I hope you had a very merry Xmas, with family friends and plenty of good food. I certainly did being invited to Xmas lunch by dear guests. I gave a thought to those working like my eldest daughter who is a nurse, and her partner and toddler were away far to the north. Down south the firefighters were hard at it as well. Firefighters up here in the tropical north got the day off I hope, and with a monsoon trough squatting over the Cape, you couldn’t set fire to Possum Valley forest with a flame thrower.
I find it rather strange that we celebrate the birth of a god most of us don’t believe in. However I can’t see Australia giving up the family time, friend time, and partying anytime soon. Those of a religious bent can add their particular rituals to the festivities, but we have to admit it is largely a secular and commercial orgy of self-indulgence.
One down side of Xmas comes if the clothes dryer ceases to function just before xmas. You might consider it a minor inconvenience, but if you run a B&B that gets through mountains of linen, then it becomes a calamity to rival the Titanic. With the monsoon trough allowing not the slightest chance of drying anything, even under cover, I found myself in Ravenshoe at the launderette. Which I found had closed some time ago and I had failed to notice. As one does when the proud owner of a functioning U-beaut gas dryer. So I crept furtively into the laundry of the Roadhouse/caravan park, past the sign “Strictly for Use of Residents Only!” and spent hours of misery and boredom feeding coins to the insatiable machine.
I had tried to fix it, but it has a complex system of sensors, safety devices, controls and circuitry to rival the Gordian Knot. I exhausted my expertise after checking the wiring for being eaten by rodents and cleaning the electrical connections. I searched the internet for gas clothes dryers to find a multitude on sale. Closer inspection revealed that only about half advertised were actually available, none were physically present in Far North Queensland, if indeed in the country, and the best I could normally expect was delivery in “about” 2-3 weeks. Except it is now Xmas and all bets are off.
The next day, I had the fortune to have a guest and friend arrive who is a techie who services transmission towers and such. He applied a multi-meter to every wire and device and came to the conclusion that one of the two gas release solenoid switches was only working intermittently.  I was doubly blessed when next day a mate of his came to stay with him and even more knowledgeable in electrical systems.  How lucky can you get when in the pits of despair, two expert people show up in the middle of the rainforest and are prepared to spend their holiday time diagnosing my dryer?  They also paid for accommodation.  It did occur to me to offer a discount, but I was pretty sure they would have shoved the money down my shirt anyway.

The result is I may not have to get a new dryer costing perhaps $2000-$2500, which may not arrive until the sun becomes a red giant, and the parts required are probably the cheapest little bits of the whole machine.  The bummer is that it is Xmas and the whole company that supplies the parts has buggered off to celebrate the coming of a god they don’t believe in, and they won’t be back until well into the new year.  Merry Christmas everybody.

 

Writes, and having writ moves on.  Nor all thy piety or thy wit, can un-write one single line of it.  Nor all the tears in all the world” etc ….. Omar Khayyam was generally obsessed with women, red wine and the passage of time.  I can relate to that.  A few hundred years later Macbeth wondered “Can such things be, and o’ercome us like a summer’s cloud without our special wonder”.  Shakespeare also muttered something about “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”.

Which all goes to show that life can turn to shit in an instant.  I had such a moment about a week ago.  I was standing at my bedroom window at half an hour past midnight coughing violently in the hope of expelling heavy mucus from the lungs in a desperate attempt to prevent choking to death.  My dear, treasured grandson had spent the previous week with me on a visit from Darwin.  In the festering tropical wilderness of the Top End, he had brewed up some respiratory super-bug capable of  reducing the rest of the family to bed-ridden coughing wrecks.  My eldest daughter, her partner, and toddler were also laid low.  So horrible the symptoms, that it was only the hope of dying that kept us alive.

