All socialised Out!

What a fantastic weekend we had, and we never managed to get a single photo of any of it!  Argh!  What sort of blogger am I?

On Saturday a bunch of us had a combined brigades' training event at Chidlow Station.  For the practical bit, Jen and I jumped ship from our own trucks and went and joined the Chidlow guys in their big 4.4 (that means 4000 Litres of water and 4 wheel drive). For comparison. our Sawyers truck is a 1.4( meaning 1000 litres of water and four wheel drive) so it is much smaller.

Here are the Chidlow guys in their 4.4, taken from our 1.4, at a fire back in the summer of 2015/16.

Me ol' joints really felt the strain as we climbed in and out of it lots of times practising our drill for preparing for a burnover.  If you'd like to see what a burnover might be like, this video, taken in South Australia, is very gripping viewing.

Those guys have deluge systems which we do not yet have. You can see the water begin to sluice down the windscreen as it sprays the cab, and it also dowses the tyres and other crucial areas as well. Hope they come soon!  Think they make a huge difference as to whether you walk away from a burnover or not!

Anyway, we learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and really enjoyed the day.  Thanks Chidlow!      

On Sunday morning, we walked the dogs up at the sculpture park and fell over the preparations for the "Habits of Horses" Festival that would be held there later.  The jumps for the hobby horse show jumping were adorable.

That magpie is so well done that I thought it was real at first.  :D

There were some new sculptures on the theme as well.  I liked these wild running ones.

This one grew on me.  He seems very cheerful, but at full size he is a bit scary.

Later, we socialised all over the place, with lovely chinwags and cuppas with some Druid friends in the morning, then straight off to a local pub for lunch for the Bro-in-in-law's Bday.  It was a really lovely afternoon, with good company made up of friends and family.

One of our pets enjoyed us being away more than others.  Guess which one?

 Later again we popped over to check out the truck I'll be driving to get my medium rigid truck driver's licence as part of my further Firey training.  Goodness knows how I'll go, because I have to do some interesting contortions to reach the clutch!  Being a shorty isn't always a good thing.  My first lesson is tomorrow with gorgeous George from Chidlow brigade.  Lucky me!  George is very encouraging, and I'm going to need a bit of confidence till I get a bit more used to that truck.  Ah well, it is good to challenge yourself!

On Monday morning I went out weeding with the Black Cockatoo Rerserve group and got this pic of some lovely Donkey Orchids.

And this morning we came across this nice clump of Hovea.

Spring is coming!

The vegie garden is looking pretty woeful, but I did dig up this pretty bunch of potatoes today.  We're going to eat some of them for dinner.  Yum!

The latest project, the tea cosy, is nearly finished. It was going to be a rooster but when you put it over the teapot it looks like such a nice fat hen, I think I'll just leave off the rooster tail and call it done.  I did have craft eyes on it but they looked all wrong. It looks quite good without any eyes, but I'll embroider on some sleepy eyes and see how they look.  Can always take them off again.

 
 I hope your weekend was fun and busy too!