willedoo

One thing I don't like about local government is their trumped up big brother attitude towards the shire residents. Our local council employs two people full time to study satellite images of our properties. That's their only job, to make sure we're 'complying'. They study one property at a time and compare it to the stored images from a year or two before. Nothing better to do than spy on people obviously. It would be good if they just got out of our lives. I can't see the sky falling in if someone on a rural property puts up a chook house or garden shed without a very expensive permit.

There's been a push in north Queensland for many years to form a new state. I doubt the government would ever allow it as a lot of the revenue comes from the mining, agriculture and tourism in north Queensland.

In southern Queensland we had the first of the major thunderstorms for the season roll through late yesterday. It's warmed up quite a bit in the last few days. Winter here is beautiful weather; it can't be faulted. It gets cool enough to light a fire at night and you get a chance to wear a beanie and cool weather gear, but without the finger numbing and nose stinging cold. Now we're approaching the time of year where we have to pay the price for having such perfect weather for half the year. Sometimes it can be reasonable but often it's five months of heat, humidity, mosquitos and continual damaging storms. The BOM is predicting hotter and wetter conditions than normal for the next three months. Last summer they were totally wrong. They'd predicted a hotter and drier summer than average and we ended up with one of the wettest summers ever. I think their prediction was based on an El Nino event which didn't eventuate.

Maybe 'named for' is more correct.

Also Queensland, named after Queen Victoria.

What about: NSW - Mardi Gras Land NT - Rock Land WA - Canola Land Victoria - Cup Land Qld and Tasmania could share - We don't want any more interstate migrants here Land SA - ?

A good reminder. One job I need to do is to run the firefighting pump and make sure it's ok and ready to roll. Petrol goes off fairly quick these days so I've hatched a plan to periodically drain the firefighting pump's tank and refill with fresh petrol. The older stuff I can re-use in an unregistered petrol Triton I run around the property in. Another preparation is to make sure there's spare petrol on hand at all times.

King's Birthday is today in Queensland. Maybe it's the only state with the holiday in October. Our Labour Day is in May.

I found another old scanned photo of the same machine posted a few posts back. The other original photo was taken with an instamatic camera; this one was taken with one of those small compact cameras. I forget the type of film they took, was it 35mm? The machine has a distinct list to port in the photo. It didn't like the Macumba River. It seems funny looking at a machine like that now as they look really old, but at the time the photo was taken it was only about three years old and the current model at that time.

You're welcome to it.

Trump loves having the richest dickhead in the world sucking up to him.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any weirder, here's Trump and baby Trump at Butler, Pennsylvania.

I still haven't got used to seeing 'King's Birthday' printed on the calendar.

Burning broadacre stubble is long gone. To do it now is just burning money. In the cane industry, burning is mostly gone but you still see a small amount of it for a reason. Over time the harvesting equipment has evolved to be able to handle the trash throughput and cane varieties have been bred that produce less trash. Usually the only cane burning in this area is when they want to harvest standover cane that has stood over unharvested for two or three seasons. It grows bigger with less sugar and more trash and needs to be burnt so the harvester can handle it. Because there's no local mill any more and transport costs to the nearest mill are high, farmers will only harvest when the price of sugar is high enough for them to break even on costs. Some years they harvest, some they don't, resulting in standover cane. Cutting green cane and leaving a trash blanket as mulch is much more profitable. More moisture and plant growth, less fertiliser and herbicide.

Dangerous stuff. That bloke going for a dive into the dam reminds me of the danger of cutting timber that has been pushed and raked into a heap with a dozer. The heap ends up with a lot of pre-stressed sprung loaded trunks and limbs. They can go off like a mouse trap when cut and the tension suddenly releases.

Imagine what it would be like if the nuclear diamond battery concept was developed at scale. A battery that lasts for thousands of years.

At the age of 77, those nuts were probably Whitworth. One old tool and two nuts to undo.

Life is good when you have a big green and red shed nearby. I bought a couple of these Gorilla brand bow shackles today. Good quality, rated at two tonnes, built to Australian standard, pin size of 13mm and only $4.95 each.

I can't argue with those statements. Real estate has more to do with it than religion. If you forget about all the small stuff and just look at the main fundamental belief of those religions, Islam and the Jewish religion have much more in common with each other than either one does with Christianity. From a belief perspective the two of them should be natural allies against the Christians. I think it's more about power and land.

A bit like opening Pandora's Box.

For some reason I ended up with two shower chairs. One is a thin seat, probably the nutcracker seat mentioned above. The other is a thick extruded type of material, strong and hollow inside a bit like a kid's plastic belly board. I'd say the nads would be safe with it.

The incense was pretty ordinary. They need to go to Bali and get a few tips from the Hindus there. Get some proper sandalwood or something.

And I've never before seen a church that was part church, part shop. In the entry to the church you had to walk through rooms full of catholic merchandise for sale. All displayed on shelving and price tagged like a proper retail store. Two rooms full of sale goods.

I had a dose of religion today at a Catholic funeral. Lots of bells, incense, cross carrying and free biscuits on offer. I would have been a young man the last time I went to a Mass. I'd forgotten about all the ritual part of it.

I wonder if he was trying to save a few bob by using a plastic garden chair. Some of them have slots in the seat part.