Meanwhile back at my bedroom window, my violent coughing momentarily loosened my grip on the windowsill.  I exploded backwards to land very firmly on my butt.  Phew, I thought, very lucky not to have bashed my head on the dresser.  Then I though about getting up.  The very thought sent spasms through my back that left me writhing on the floor.  Oh fuck, I have slipped a disc.  I have done so before 25 years ago and the exquisite pain was instantly recognizable.  Any attempt to use the back results in the muscles going into protection mode and contracting to the ‘lock up’ position.  Which isn’t good as it grinds the vertebra together without the protection of fluid discs.  You probably know that the spine is the superhighway of nerves, feeling and pain.  When it goes wrong, you get pain.  There is hardly a motion you can make that doesn’t involve the back.

So I crawled the few meters back to bed and waited the night out, trying not to breathe, and especially not to cough.  I had guests here, but there was not a lot they could do for me.  Having endured the night, I knew it was time to call for help.  I thought to keep to reasonable hours so the ambos could have a normal life.  In the event I needn’t have bothered as they were up all night anyway.  It appears that emergencies are not confined to business hours.

So I very slowly crawled the 4m to the phone and back again.  It took about half an hour of spasmodic pain and gasping.  I called 000 to be interrogated by a very brisk women primed with the latest checklist demanding the most important information.  Like where are you.  I deliberately didn’t mention Possum Valley as Google has me in the main street of Ravenshoe 25 ks away.   Google used to have me in Tumoulin just 15kms away, but a few years ago ‘adjusted’ me according to post code.  So I gave her my rural identification number (RID) which is 356 Pickles Rd.  This is not a street address as nobody else lives along this road.  Ah, she said Rock Rd.  No! No! No!, not fucking Rock Rd, that is another Google mirage which has 3 Rock roads, 2 of which don’t exist and the one that does exist is in another shire.  Then there was a list of questions to ascertain my condition.  Was I bleeding, what medications , allergies etc.  When I managed to get a word in, I suggested the ambos might need a 4WD.  I got a rather frosty reply that she had already dispatched an ambulance and would have to make other arrangements.  7.30 in the morning, and already I had ruined her day.  Half an hour later the ambos arrived banging on the doors until they heard my plaintive cries.  A couple of big blokes arrived and plugged me into their suitcase equipment.  I gave them my self-diagnosis of a slipped disc that I was sure would render me virtually paralyzed for at least a week.  They suggested I get up and get dressed as I was stark naked.  Good idea, totally unrealistic.  Then they gave me what I think they called a green pencil.  Well it was green, but much thicker than a pencil.  Suck on this.  Wow.  I did not think it possible, but a minute later I was vertical and they were helping me get some clothes on.  I have not required assistance getting dressed since I was 3.  About 62 years ago.  These guys were not phased, I guess they have seen everything.  With assistance I was able to hobble out to the ambulance.

At Atherton hospital they took some observations every half hour, and after the doctor prodded my back to confirm a slipped disc, the nurses gave me various injections and pills that were probably muscle relaxants, pain killers and other stuff they had received by mail in recent promotions.  Whatever, I was able to walk out of there, slowly and stiffly the same afternoon.

I am pleased to say that although I have a little stiffness in my back, I have made a full recovery.  Much quicker that I expected and much quicker than 25 years ago when I spent a week in bed, occasionally crawling to the loo which was a very painful expedition that took about 45 mins.  Maybe the drugs have improved.  I got some strong pain killers to take home, but only used two doses.

I am so fortunate to live in a country where such swift and expert help is available, first from the ambos, then doctors and nurses at the hospital.  And nobody even mentioned money.  I have been to Africa for instance, where most of the population cannot afford even the most basic care.  There is nothing fair or just about the distribution of wealth and opportunity in the world.  And of the two, opportunity is the most important to lead to a happy rewarding life.  Wealth is just a useful tool for broadening opportunity.

Speaking of wealth, I am reading the epic “Extreme Money” by Satyajit Das.  Basically, the financial system has become a bloated parasite full of toxic poisons, and sucking the blood out of the vanishing sector of people who actually do something useful.  I may post my next blog (rant) about the out-of-control financial system.  Don’t expect a happy ending. Perhaps titled ‘Wealth is a Cheese Sandwich’.  In an attempt to return to reality.

