Deer, oh dear

Some very unfortunate political play has happened over deer hunting. Let's begin with the fact that before white people arrived in Australia, there were no hard hooved animals in Australia. Cattle, horses, sheep, buffalo, pigs and deer were introduced by white people. While cattle and sheep are managed as farm animals, wild populations of horses, buffalo and deer exist. Horses and buffalo are partly controlled by government contracted exterminators, the others are not generally except by private hunters.

Hard hooved animals do terrible damage to our fragile environment and should be eliminated. 

Deer have no protection in Australia beyond cruelty to animals laws, except for in my state, Victoria. They are able to be shot by hunters, but otherwise they are a protected species. They are often hit by cars, causing terrible damage to cars, and I should think danger to those who run into them,  and aside from dingoes and wild dogs, they don't have a natural predator. Why has this protection nonsense just be reinforced by our state government? 

In my view it is solely down to the hunting lobbyists. They don't want to see the pest species eliminated because they won't be able to hunt them. The Labor(sic) state government has caved into pressure from the hunting lobby, over the environment and motorist safety, and it is a disgrace. 

With our preferential voting system, I've always voted Labor, or directed my preference to Labor after voting for The Greens. It will be a pointless exercise, but I will inform the Labor Party of my disgust and disappointment. If enough people do as I do, maybe it could make a change. 

My apologies if I've upset your Bambi feelings, but it is an important environmental and road safety matter, and we don't want to end up like Debby mentioned in her post referring to deer. 

I read it in the newspaper so it must be true

Another old draft post completed. 

There is a Melbourne local government area called Glen Eira. It is one of Melbourne's expensive south eastern suburbs and a rather nice area to live. It has a high Jewish population and in some parts a high Indian immigrant population. 

Long have I known it has the least amount of parkland of any local government area in Greater Melbourne, however unlike Melbourne's western  and north western suburbs, it in common with most of the inner to middle eastern to south eastern suburbs, had good tree cover, known as one of the 'leafy green suburbs'.  

Truly disturbing, there has been a reduction of of tree canopy covering in the local government area of roughly, between 2010 and 2020, half. Like 50%. No doubt this is a result of older houses with large gardens and trees, being demolished and the resulting blocks of land covered with housing and paving, almost edge to edge, without room for large trees. 

Yes, we need higher density in these spacious areas to cater for population growth, rather than expanding the outer areas, but it really needs to better managed. Many free standing houses fit for a family are demolished for luxury apartments for wealthy older downsizers and cashed up Asian immigrants. The area of land probably houses no more people, in spite of the land being covered over and trees cut down. 

As long as historic areas are respected, the state government is doing the right thing with higher rise buildings near train stations. But allowing tree cover to be so reduced is not the right thing. This also applies to City of Stonnington, City of Boroondara and a couple of other local areas too.  

Drying your duds and a swing at home

Something I've picked up over the years of being on the information super highway, is that generally Americans don't hang washing outside to dry. There must be plenty of opportunities to dry clothing on a line outside in the warmer months, but it doesn't seem to be a thing they do, even if they have a freestanding house.

I can't dry clothing outside, even on the balcony, as that is prohibited by Owners' Corporation rules. But when we had a free standing house, we dried clothes on an outside clothes line, perhaps at times having to give them a final finish in a clothes dryer for ten minutes in the winter. Truly, I could never tell the difference but people used to say how lovely and fresh their clothing, bedding and towels were if they were dried outside (in air full of traffic exhaust fumes).

Now, I and my tenants hang our washing on the clothes rack in the spare bedroom and turn on the ceiling fan. Maybe twelve hours after being under the overhead fan, the garments will dry. They never use the clothes dryer, but I do for a short time to soften up my towels once they are dryish. My worn socks and jocks are washed about once a fortnight, and dried in the dryer. I am not hanging up 42 small garments on a clothes rack. Not shown in yesterday's post of our house was a pull out clothes line attached the neighbour's brick wall, but I can't remember what it was attached to when pulled out. The clothes dryer was rarely used. 

Of course the Australian invention, the Hills Hoist, dried clothes in most back yards of Australian houses. They would spin around in the wind and they were raised higher by a crank handle, or if you were posh but without staff, mains water pressure. On very hot days with a strong wind, you could almost hang your washing out and take inside as dry the first garment you hung up by the time you hung out the last garment. Strong horizontal bars on something that could spin were very enticing to children, so a number of inferior brands would have bent bars. Yes, I was guilty. 

I expect if people have the space, a form of the Hills Hoist is still used, now made by aluminium and nylon cord but back in the day, galvanised steel and twisted wire rope.  

