Hot Spots & Bushfires

Boy, am I a rookie at this blogging! This is actually my fourth entry - but my silly blonde self deleted the last two entries....
Here I am again - tempting fate in a similar fashion perhaps to my last entry when I mentioned the 'F' word - fire. Two days later the worst bushfires in Australia's history took place, minutes from our doorstep.
I actually uploaded photos of our smoke filled valleys this morning, only to delete them. I am unable to redo that now because I have left our home as we are expecting another horrid weather day and there are fire warnings for many towns that have been told to evacuate as they are very close - and we've been told to be at the ready - I'm ahead and gone.
On Saturday, February 7 my son (his 15th Birthday, the poor guy) and I left early, just because we were chicken at the sight of smoke that had blown to us from somewhere else - hours later a fire that killed people was a kilometre and a half away from our property.
10 days after the main fires I was finally feeling peaceful again - and now that has gone again.
I am so nervous for the poor people who are at most risk from the fire front. Our area will be at risk of ember attack and not the fire front - as far as anyone can tell at this point!
Anyway, I'll load some photos for you when I return home - which at this point will not be before tomorrow.

Suzy

Day One of blogging, Six months living in the bush

Hi, I'm Suzy otherwise known as Fabulous Frau and I live with my family on 15 acres of bushland in Victoria, Australia. I have a gorgeous studio overlooking tree tops and paddocks with a couple of alpacas named by my husband, Kerry and James...quite a liberty as they belong to our neighbours!

My family and I made our very big 'tree change' from living in suburbia to the Aussie bush six months ago. The dream of space was born after extensive renovations on our last home were completed featuring a gorgeous deck overlooking a small mountain range, filling us with a rare suburban version of peace and harmony.....when our dear neighbours decided to replace the view with their new bedrooms, complete with windows over looking us, and cooling system! I was devastated but am now grateful, otherwise we wouldn't be here in beautiful St Andrews and only 40 minutes from the city of Melbourne.

The past six months have been quite a baptism of fire (although, living in the bush and experiencing extremely dry conditions we don't like the 'F' word!) - we've had a fox die on the garden bed next to our front door, I've chased a bat out around our bathroom (while my husband and son looked on with a mixture of horror and bemusement - my husband stepped up doing the manly thing and took the fly screen out of my hands and finished chasing the poor little guy out of the window), had a little bunny rabbit visit our lounge room window (cute but not popular here), followed by a blue tongue lizard sunning himself on the timber frame, a wild duck, visiting from our dam, and some giant moths! I'm also a dab hand at squashing spiders with my trusty pink, slip on sandals.

We had a new tenant with us for a while and I named him Rover. A big, male and old kangaroo - with a very big chest and huge paws with claws to match. He wasn't the least perturbed by us and I decided to pay him the same respect. He was just having a rest for a week, hanging around the house - who can blame him for that? I decided he was enjoying some 'me time', away from the young ones. I mentioned his visit to my neighbours and they were thrilled he'd been here because he was hanging around their house for a while and their kids had named him Barry! How cute.

We live at the end of a kilometre dirt and gravel lane that has lots of curves and hills and very often we come across Rover's friends hanging around like a group of delinquent teenagers. Kangaroos are amazing looking creatures, however proportionally their heads are rather small for their bodies and sadly I think their brains aren't very big. You have to be very careful driving around them because you think that they've gone and then they jump back and surprise you!

I have a store on eBay called, you guessed it, Fabulous Frau and I'm working on my website to be launched soon and I'll be selling creations from my sewing machine and other artistic endeavours as well as some fabulous vintage treasures and funky stationery and greeting cards I've been working on. The aim of the game is freedom in life - freedom to breath. I come from a long background of behind the scenes media, followed by a stint in the PR world and other corporate stuff and all this very interesting and rarely boring experience has created an absolute need for real things and people in my life! I became grown up almost two years ago when I turned 40 and I try very hard to live by the rule of only having things in my home that bring me pleasure - whether brand new, vintage, second hand - expensive or dirt cheap. I love the quirkiness that shopping across the eras and price brackets brings and I'd hate my house to look like it jumped out a catalogue.

Anyway, this is my first ever blog posting and I've got my L plates on - so I'll close here and learn how to insert some pictures because after all, this is not meant to be a book! I plan to update this blog at least once a week and include some pictures from our beautiful home as well as some of my creations.

Thanks so much for visiting. Cheers, Suzy ;)