Kyoto was a start, if a rather pathetic one, to address climate change as an international issue.  Copenhagen was a dud as parochial interests tore apart any prospect of useful action.  Now the heavyweights will gather in Paris to discuss the death of the planet.  One encouraging aspect is that the major leaders will be present.  If the major countries only sent ministers or attaches, then it would be less effective than a sewing circle meeting.  China gets it.  Often in many major cities the air is often barely breathable because of pollution, and though only indirectly connected to climate change, the Chinese leadership know they have to solve both problems.  Some major efforts in alternative energy are afoot in China.

Most European countries get it with Germany and Scandinavia leading the way, with countries like Spain a leader in wind.  My county of birth, the UK, is valiantly trying with wind, waves and tide, because alas, it is not blessed with much in the way of solar resources which was a major reason I ended up in OZ.  No sun, no fun.  The long dark winter puts a big hole in solar economics.  The position of the US is dependent as always on the whims of the political process.  Obama now in favour, if the ‘Trumpet’ is elected, it all gets flushed down the can, along with anything else you thought might be useful in a democracy.

Australia’s stance in supporting climate action has been improved by orders of magnitude by the change of Liberal leadership.  Dear leader Tony would have approached the Paris talks with his favourite tactic of ‘white-anting’.  Say all the right things, do all the wrong things in the background.  Get amongst them and make any progress unworkable. Our saboteur extraordinary.  Dear leader Malcolm, bless his heart, might actually say it how it is, “Houston, we have a problem”.  The southern 2/3 rds of Oz likely to get hotter and drier.  Those down south don’t need hotter and drier, they have lots already.  In the tropics the weather figures likely to stay the same, but arrive in more intense doses.  I don’t need more intense.

The low lying countries of the pacific get it, they may not exist in the new world.  Flood prone areas get it and are spread around the world from Bangladesh to Amsterdam, Lagos to Dar es Salam.  New York to London, New Orleans to Shanghai.

Russia is a bit of a worry as if it warms up in the high latitudes, it might make Siberia actually inhabitable …well, if you have the hide of a rhino to stop the mozzies.

I think, I hope and I believe that something substantive might come of the Paris conference.  Time is running out and kicking the can down the road heaps all our sins on our children.  Take the pain, make the gain and pay the price.  My generation has run up the tab.  Let’s pay it off.

If this climate conference does not produce any results, if the momentum and will for action on climate change falters….. then refer to my previous blog “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off”.

Well summer is definitely here after being somewhat delayed in October with cool rainy weather.  The cicadas have their evening session of about half an hour of amazing noise, then abruptly turn off.  I have been in places where they go all day and have to admit it is worse than living in the city.  Over -stimulation causes the brain to shut down when receiving constant noise, and deadens the senses.  Apart from the cicadas, and sometimes the frogs or birds, I live in a very quiet place and my awareness of sounds expands. I can hear the crunch of gravel from guests cars when they are 200m away.  I can hear a distant sound of a bird and think it is the telephone and dash inside in some Pavlovian reaction.  It’s not all good.  When the wind is light and from the inland, I can occasionally hear traffic noise when a truck uses its exhaust brake down the hill to the tee junction, but the most intrusive noise of a few decibels is from a certain type of motorbike I shall describe as HD, whose riders glory in inflicting an insane amount of rumble on the rest of us, even those 4km away.  Japanese bikes purr like kittens and go like rockets.  It isn’t hard to make a superbike that doesn’t create a sonic boom.

This morning I heard what I thought was a catastrophic malfunction of the washing machine.  I rushed into the laundry to find a cicada underwater in the sink hole fighting for its life as the spin cycle started pumping water.  Perhaps you have never heard a cicada underwater.  Quite alarming.  I rescued the poor greengrocer and sent it on its way.

Which neatly leads me into my topic of world financial collapse.  Yes, it’s very likely to happen as more and bigger countries join Greece in the basket case category, and I’d give it about 4 years.  Having dealt with that, on to global climate change.

