A Three Hour Tour...

I've had a busy few days.

The moozeum has an exhibition opening on Friday and one of the co-ordinators damaged an ankle and hasn't been able to do much; so, for some insane reason, I volunteered to help out. Sheesh.

Anyway, I was invited to a photo shoot bright and early on Saturday morning:

Hmm. Up before sunrise for a morning out on Jervis Bay. The photo shoot was for a local dolphin and whale watching company. A group of us boarded a fast tourist boat to scoot around in. This boat has the photographers aboard.

It's been years since I was out on the Bay and it was a beautiful day to re-acquaint myself - I've also never been beyond the Point. Fishing inside the Bay seemed a much safer option in a little runabout.

So off we went, across the Bay and out past Point Perpendicular - a name that speaks for itself and continues the Australian tradition of stating the bleedin' obvious:

Once you get to the Point, you can see the rugged coastline. Shelves of slowly eroding sandstone all the way with large chunks of rock littering the sea floor and towering cliffs. Abseilers love climbing up and down because of drop and the many handholds. Curiously, I didn't see any seabirds nesting in cliff face.

Of course, that might be because the Navy uses a part of the penisular for target practice.

And... since this was a dolphin and whale watch tour, and... since it is the start of the whale watching season, here's a whale:

A humpback whale, in fact, travelling north to the Great Barrier Reef for some R&R. They sometimes get a little confused and end up in the Bay, rather than continuing up the coast. But it's nice, safe harbour for the smaller whales. This one is moving in a circle - either to get away from the boat, or to come around and give us another look; I vote for the second. Overall, we saw five of them and a playful pod of common dolphins. The dolphins were too quick for the camera, unfortunately.

I don't think I've ever had three hours pass so quickly. And if I get another invite, I'm there!

Earth Hour

Tonight, at 8.30 pm, we're turning off our lights in support of Earth Hour.

It all began in 2007, in Sydney, with more than two million people switching off lights and lighting up candles. Businesses also got involved. Since then, Earth Hour has gone from a local event to a global one with 128 countries joining in during 2010.

Started by the World Wildlife Fund, Earth Hour seeks to bring attention to climate change and our role in it, but their over-arching mission is to 'build a future where people live in harmony with nature'. (A noble, but ultimately impossible goal, unless repressive population control is introduced on a global scale.)

When we turn off the lights tonight, we won't be thinking about climate change, but an hour's worth of lighting we won't be paying for. (Reading by candlelight is hell on the eyes.)

I think Earth Hour still has a new and shiny sheen to it. An hour by candlelight instead of electricity also has a romanticism. Sixty minutes is long enough for people to know they've 'done their bit', but not so long as to be irritating. And while the website urges people to keep the lights off for longer, their call comes across as vaguely Luddite-ish.

But my question is this: candles emit smoke from the burning wax, if everyone in the world returned to the days of candles, what effect is this having on the environment?

Wake up call

Rainbow Lorikeets, it should be noted, love chattering to each other in loud voices, like kids in a school yard.

My neighbour puts out native bird seed for their breakfast and dinner. The air is then filled with the noise of feasting Lorikeets, all trying to shout down the next bird... for a couple of hours.

And at six a.m., I'd like to take a shotgun to them. I'm so not at my best when brought out of a deep sleep by screeching...

However, the early mornings aren't wasted. (I'm the kind of person who, once awakened, is awake - no dozing here.) It's two weeks to Nanowrimo and already I have the first scene of the first book I'll be writing. My subconscious is slipping into Nano-fever and producing stuff at unspeakable hours of the morning. So it doesn't fade away, I've resorted to... gasp, squeak... writing notes.

Yeah, an organic writer making notes. Fortunately, there's no right or wrong way to write and the notes will help. I'm still putting in the edits and don't want to be distracted by what's next.

To that end, I need to get back to the mind games.

Cats and mice

So, the mice have returned. I'm guessing the garage is too cold for them - and they probably ran screaming from the package of poison I tossed into the middle of their village up in the rafters.

I think we've caught six so far, but I don't know, since I told my SIL I didn't want her to lay traps over the weekend because the remains would stink up the garbage bin.

"Don't you just toss them up the back of the garden?" Was her question. "No." Like I want my veggie patch to stink of rotting flesh and have maggots and flies buzzing around. As usual, the SIL disregarded my wishes.

The only food they have is what's in the traps. I have no idea how they're getting into the house, but we don't have any problems in the other seasons. So traps. Snapping in the middle of the night and bodies removed before I get up.

I think I need a cat. If nothing else, a cat would provide endless entertainment:



Then again, a cat would go after the blue-tongue lizards; and then the snails and slugs would return. And they'd eat my veggies because I don't like to use chemicals and the cat would eat them, be poisoned and die. No more snow peas for us.

No cat. But I had a good laugh at the vid.