So be it Britain, Europe or America, how do you dry your clothes, and is it economical?

The Easter that was

Boring Good Friday, everything was closed, except they weren't. Cafes were open and R took me to cafe he knew at Fishermans Bend. Once home I did do some serious cleaning on the balcony, a bit of a follow up after the air con remediation. 

Saturday morning we trammed to town to buy Easter eggs for kiddies and had a cafe brunch along with very unexpected good coffee, with a 15% pubic holiday surcharge. I used to think that this was ok, as staff are being paid extra for working on public holidays. I no longer think the same. Public holidays are a known thing and extra public holiday wage costs should be built into the budget forecasts for the business.

Sister, Bone Doctor and Jo were in town Saturday in the afternoon to see a Melbourne Comedy Festival performance. They went on to see the Titanic exhibition at the museum and we met them at The Oriental Teahouse in town for a nice dinner. Sister and her wife are both just post another bout of Covid, with Sister having caught it on a school camp. They happily returned to rest at their hotel while Jo came back with us to stay the night.

Sunday morning after a very small breakfast at the Scottish restaurant opposite, R and Jo made sandwiches and we drove to the suburb Oakleigh for a family gathering organised by Sister. Sadly Fire Fighting Nephew was on duty, and his wife, five year old daughter and two year old twin boys were staying with her mother at her apple orchard. 

Guest list:

Myself and R. 2

Sister, Bone Doctor and Jo, 2 adults/1 child.

Tradie Brother, his Ex Wife and her husband. 3

Oldest Niece and her partner and their three children, 2/3

Hippie Niece, her twin children, her partner and his two children. 2/4

ABI Brother. 1

Ex Sis in Law's husband's daughter and the daughter's luscious partner in his early twenties with a lean body and a perfect camera smile, and their daughter, 2/1

No one mentioned the missing person who would have been ninety years old. It was all about children and renewal. 0

So, fourteen adults I think and nine children. 

The picnic was at Brickmakers Park. We secured a table under shelter and had a lovely time. Walks were taken, the extensive play equipment was well used, trees were climbed, left over brickmaking equipment was explored and a walk to the nearby Scotchmans Creek undertaken. There was food aplenty and the obligatory Easter egg hunt. 

It was a very successful family gathering, the first really after scattering Mother's and Step Father's ashes. It was nice to not have to drive for an hour for a family gathering too.

Don't we all love a nice duck or two. 

Don't ask me, aside from a wind vane.

I could see two of the strange coolie hat like structures, but I can't in the photo.

A small and neat rotunda can be as good as a large one, can't it?

Another strange structure or something functional. 

I'm on steps to nowhere, just into a swamp.

It's a pity the grass is not irrigated and has turned brown. The next day we had 56mm or rain, say over two inches. This broke a weather record, as did the driest March for over a hundred years or something like that. Weather records just continue to be broken in great haste, but of course it is nothing to do with climate change. The grass will be green by the time this is published.

Some brick making machinery was left in the park. The sign in centre of the photo says no climbing on machinery. 

This boy was too young to be able to read the sign. Get down Lucas!

I've reduced the size of these photos compared to what they normally are as taken at a ridiculous size of around 6mb. Does it make a difference to you?

I iz surprised

Here is a couple of interesting maps I came across, displaying areas of heat in Greater Melbourne and peninsulas on both sides of the bay and they rather surprised me.

Melbourne sits at the top of the bay with its huge tall buildings pumping out air conditioning heat when the weather is warm, vast expanses of concrete and asphalt, congested traffic pumping out heat, a point where most public transport runs closely together generating heat, as those who use London's tube trains know. So why isn't the city and inner to the middle suburbs the hottest?

While it may be partly topographical, the west to the left is very flat, I put it down to street trees and large established parks in the city and inner to middle areas, principally elm and plane trees. I am not suggesting outer areas should have such trees, better that we use native vegetation, but trees are what these high heat areas really need. Also the west is generally a cheaper area to live with poorer public transport and long time and recent immigrants who either don't like large tress or don't have land enough for large trees. 

There is a couple of curious heat areas to me, the Bellarine Peninsula on the bottom left where Sister lives, and above the small other bay to the right, Westernport, encompassing the town where Ex Sis in Law lived. I thought it was her husband's son in law that made me feel hot when I was there and he was too. It seems it was just climatic. 

We're away for a few days to visit ageing Step Mother. See you all soon.  

Saturday Scandal 2

The damning photos below show the confluence of the North and South Santiam Rivers in Oregon, US.