It’s happening, it’s accelerating and Australia is in the front line and likely to suffer some of the most severe effects.  Methane is about 20 times more powerful than CO2 as a greenhouse agent.  New Zealand has introduced a ‘fart tax’ on livestock to address this issue.  Well done.  Australia under the leadership of Tony Abbot has been in reverse gear about any issue concerning climate change, and had been furiously issuing licenses to dig up coal before it isn’t worth anything.  Australia’s case on methane is more complex as termite farts, not livestock, emit more methane.  I look to Turnbull for creative ways to tax termites.

But the really, really bad news is that a mind-boggling amount of methane is stored geologically as hydrates in a sort of methane slush.  Semi-frozen in deep cold ocean waters and in the vast tundras of permafrost.  And what has activated recent releases of methane, on land by violent explosions producing craters in Siberia, and in the frigid seas of the Arctic by gushing areas of bubbles?   Increasing temps in arctic regions.  Oh oh, I think that is the definition of a positive feedback effect.  I hope I am wrong, but methane releases could overwhelm the effects of CO2 emissions with catastrophic results.  The only lever we have to pull is on CO2  emissions because we may not be able to have any effect on methane.

Another big worry is the state of the oceans.  Increasingly polluted with garbage, steadily warming, species fished to extinction, exotic species invading new territory via the pumping of ship ballast and other means, and increasing acidity.   There is also the possibility that ice melt from Greenland and Antarctica could dump enough fresh water into the oceans to change the prevailing currents.

On land there is every chance of the southern half of Australia becoming a desert to rival or surpass the sahara and southern Europe might go the same way.  As mountain glaciers disappear, the summer water supply to many regions dries up.  The Ganges, the rivers from Tibet that water south-east Asia, California and whole countries like Peru will be devastated.  Peru’s capital Lima ‘enjoys’ 41mm of rain a year.  Just about enough for the residents to brush their teeth once a week.  That is hundreds of millions of people.

So I am thinking of leaving Earth and have been looking a real estate options elsewhere.  Mercury is a bit close to the sun and a lot of 30+ sunscreen may be required.  Tidal forces have locked the planet so that one side is always to the sun, and the other always in darkness.  But there might be a possible inhabitable region on the terminator.  No, not a robot, the line between light and darkness.  There may even be craters with permanent shade to contain water as ice.  Venus is Earth’s sister planet alike in size and orbit.  The ugly sister.  Surface temps enough to melt lead, Co2 atmosphere dense enough to crush you, and it rains sulfuric acid.  The searing temps due to the greenhouse effect.  On the plus side, land is cheap.  Then comes Earth, but I’m looking for the quite life.  Mars has always been touted as a tourist destination, and plenty of water has been found, I just don’t think I could handle a pink sky.  Jupiter is a write-off as it doesn’t even has a surface, and the gravity would turn my sagging features into pendulous embarrassments.  But perhaps its moon Europa has an ocean.  But leave the beach towels at home, it is under many kilometers of ice.  Saturn is the poster boy of the whole system with magnificent rings and the view is a great seller in real estate.  But it has no surface either and with wind speeds reaching a thousand kilometers an hour, home insurance would be hard to come by.  The best bet would be the moon Enceladus which might have a bit of water under the ice, but it’s getting so cold out there, I don’t think I would be game to stick my toe in.  Uranus and Neptune… forget it.

Bugger!  The options out here are so much worse than I have got here.  We’re just going to have to make the best of with what we have got here.  And really look after it for our kids and grandkids.

 

 

I have the usual sort of entertainment at Possum Valley, TV, radio, internet, books and in my case ‘The Times’ cryptic crossword is an enduring addiction, but a more subtle source of entertainment is the environment.  It changes the programme throughout the year.  Just recently has been the the time for the sarsaparilla trees to bloom.  I don’t know if this season has been more prolific than most for flowers, or I have just taken the time to look, but it seems the trees were laden with yellow flowers that bent some branches to breaking point when showers added some extra weight.  At the same time, the hairy-leafed bolly gum, another prolific tree, put out its new leaves.  The young leaves are pinkish when small and turn to a light green in a couple of weeks.  They hang limply down for the first couple of months as if dying of thirst, and as the name suggests , when new they are hairy.

