Wednesday 13.2   1616
Last week fires: this week snow.  Welcome to Tassie!
Ok, the snow didn't fall this low, but in the highlands where the fires had been severe, there was snow this morning, and we were down to 5 deg C last night.
I have mead, blackberry wine and ginger beer brewing.  I put the blackberry and mead into demijohns yesterday then had to wrap them to keep them warm last night.   The mead blew the water out of the airlock and overflowed.

 Blackberry wine.

Mead and ginger beer bug.

 The mead getting excited.

Tucked up for the night.

The pig is growing on nicely and due to be turned off in three weeks.

Wednesday 6.2.19   1930
Opened two beehives today to see if they are ready to rob.  They are both starting to cap honey in the supers, but not ready to go just yet.
Some of the commercial beekeepers in Tassie have lost a large percentage of their hives and significant stands of leatherwood trees have been destroyed.   Leatherwood is Tassie's best known honey and commands a premium price.  Production is going to be significantly reduced, not just this year, but for some time into the future.  Hobby, and small-scale, beekeepers like us are going to need to be careful as the value of colonies and honey increases.  The problem is likely to be opportunists who see hives in accessible places and knock them off under cover of darkness.  I have one which is visible and accessible from the highway, so I'll move it within the next few days.
We have no W&As for our fire at present, though there are some for other fires in the state.  Rain is forecast for tonight and tomorrow, with showers predicted for the next few days.

Tuesday 5.2.19   2028
We now attend St James Anglican church at Ranelagh, after a break of about 10 years from regular church attendance.  We were very browned off by the scammers and hustlers operating too many of the entertainment centres masquerading as churches that we had been exposed to over the years, and seen too many people hurt.  Having been part of the problem for 12 years in the 70s and 80s, I found I couldn't sit and watch people being manipulated and keep my big mouth shut.  So we gave church a swerve for a decade.

Jimmy's (St James) is about as non-scammy as you could get: caring, genuine people with gracious, gentle people and a minister who is a young man of integrity.  Can't ask for much more.

Tuesday 5.2.19   2004
All the Emergency warnings are now lifted for the State though quite a few fires are still uncontrolled.  Firies are working on back burning and clearing containment lines.  Water bombing is continuing.  Several villages near us are still under Watch and Act notices but we are at Advice level.
All told, the fires have burned over 200000ha (500000 acres) so far across the State over the past month.  And north Queensland is having record floods.  Townsville, where we lived for a while, has had more than a metre of rain over the past few days and the Leichardt River is running a banker n the Isa (where we also used to live.)  The river at Cloncurry is mad!  And Julia Creek had over 230mm of rain in 24 hours.  At Julia Creek!
Here, we had a gentle Nor' Easter today which kept the smoke away so Sue and I picked fruit (about 10 kg of plums and nectarines - Golden Drop and Greengage plums, mmmm!)
We have rain forecast from tomorrow night, for several days.  Hopefully, it will fall in the fire zone and surrounds.

Sunday 3.2.19   1543

The fire is still about 60000 ha.  It has just made a run to the SE towards communities North and South of Geeveston.  The warnings are for impact in those areas in 30 minutes to an hour.  The winds are not particularly strong here, but are a little gusty, and gusts of 70 km/hr are expected in places.  It's very smoky here at present.
All 40 fires in the state are increasing their activity at the moment as warmer air moves in from the North.  Hopefully, the containment lines will hold.
The perimeter of the fire is over 1600km (1000 miles.)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-03/tasmanians-prepare-for-severe-fire-dangers-on-sunday/10774452
Tomorrow is expected to be cooler but no significant showers until Thursday.
On a lighter note: the pig has not escaped today and seems fairly settled although she must be grumpy with the heat and smoke.

Rasher enjoying having more room to move.

No emergency warnings this morning, which is great relief.  The fire has now covered 60000 ha - about 148000 acres.
We are back at our place, sorting everything out.
The pig escaped twice from its pen yesterday evening so I spent an hour or so replacing the electric fence.  I'll make a bigger run for it today, so it has more room to move and more things to do.