lost our house and land.  I had a heart attack as the termination was so unexpected, and that led to a quad-bypass and a long period of rehabilitation.  Just as I was getting back into work here on the farm, I found I had aggressive prostate cancer.  Some months of radiation therapy later, and with ongoing hormone therapy, I seem to be ok but still getting 6 monthly checks.
The weeds have largely taken over the place and we have downsized the menagerie to one heifer, 2 dogs, a pig and some chooks.
Last year, our cow, Blossie, dropped a calf, then trod on it and broke its leg, then went down with what seemed to be milk fever.  We had to put the calf down, but thought Blossie was on the mend, but she dropped off the twig.
Some friends very kindly gifted us a beautiful little Jersey heifer, Poppy, who is now growing nicely and is due to be joined in 3 or 4 months time.
Our Jack Russel, Jack, had to be put down after what the vet thinks was a snake bite.  Our daughter, Leah, gave us a beautiful Tenterfield Terrier, Buddy, as a replacement.  Buddy has given our other dog, Susie, and us, a new lease of life.  I cannot recommend Tenterfield Terriers enough: energetic, but easy to train and manage.  Great alarm dogs, but not aggressive.  Great with kids.  Affectionate.
The strawbale house is progressing slowly as money becomes available.  The big expenses holding us back are getting the plumbing finished and the electrics sorted.  The bale walls are up but not yet rendered.  They're very effective.  We had a few days in the mid to high 30s a few weeks ago and on the hottest day, we spent it in the house.  Even though the upstairs insulation is not finished and the window frames are not yet tightly sealed, it was about 10 degrees cooler than the outside temperature.  I also spent time working in it during winter when the temperature stayed in the low 20s while outside was in single digits.  Can't wait to get it finished and us moved in.
We have just robbed several of our beehives for the first time this season and hope that they will start paying their way as we sell the honey.
I built a top-bar hive to go with the conventional hives that we run, and it has resulted in a very strong colony.
Will post some updated pictures soon.