Another recent event in the yearly cycle has been the recent swarming of the allete (spelling is wrong, and spellcheck can’t help) termites.  These are the fertile kings and queens that leave the nest on hot still days to look for a mate and found a colony.  They are natures victims and less than 1 in a million are succesful and survive getting gobbled up by predators.  For a few hot afternoons of the years they appear in vast numbers flying clumsily with wings that fall off after a couple of hours.  I was collecting the washing yesterday and furiously trying to shake them off the sheets and they dislodge easily, but another flurry appears in seconds to take their place.  They were landing all over me, shedding their wings and in my hair, down my shirt dong no harm but tickling.  They don’t bite, in fact I think they can’t bite even well enough to feed themselves.  They are in a desperate race to breed the sterile workers that can then feed them.  The birds have a field day with these slow, fatty and helpless creatures.  The small flycatcher birds line up on my roof and elegantly pluck them from the sky.  The larger birds assemble on the roof and peck them up, as there is no place to hide on a tin roof.  Sometimes sounds like a team of riveters are working up there.  I noticed a couple of currawongs systematically working the gutters as I guess the inept crawling of the termites concentrated them there.

Other entertainment I have witnessed over the years is many inter-species interactions.  Growing up in the UK, I had imagined that species did their own thing without bothering much with other species.  That may be true where I was raised as there is a only a tiny fraction of number of species that can be found in Oz.  That may have something to do with the fact that where I lived in the north of England, just 11,000 years ago it was under a 2km thick slab of ice that scraped away mountains.  Nothing like that for sterilizing the place.

There is much inter-species action in a rainforest.  Some is quite understandable with species that compete for similar food resources such as Lewin’s and bridled honey-eaters.  They quite often have turf wars.  The Lewin’s are slightly more robust and will see of a lone bridled, but the bridled gang up and the Lewin’s do not, and then the tables are turned.  I was once treated to a war between about 50? currawongs and about the same number of crimson rosellas.  The crow family and the parrot family have very loud harsh calls.  A very noisy event with many insults traded.  After watching for about half an hour, I left them too it, still battling it out.

Just outside my bedroom window is the clothes line where a young male rifle bird, still in female plumage was dancing his jig with his wings forming a perfect umbrella ….  but to 2 birds of another species, little finches I think.  I was fascinated by the the effort and precision of his dance as were the little birds.  They stayed 5 or 10 minutes, and when you consider the attention span of a bird, that is a concert performance.

Yesterday I dumped the kitchen scraps in the garden just outside the kitchen.  In a very short time one of my ducks showed up, a red-legged paddymelon (small kangaroo), and a scrub turkey.  And who took charge?  My duck.  The paddymelon was bigger, the scrub turkey was quicker, but the duck was more belligerent.  Think Donald Duck if your memory is long enough.  I attempted to take a picture of the inter-play as they all tried to get a piece of the action, but all it revealed was that I ought to clean my windows more often.  The flash went off, capturing my neglect.

Other events for entertainment are coming up.  The firefly season, the beetle season, the moth season, the cicada season, the bower-bird season, the wet season, the dry.

Now more than 50% of the worlds population lives in cities where seasons have been eliminated.  Quite out of touch with system which provides all their needs.  Heating or air-conditioning can negate the inconvenience of temperature fluctuations.  Nature has been fenced out by concrete and steel.  And people’s comfort zone has been shrunk to a few percent of the ideal.  Actually people can and do survive and thrive in a huge variety of environments, but the pampered western countries expect the environment to conform to them.

The environment will have the last word as physics cannot be legislated away.

