Next...

came the grassfire. On 21st November 2006 a limb fell from a large gum tree on the other side of the railway line to our property. Yep, one of our boundaries is the railway line from Melbourne to Adelaide. The wind was howling and the temperatures were high that day. Ray was still living in Ararat at the time and was at work. I can't recall how I found out that there were fires in the area but I called Ray and suggested he check it out... he did, and discovered that the fire had gone right through our property. The fire started over the other side of the railway line, jumped the line and whoosh.. there goes FSF. Luckily for us (and Ararat too) Ray had done a great deal of clearing in the previous months. He'd physically pulled out hundreds of dead scotch thistles that burn like firecrackers from underneath the gum trees along the creek and had collected masses of fallen firewood. What was a fairly cool grass fire could have become really ferocious had the thistles still been there because they burn so high and hot the canopy of the trees would have become alight as well. FSF is quite close to what is known as "The Common" and had the fire gotten into there via the trees along the creek the whole of Ararat would have been jeapordised. So, we're really thankful that it was a relatively minor fire, although we did lose one chicken who was sitting on a clutch of eggs and all of our fencing. We are currently still discussing with Powercor the intricacies of that argument! One of our apple trees was singed all over and although she's (pink lady) appearing to do well her bark is splitting and I'm concerned that she will die eventually.