I'll deal with the mice - if they still live - after the rellos have gone. Thankfully, that will be tomorrow and my stress levels can drop. sigh I think I'll watch it again...

Rain, rain, and more bloody rain

The last twenty four hours we've had buckets of rain, 100mm in twelve hours. Not much sleep since I had to check the back drains at midnight, 3.00 and again at 6.00.

The house is set on flat ground, with the rainwater run off coming through the backyard since builders behind us changed the natural watercourse some years ago. It's been eight or nine years since so much rain fell in a short time.

October I was out checking the drains, but the rain eased mid-evening.

The humidity is still high and we have a severe weather warning for the rest of the day. Sigh.

I'm hoping my beans and brussel sprouts survive - I only planted them at lunchtime yesterday, before the bucketing. The veggie patch is looking waterlogged.

On the editing front, I have about three chapters to do in this draft. I'll set it aside for a day or so and let it simmer... Okay, fine I have J.D. Robb's Fantasy in Death waiting. From all reports, it's an absolute cracker. Work first, then play. Which means, weather warning or not, I need to get back to the editing so I can have my reward.

Jungle fever

I've been running around the internet searching for the Amazon. Plenty of stuff out there and a lot of it is pro-green environmentalist stuff. I have no problem with it, though it does get tiresome. The Amazon is an important part of the world, 'lungs of the planet' if you will.

Constant de-forestation by foreign and domestic corporations for farmland, for wood pulp, have decimated the jungle in the name of profits, and this is an important part of my upcoming book for Nano.

What a lot of the sites do not address are the poverty-stricken populations who have no choice but to sell off their land or allow for these corporations to come in and give them jobs - for most, it's a matter of survival.

And it is singularly unhelpful for 'wealthy' people (tourists, environmentalists, foreign politicians) to lecture the local community on the evils of deforestation, when they don't live there and have yet to come up with a viable solution to bring them out of poverty.

I do believe deforestation should desist, that foreign companies have no right to rape the natural resources of another country for its' own profit. I also believe the governments ruling the Amazon should punish their corrupt officials and find an appropriate alternative, to protect what's left of the Amazon basin, even re-plant vegetation. Discussions with those who live within the jungle and on the edges would be a good start. But I'm not there, I don't live there and I cannot understand the situation the local communities find themselves in.

On the environmental issue, I was interested in the report that Al Gore refused to debate the issue of polar bears. Al says they're endangered, the Irishman claims the population is increasing. If Al is so assured of his position on climate change, why did he have the Irish documentary maker's microphone turned off and say 'this is not a debate'?

I'm not a climate change sceptic, I'm a 'man-made' climate change sceptic; that is, I don't believe climate change is caused by the Industrial Revolution. Climate change is Mother Nature all on her own - I think scientist should stop trying to find the proof that fits the theory, and try finding the theory that fits the proof.

I'll continue to recycle, to compost, to turn lights/appliances off when not it use - purely because it makes sense to reduce energy costs, to return organics to the garden and to reduce the landfill.

It all looks good for the veggie patch I'm putting in and for the Nano book. Both will take patience.

Red Dawn

Photo: Kate Geraghty

Yep, Sydney this morning. The news is also reporting Melbourne was shaken by a couple of earthquakes and Hobart is being dumped upon from a great height with buckets of rain. Oh, and we've already had a bushfire in our local area.

Weird weather? Pissy Mother Nature? Climate change?.

Well... there's this story on the shrinking of the ozone hole over Antarctica where a reduction in the use of household chemicals is credited with a narrowing of the hole.

It's been raining red mud here and there's a fine layer of dust on everything. It's unusual, but the same thing happened a couple of years ago - with similar squeally 'It looks like Armageddon!' 'birds are falling out of the sky!' and 'my cat's gone missing!' comments from sophisticated city folk.

The dust, of course, comes from the Outback. With low rainfall this winter, the spring winds pick up the dust and blow it towards the coast. Wind is the harbinger of spring - happens every year. With an impending El Nino event predicted, the atmosphere is dry. But when the wind turns in a 180, the fog will roll in because the water temperature is cooler than the air temperature and mist develops.

Earthquakes? On Saturday, The Sydney Morning Herald ran a story warning Australians to Be Prepared for Volcanoes. Could be Victoria is about to erupt.

Excessive rain in Tasmania? No, it copes a lot rain most years.

Bushfires. El Nino is drying everything out, the weather is warming sooner.

Climate change, then. I have issue with the man-made climate change proponents. The Earth's weather moves in cycles larger and for longer than we've been around with our technology. Can a scientist tell me the hole in the ozone layer has never happened before? That the Earth hasn't been warmer than it is now followed by much colder weather? I could go on... but I won't.

The point is (yes, there is one) that weather and climate (and they are different) constantly changes. We only notice when we're jerked out of our nice, comfortable assumptions.