It is springtime.  In England, where I come from, it was traditional at the first sign of spring to throw the doors open, let the air and light in and give the house a thorough clean to rid the house of the house of accumulated dust and mold from the dark clammy months of winter.  A sort of cathartic experience and a renewal of life.  Spring-cleaning was a well established tradition which I eagerly sought to avoid.  Not only was it drudgery of the worst kind, but it was suddenly announced to unsuspecting kids on the best and sunniest day we had seen for months and months.  A day that should have been spent wandering in woods, fishing or even seeking the attention of the latest heartthrob.  Instead it was wasted in the mind-numbing ritual of beating carpets on the clothesline.

Here spring in Possum Valley is lovely with the sarsaparilla trees in full yellow bloom, the hum of bees feasting on them and balmy days of warmth and sunshine.   The “Lady Slipper” vine is in full flower, the frogs are croaking their amorous interests and an orchid near the house displaying its wares.

So in an act of rebellion, I decided to have a ‘spring-dirty’ event in revenge for precious days robbed from my childhood.  I was going to uninstall the slow combustion stove.  Uninstall these days means a few key-strokes, but what I am talking about is orders of magnitude more difficult.  To completely remove a system of water heating, cooking, chimneys, plumbing etc that the house was built round.

The slow-combustion stove itself is a quarter ton monument of iron and bricks that had rusted away to a state of dysfunction.  The doors didn’t close, the hotplate was corroded to resemble the moon, the fire controls had disintegrated but worst of all was the smoke that filled the house for hours as I tried to light it.  Because internal passages had clogged/collapsed and unexpected channels for air ingress and smoke egress had appeared, most of the smoke took alternative ways to exit.  I had to reluctantly conclude that the stove had reached the end of its useful life.

Not that I’m complaining.  I bought it for $150 about 30 years ago and it was in continual 24/7 use for all but the last 3 years.  I then was given an electric water tank by a friend (thanks Martin) and puzzled out how to dump the unused power from the hydro into it.  The left-over electricity was snaggy little spikes of a sine wave and could vary from 0 to 240 volts depending on what else was being used.  But you can put that into a pure resistance and it doesn’t care.  But I couldn’t dump all the power the hydro governor dumped, otherwise the tank would boil and and frequently dump steam, as well as the safety hazard of boiling water and steam coming out of the taps.  Some internet research turned up the circuit diagrams of  the tank thermostat (surprisingly complicated with 12 terminals as a multi-function device), and Wikipedia turned up the diagrams for a large range of relays.  By running 24V DC through the thermostat instead of 240V AC, I was able to operate a relay to switch the dumped power from the tank to a 2 bar heater which has been the dump load for the last 30 years and is currently beaming down on my back.  The hydro generator needs a load at all times otherwise the volts go up to about 400 and when something is switched in, bad things happen.  Grey smoke and a sound like sizzling bacon comes from the poor unsuspecting gizmos.

In the 3 years since I rigged up this effortless way to get free and abundant hot water, I got suddenly lazy. I found it quite easy to give up cutting trees down, sharpening chainsaws, cutting into stove sized lengths, disposing of the small branches and leaves, loading it onto my ute and hauling to the house, stacking it to dry, splitting it, re-stacking, carrying it into the house every eight hours, monitoring the embers, taking out the ash, cleaning the chimney, de-clogging the stove passages, etc.  All heavy duty, dirty chores.  Oh, I nearly forgot the ritual of going to the Forestry Department for a firewood licence.  The cost was not the problem, from $5 in 1985 rising to $7.50 a few years ago for as much firewood as you could cut and haul in a month.  Potentially a 100 tons.  No, the problem was increasing paperwork and restrictions.  About 15 years ago the bureaucrats decided I needed a certificate to operate a chainsaw.  Level 2 tree felling.  I was on the day course near Ravenshoe with about 10 people.  Two of them had operated the first chainsaw ever to come to the Tablelands and worked in the timber industry for decades, not a thing thing these old-timers didn’t know about felling trees, but they still needed the paperwork.  To demonstrate our competency, we each had to fell about 15 trees in specified ways.  How environmentally friendly is that?  Anyway, the choice between all of the above and effortless hot water was easy to make.

