I am pleased to announce the latest facility at Possum Valley is now open for business.  Just in time for the wet season.  But it was always going to be that way, as building anything in a rainforest has to be done in the dry season, unless the builder has a high tolerance for misery, inconvenience and delay.  Today I installed some furnishings including chalkboards and a bucket hoist.  My thanks to the young consultants who were most generous in donating their time, thoughts and work to the project.

I have implemented a good portion of the ideas of my young guests to the benefit of all.  I think they were delighted to be asked for advice when I frankly admitted that I had no idea beyond the structure, and I got some creative ideas my ossified old brain hadn’t thought of.  I did exercise my right of veto with the impractical or dangerous, like table tennis for reasons of scale, or darts for reasons of safety.

So I have learned something.  When you are stumped, ask the kids.  Maybe none of their ideas are practical, but hey, they may just get you thinking outside the box.  They have not yet been nailed into a box and their possibilities not yet dragged down by realities.  Besides, they will blossom and bloom if you just really listen to them.  Not just lend an ear, but understand where they are coming from.  Now I come to think of it, it works for adults too.

The dry season has been prolonged, hot and tiresome.  With wilting trees shedding leaves, grass dead and brown, and my power supply dwindling away.   Now a few days of gentle rain has renewed the grass to green, the trees to growth, and my hydro to normal voltages.  It is cruel and unusual punishment to subject electronic equipment designed for 240V to 170V and still expect it to function.  The brave little charger has soldiered on for several weeks under this harsh regime.  With more water in the creek, I have been able to replace the 23mm nozzle with a 25mm nozzle.  Might not seem much to you, but it has got me out of the system collapse zone.  In a week or so, I may even have enough surplus for a hot shower, as excess energy is diverted to heat the house water.

I have been negligent about making posts in the last few weeks due to the festive season activities.  My daughters, grandsons and others made the long trek from Darwin etc to be here.  Awesome to hold my grand kids in my arms.  They were active and exploring.  I am still trying to find things they creatively displaced.  The family had Xmas early and the feast on the 20th Dec, which left me with time to accept other invitations.  Xmas with Mark and Lilia at Wagtail House.  A new B&B at Tarzali on a farm with the most glorious views of the tablelands and the mountains that you could imagine.  Check it out.  Then boxing day with guests and a friendly sing-along.  So good.  I am not at all religious, but I think Xmas is a special time for family and friends to get together and take a break from toil and trouble to celebrate the important things.  Family and friends.  Nothing more important than that.

I have always wanted a tree house, but being brought up in Manchester our little garden didn’t sport a tree, and every other tree I eyed up seemed to belong to somebody else.  Now I have a lot of trees.  An amazing, mind-boggling number of trees, and apparently, I own them and can do with them what I like.  I don’t quite see it like that, as I am only custodian of the trees, but I do think it is OK to take or use a tree if it doesn’t detract from the forest.  Most trees get a start but don’t make it to the canopy to become a mature emergent tree.  There isn’t light or room.  If I take isolated trees, it gives the neighbouring youngsters a chance.  I had a young guest here recently, 11, who was prepared to spend some time with a codger in the hope of learning something.  He might have, he listened pretty well.  He tried to interest me in a tree house and aroused my own distant memories, so we went in search of a suitable tree.  I had certain restrictions on location so as not to bother other guests, but I was surprised to find the search fruitless.  How come I have perhaps 100,000 trees and not one suitable for a tree house?  Rainforest trees grow very tall and thin in search of light.  They can be 20m tall and only as thick as my thumb.  They simply don’t develop side branches close to the ground, or indeed anywhere near the ground.

My young consultant assured me that a tree-house without a tree was quite OK.  We picked a spot near to one of the dams, but hidden in the rainforest.  I scratched around for materials I had looking for a use and designed a tall 2 story structure.  The total budget was $250, but I have had a blow-out of costs to $300 due to extra bracing requirements.

The first story is on steel pipes and the floor structure from railway lines probably from a cane-train line, then a cattle grid for a few decades, and now a play house.  The second story has a steep peaky roof of tin pillaged from a storage shed no longer used.  The top ridge is about 8m from the ground and presented some problems as it is way too steep to climb on, and beyond the reach of my ladder.

I have since added the steep roof structure and veranda rails on the lower  deck.  Getting the tin roof on is always a relief in the wet tropics, as the usual  persistent rain can bring building to a halt, and start to decay the materials.

I like building stuff.  Especially when I can use materials that have no present  purpose.  I hope kids will like playing there and can exercise their fantasies.  For me I enjoy building, but it is 60 years too late.   That’s OK, I got to do it in  the end.

One of the good things about building in the rainforest is that I am working in  the shade.  The weather has been hot and dry at times approaching 3oC.    Today it it was 29C.  That makes it one of the coolest places in Queensland.  In  the last couple of weeks, most of the state has been parboiled, and some in  western Qld have managed 43C just about every day.  It is not even officially  summer yet.

It may have been the torrid temperatures that drove some of the G20 leaders  to pull the plug and go home early.  Putin took off early as perhaps the Russian leader couldn’t take the heat, but more likely couldn’t stand the vacuous political rhetoric.  I doubt it was the amazingly ill-conceived threat from our leader Abbot to “shirt-front” him that drove him away.  If could have been a koala allergy, as these hairy bug-infested gas factories have been known to have that effect.  These harmless creatures seem to have been rounded up in droves to be inflicted upon the world leaders and their unfortunate spouses.  I am sure we have forged good relations with Russia, and when Abbot visits the great republic he will be invited to cuddle a bear.

This is how to survive the Australian summer.  In the shade with  lots of water.  My grandson Henry 5 months old has the right idea  and looks pretty pleased with himself.  My brother in the UK, who  I consider an intelligent fellow, doesn’t believe in global climate  change as a result of human influence.  I put this down to political  leanings and the fact that any kind of warming feels good in the  UK.  In Australia, we are one of the countries most likely to feel  the maximum effects of climate change.  Our current government  is in denial, but governments never did have much influence on  the laws of physics.  They pass lots of laws, but don’t quite grasp  the fact that that the laws of physics cannot be repealed.  That is  lawyers I suppose, they imagine that a legal decision actually changes reality.

It is so dry now with the creek diminishing to a dribble.  Most of the power now being supplied by the solar panels.  Me and a million plants are looking for a drink.

 

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