World building works in a similar fashion. When you've built your world - environment, civilisations, religions, political structures, military, etc. - the arrival of a comet, unusual weather, can cause all manner of upheaval: think religious portent, prophecy; a strong military that suddenly finds itself helpless; an all-powerful civilian government in panic mode; the public focusing on a man in the street holding a sign that reads 'the end is nigh' and realising it's true.

How would an impending natural catastrophe affect your world? It takes a lot of work to create a new world, a new civilisation, but so little effort to destroy it and the consequences can make for an intriguing book.

Compost

I took today off from blasting away at the keyboard (and yet... here I am, blasting away) composing short stories or anything else to do with writing.

Instead, I took myself off to a Home Composting Course.

(Insert crickets creaking.)

Yep. Composting.

Now it just so happens that I'm a climate sceptic - one of the growing number of people who don't believe climate change is man-made, but a natural cycle of the Earth's weather systems. It's not an argument I'm getting into here, though.

But my attitude does not mean I'm reckless about my local environment. Far from it. I recycle what I can, walk instead of using the car, turn off environment-friendly lights when not in a room and generally try to limit my carbon footprint.

I've done some composting, but it's not been as successful as I'd like.

Any member of my family will tell you I'm botanically challenged - I can't tell a weed from a, well, plant and I rarely remember the names of the blessed things anyway.

Shoalhaven City Council, however, is the first local council in Australia to offer this course in composting. And for a variety of reasons: it limits the amount of garbage heading for landfill, reduces the impact on the environment and saves ratepayers money in garbage collection.

Off I went. I learned lots, too, about what can and cannot go into the compost. Meat is a no-no, but I already knew that. What I didn't know was the amount of newspaper and cardboard, onions and citrus skins can go in.

Now that I have a new kitchen tidy for scraps and a large compost bin - both free with the course - I'm looking forward to putting the theories I've learned into practice. Maybe I'll even make a veggie patch - save some extra money there too.

Alas, tomorrow it's back to the writing gig, or more precisely, some editing I promised to do.

Out in the dark

I don't often see the unexpected in this quiet little village, but the other night...

Rain. Heavy, cold drops from a darkened winter sky sparkling under orange street lights. Flashes of lightning and the deep, dissatisfied rumble of thunder, though it's miles away.

Will we get more flooding? Will it snow? The bitter air feels like it, but we're at sea level. No snow, though I can... eh? What? No... way!

Across the street, sitting up, washing it's face. Dash a few metres, stop, wash, bound away into the undergrowth. Black tail all a bristle, dark grey body under the orange light. Head, small with pointed ears and front paws smaller than the back. A... squirrel?

I've been to the U.S. and taken photos of the black squirrel - so cute - a red one with tufted ears, sitting in a fir tree in Arizona, and been chastised by a grey one, recently, in England. I know what a squirrel looks like.

But I'm home, in Australia, and a long way from any zoos; a coupla hundred kilometres in fact. So what is a squirrel doing here? I went off to check my Australian mammal book - for when I'm out walking in the bush to identify species - and low, there is a picture of a grey squirrel! Colour me amazed. Escapees, apparently, live in deciduous trees in metropolitan Sydney, but that's about it; they're rare even in Sydney.

I'm guessing the rodents are moving south. While I think they're as cute as can be, they're feral and a problem for native animals.

I'm still shaking my head. What else is out there?

Earth Day

Today is Earth Day.

I suppose that means we should consider what we are doing to the planet and how to ameliorate the damage.

It's hard to be absolutely sure in this day and age. The great hope for a better fuel source, bio-fuel, has some originally unexpected side effects; like bio-fuel crops being planted to replace food crops. The consequences we've all seen: food riots in Haiti, India, Sri Lanka, Kenya and so on.

My suggestion would be to plant the food crops, like wheat, and use the stubble, the parts that we don't use for food as bio-fuel. Just an idea...

Anyway, there's a lot to be said for being conscious of how our daily lives affect the planet. Some might think "I am one person, how much difference can it make?" A lot, actually. If you think of your single impact and multiply it by how many live in your state or country, the figures expand rather frighteningly.

Recycle those plastics bottles - if PET, they can be made into polar fleece - tins, papers, whatever. Revitalise old furniture: bookcases into cupboards, cupboards into bookcases.

Check out the various environmental friendly websites like: Environment Magazine, for current information; Planet Ark and campaigns that you can become involved with; The Conservation Foundation have branches all over world you can check out.

I haven't mentioned Greenpeace because I disapprove of some of their practices. But if you feel the need here's the link.

I recycle what can be recycled. I turn off lights when not in a room. I use long-life light bulbs. I turn off appliances when not in use - and I mean at the switch, not the standby button. I think before I use the car and I compost organic material for the garden. I especially pick up litter dropped by the multitude of tourists to our fair village.

Earth Day is just one day, so what are you doing on a long term basis to help the planet?