Strayer writes a little  about it here and you can read more detail in this story I came across. DEQ stands for Department of Environmental Quality. 

Australia has plenty of environmental problems of its own and perhaps I should be writing about them instead, but these photos are just so shocking. Photos by Brian Clift.

Grand Prix Fireworks

Light shows seem popular now but still people love to see gunpowder burnt, have terrified animals and cause much visible pollution. We've seen so many fireworks from here over a couple of decades, we don't really bother watching them now. However when a massive display is being let off a couple of hundred metres away, it is a different matter. I think there was a display for the four nights of the GP.  They were certainly well done. I took about a hundred photos and chose these as the best. There is not much more to say really.

We know, we know, but we don't

Unfettered capitalism around the world has been an absolute environmental disaster over many decades. A list of the worst could be quickly written but I see no need. Others will have done it. I thought I was pretty well unshockable at what the excesses of capitalism could do, and I knew it was bad in South America,  but after watching this 15 minute doco, I am truly shocked. 

I am not shocked by the environmental disaster. I knew about that. What I am shocked by is how the world and its legal system has failed in redress, in clean up and financial compensation. For goodness sakes, the pollution is still sitting there in South America. The world should be ashamed.

The paper one, if you please

Gattina has written a post called Going back to the Future and it is worth a read.

In Australia light flimsy retail plastic bags were banned, substituted by more durable and reusable plastic bags which had to be paid for, meaning instead of using the lightweight bags for our rubbish, we now have to buy them. Slowly we have become savvy with making sure we take reusable plastic bags to the supermarket. 

Supermarkets and many places charge 15 cents for a reusable plastic bag. Recently similarly sized brown heavy paper bags with handles have appeared to but too. That is great, but they cost twenty cents. Paper can be recycled a number of times. Soft plastics not so much. So why not make paper carry bags 15 cents and plastic bags 20 cents? Of course it is not about the cost, but the number of reusable plastic you manage to acquire, and have to store. 

Then there are rolls of plastic bags in supermarkets to put fresh vegetables into that are extremely light weight and must be terribly polluting if set free. I asked Household Management why he buys freezer bags when the supermarket fresh produce bags could be used. He explained that the interior of vegetable of used vegetable bags could be contaminated and therefore not safe. I must add that this was at the height of Covid fear here.

Anyway, simple brown paper bags could be used for fresh produce rather than plastic bags, as used to be the case. As for plastic meat trays  and plastic packed up fruit and vegetables, absurd. Vegetarians, don't feel smug. I've seen tofu in plastic trays. There must be a better way.

Is the climate changing?

Mike: A bit dry mate.

Danny: Yeah mate, could do with a drop.

Mike: Dry now but we've had good rain. It's La Ninja.

Danny: Yeah. We've had a couple of La Ninja years. Still, could do with a drop now.

Mike: The greenie commos tell us it is climate change but the weather bureau tells us it is La Ninja.

Danny: Mate, I believe in the science from the weather bureau. It is La Ninja and nothing to do with climate change.

Mike: Remember when we used to have days of high 30s and then get into the 40s. We don't get those now.

Danny: We did in the late 2000s. That was bad, you know fires and that and all those people and animals dying. We don't get those days anymore. Is that because of La Ninja? 

Mike: I reckon so. The weather always changes. It's all to do with La Ninja. Nothing to do with climate change mate. 

Two in one

I had a post written for today but I am not happy with it. I need to find a non sexual photo of a black male prn star showing his hand. 

Our federal government is introducing domestic and commercial price caps on natural gas and a code of conduct for coal export companies. I don't care to look closely at it and therefore understand it. Suffice for me if it is Labor Party legislation and the conservative Liberal Party with its focus on big business, and energy companies are against the legislation, it must be ok. The problem addressed is that domestic consumers of energy are paying world prices for what is produced cheaply here. For some reason Australia decades ago accepted paying the Singapore price for oil even though we export oil. That happened a long time ago, but it doesn't make it right.

Now to some blog housekeeping. Things I did to my old blog layout many years ago, I have no idea how to do now. However, I did tidy up the ugly copy and paste link to my my old blog archive. I am sure there was a simpler way to do it in the past than creating a page and then making a gadget link to the page. 

The next task will be to add a Blogmates list. I think that will be easier, but likewise my old list was quite a creation with different lists and I can't remember how to do that. This will be a simple list of current Blogmates and blogs I read. Naturally regular posters and commenters will be the first to be added. It is not so bad to have things a bit simpler. 

It is said photos always improve a post. Here is an interesting sunset. Wow, so behind. December last year.