Bit close for comfort...

I hope everyone is ok.

Everyone's ok. I got my son out first as I know the smoke will trigger his asthma. My other half point blank refused to leave and spent the last hour or two beating out flames on the bottom hundred metres of our land, ably assisted by a team of bombeiros. Looks like a load of forestry has gone and there are still a few patches of fire scattered here and there along a line several miles long. Urgh. Why do people plant so many highly flammable eucalyptus everywhere? Sigh...

Oh, and most important, the bees *didn't* decide to leave home. I think that was my other half's biggest worry!

Glad to hear everyone's OK.

In another month or two they should be happy, happy bees. Burned areas flower prolifically (as a general rule.)

I do feel rather sorry for the bees. A couple of days ago we picked up two nucleus hives with some splits that a friend had made for us. We'd given then a couple of days to settle down, then this morning we moved one of them to a bigger hive and were going to move the other one this afternoon. Poor things hardly got time to settle into their new home than they nearly got driven out again.

I hope we do get a nice load of new wild-flowers for them off the burned patch. It was full of lavender and wild gladioli only this morning. It's cleared all the bramble away from the boundary line at the bottom end, ready for fencing, so some good should come of it! I'm not sure how much forestry has burned down though. Might go for a little explore tomorrow...

I'm surprised it burned as it looks so green there. Are you already into summer drought?

No - far from it!

After all the 'water wizards' gathered for the water symposium in Tamera, we've had a couple of weeks of rain and everything was about as lush and green as it ever gets. In fact we only had two or three days without rain. I strongly suspect man-made influence in there somewhere, and not helped by the thousands of acres of highly flammable eucalyptus trees. Off for an explore later to see what the total damage was.

Wonder if the olive grove is still standing?

Oh my gosh, Burra--so glad you all, your place and the bees are okay! Good to hear it did some clearing for you where you want to fence. Here's to healthy re-growth!