The stove supplied hot water stored in a 50 gallon tank in a small room where the linen and towels are kept on shelves.  I knew I had to remove a set of shelves to get it out.  No problem.  I carefully measured the tank and found it was larger than the doorway.  By removing the doors and door frame, I thought I had 2mm clearance.  Otherwise I would have to demolish half the house.  Actually I had no clearance and left a smear of paint on the studs as I shoved it through.  30 years of sludge trailed across the floor as I wheeled it out.  The tank was also bought second hand for $50 I think, but from a different source than the stove.  It bore an impressive brass plaque embossed with the certificate of inspection for October 1954.  Anybody need a tank?  I modified the plumbing in the house and removed a header tank from the roof, patched holes in the walls where heating pipes had been, sanded and varnished the floor which had been under the stove and had not seen the light of day for 30 years.

Yet I have pangs of regret.  I have to admit that I have been somewhat of a survivalist, being brought up in the cold war and the nuclear missile age.  I like hybrid systems and alternative ways of providing the necessities, and now I have reduced my resources.  But the stove was well and truly stuffed.  I liked the gentle heat the stove added in the winter, and the focal point it provided when the family would shuffle up and park their bums on it.  Also perhaps something more ancient, providing the family hearth, and the fire essential to cooking and warmth gave me validation as the provider.  Ah well … all gone.

 

 

 

The term ‘rubber stamp’ is often used in the media to signify an automatic pass.  A ‘no questions asked’ authorisation by the powers that be.  A pre-arranged deal with the hint of corruption or cronyism.  Something of a done deal and of no value.

I have been the recipient of a rubber stamp which fundamentally changed my life.  I came across an old passport (my first) lately that has led me to contemplate the charmed life I have been privileged to lead.

This rubber stamp is one of the most sought after impressions of smudged ink ever.  Many people in the world would value it far more valuable than a Picasso painting.  And I got it free with little effort.

“Permitted to remain in Australia”.  Clear and simple.  It was the best thing I ever did to apply for permanent residency to Australia.  The only condition was that I had to have an x-ray to determine that I didn’t have TB.  Paid for by the government.  I didn’t have TB.  The rest of the application was automatic.  I have since extended that to apply for and be granted citizenship so I can now stand for any elected position and run the country.  Dear readers, you don’t have to worry about that possibility.  The last thing I would want to do is plunge into the cess pit of politics.  But I do reflect on how open and welcoming Australia was to me.  In 1973 it was the most amazing frontier challenging me to make a place for myself, or even to survive the harsh outback conditions.  I spent 2 years doing mineral exploration in some of the remotest places in the country.

And now people arriving here are treated so harshly.  Slammed up on Christmas Island, or incarcerated on Nauru.  I was an economic refugee.  Carefully calculating my chances of the best lifestyle from my best options available which were many, including all Commonwealth countries.  The people who arrive by boats are refugees that have carefully calculated their options from the least worst options available. Do not underestimate their efforts to search for an acceptable outcome for their families when their home countries become untenable or lethal.  They are absolutely driven from their homeland.  They well know the dangers that await them in sea passages in leaking overcrowded boats. They may starve, they may be killed, but while they have an ounce of energy in them, they will try to bring their families to a safe place.  I was an economic refugee, not driven by dire need, but by choice.  I had the option to live in many countries and New Zealand is so beautiful I almost stayed there.

So I was admitted to Australia on the first day without question or background checks to see if I was a convicted axe-murderer in my home country.  Now it takes years of processing to determine if refugees are ‘worthy’ of some kind of conditional visa.  They are imprisoned in terrible circumstances for traumatic, life-robbing years to await their outcome.  Which might be to reject and deport them back to a country with a long memory of their sins such as commenting on the ruling elite.  Do I think these people if given the chance would contribute to Australia?  You bet.  Just let them work for the betterment of their family and you would see unceasing effort.

So it is all too clear what is the cost to the refugees who dare to approach our coast.  What is the cost to Australia?  First and most obvious is $2,000,000 a year per detainee that it takes to fund the ‘Pacific solution’.  Is that insane or what?  A family of four $8,000,000 a year.  If we lavished the best housing, English teaching, cultural orientation, education, spa baths, overseas holidays, daily massages and expensive manicure jobs on them it wouldn’t cost a fraction of that.  But instead it seems that the government is dead set on inflicting punishment on them for coming here.  To demonstrate to the world a ‘deterrent effect’ not unlike the Spanish inquisition.  And neither side of politics can claim the moral high ground here.  It’s a race to the bottom.  Meanwhile, the bulk of refugees are hosted by countries with inadequate resources such as Jordan, Kenya, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan and Chad.  Do you know what the GDP of Chad is?  No me neither, but I’m betting it’s not much.  So Australia’s stance on refugees seems to the world to be so mean spirited, so xenophobic, that is it sure to come back and bite us in the bum.

Which brings me back to my feelings about current policies towards refugees.  I feel guilty that what was granted to me who had no need, is denied to those now in great need.  Survivor guilt.  I feel a great lack of compassion in our political leadership.  I feel embarrassment that so many of the poorest countries around the world are hosting so many refugees and we can not manage just a few.  I feel shame that we do not consider the fate of so many vulnerable people.  I am enraged that it has become a political football.  I am seething that the politicians think only of electoral advantage that they cannot think of efficient and humane solutions.  AGGGGHH!!!!!  I could scream.

If you have read this far, I thank you for your tolerance to my rave.

In the last couple of weeks there has been a sudden invasion of species from the northern hemisphere  threatening to raise the average IQ of the region by at least a couple of percent.  Behavioral biologists.  There was a world-wide conference for behavioral biologists in Cairns.  They let other biologists shoot them and stuff them, dissect and dismember, sample and genetically analyse them.  No, this worthy brotherhood of dedicated scientists prefer wildlife not to be mounted on a stick, but observe what they actually do when left to their own devices.  I have to correct myself here, it seems to be more of a sisterhood.  Last weekend five came to Possum Valley to stay at the homestead and four lady biologists  to one guy.  What a wonderful mix of people from the UK, Brazil and the US, living in Switzerland and working in Sweden, but not necessarily in that order.  As I had presumed before inviting them to stay FOC at the homestead with meals provided, they were wonderful sensitive people passionate about the environment.  They spent long hours observing and filming the tree roos, possums, birds, platypus etc, but what really seemed to catch their attention was the bower birds.  They are only found in Australia and PNG.  The complex behavior of the bower birds in courtship was of great interest.  Lets face it.  The paternal input of male bower birds to the nurture of offspring is nil.  Their whole life’s work is devoted to seduction and nothing else.  Hmmm…. I missed out there.

I think they really enjoyed seeing some of Australia’s wet tropics fauna and flora and in many ways appreciated it much more than the locals.  I greatly enjoyed their company and conversation.  One unfortunate memento that one lady had was contact with a stinging tree.  She and her partner were following a tree roo and her joey as they came down from some trees and moved on, but pushing through the undergrowth came across a stinging tree with her hand.  Fortunately, she was well dressed over the rest of her body.  She was most impressed by the amount of pain a harmless looking bush can cause.  Sadly, I had to inform her that her tales of wracking pain and feelings of barbecued flesh would not impress people back home.  The stinging tree leaves no sign of the agony caused and most other countries are well aware of our deadly snakes and spiders, ferocious sharks and lurking crocodiles, so if someone says “no problem with that lot, I was attacked by a bush”, well, it’s not going to get much attention or sympathy.  An unforgettable experience in Australia.

Tomorrow I will host the last wave of biologists as the wrap up their extended conference and explorations.  Hmmm… should I serve the kangaroo pie again?  No.  Going for the barramundi/silverbeet/fennel mornay pie this time.