onetrack

I have no desire to share a quiet camping getaway in a caravan park, with a bunch of yapping, badly trained pooches! It's bad enough around here at home! The number of dogs that yap and howl all day in the city is atrocious. People go out all day and leave the dogs alone and they get frustrated and bored and bark their heads off at any sound. The neighbours over the road have a dachshund. They're nervous wrecks, that breed. This dachshund starts barking with his annoying gruff little bark, at any sound, the minute his owners go out. I reckon people should have to be tested and checked to be able to own dogs, just like a firearms licence.

The coldest day I can ever recall, I was working at Mt Beaumont, about 90kms E of Esperance. It was July 1984 and I was operating an open cab dozer, digging a new farm dam, and a potent Southerly wind was blowing straight off the Antarctic ice. Esperance had a maximum of 8° that day, and I swear it was -18° where I was - on a Southerly-sloping, bare patch of cleared farmland, where the wind could pick up speed. I was wearing jeans, shirt, heavy woollen jumper, overalls, and big gloves and I can still feel that cold to this day!! I can also recall a friend telling me about visiting Chicago in mid-Winter, and when he went outside it was -14°F. He said you had to be careful about taking big deep breaths, or you could develop ice particles in your lungs. They can shove that climate, I don't understand how anyone can live in it.

Now the right wing media are making a huge noise about Chalmers budget blowout - $5B more than estimated. The RW media know this is a big stick to beat Labor with - "Labor can't manage the countrys finances! - only the Libs can!"

I thought for sure, the item would be an ashtray! I've still got a manual vehicle with a regular cable operated handbrake between the seats. It's simple and gives no trouble. Stepdaughters Subaru's (Outback previously, now a Forrester) have electronic handbrakes. I don't like them, too much potential for electrical problems, and they're basically a cost-saving idea.

I watched a rat dive into a hole containing a confined space, in the bottom of a clay pot in the garden. I ensured he was still there, and inserted the garden hose into the hole while I held the pot horizontal, filling the confined space right up with water. I held the pot in that position for at least 5 mins and was convinced a drowned rat would fall out when I dropped the pot back down in a vertical position. To my utter amazement, as the water poured out of the hole, a very wet, but still very alive, rat, came tearing out on the flood of water and ran away into some hidey hole in the garden!! I reckon the bugger must have had a breathing apparatus to fit a rat, hidden in that pot!! They are the ultimate survivors - they reckon only rats and cockroaches will survive all-out nuclear war.

Hold your tongue.

The problems associated with scammers, crooks, con-artists, online bullying, and all internet crimes, could easily be solved by ensuring that anonymity cannot be part of your online presence. The crims, bullies and scammers enjoy the anonymity of the internet, as it provides them with cover they can use, to avoid recriminations and penalties.

Mum.

Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield, the Righteous Bros.

One of the reasons I don't post photos of my face or any identifying features, or what I'm doing, or where I live, on social media - is because it's simply giving vital information freely to criminals, anywhere in the world. Even when I give personal details to companies, Govt Depts, and other organisations - and they solemnly declare that they have the best encrypted security going, and they treat my personal details with unparalleled care - it usually all ends up in the hands of scammers, crims and con-artists. The media have a lot to answer for, stealing peoples photos off their social media, and broadcasting them globally in salacious and often untrue articles in their mastheads and subsidiaries.

I can generally always find a cool spot when it's stinking hot, but when I'm cold, I get chilled to the bone, and can't get warm, no matter what. I've worked in Marble Bar, worked North, East and South of Kalgoorlie, and seen plenty of 50° days, with no wind. You need to drink plenty of water, and wet yourself down regularly. It's when you get a stinking hot Nth-Easterly wind out of the Centre in mid-Summer, that you learn all about HOT! I've seen 47° in Perth, and that feels hotter than 50° in the Outback.

The thing is, American law enforcement will reach out to any country in the world to arrest you on American law charges - even Trumped-up ones.

Britain did suffer very badly as a result of WW2, but a lot of was poor planning, and poor political leadership. Harsh economic policies of the time were hard on the vast majority of the population. Australia sent dozens and dozens of shiploads of free food to Britain in the late 1940's and early 1950's, to prevent mass starvation. This, at a time when there was still food rationing in Australia.

No chance of dragging any prefab dongas in there, I'll wager! I bet it was all built from local materials, and what could be flown in by chopper! And I'm guessing it rained 350 days of the year, too?

Yeah, I remember those Elross work vans, dreadful cramped things they were. For mobile accommodation, we had several big Viscount Supreme vans, 27 footers and triaxle, they were quite comfortable. On the gold mine we owned, 60kms N of Norseman, we had 4 fettlers cabins we'd bought from a disused narrow-gauge siding, made redundant when the standard gauge was put through in 1971-72. These were solidly built, timber-framed, 3 room buildings, about 14' x 40' (4.2M x 12M). We got the whole lot for about $200 from memory, jacked them up, and loaded them onto a house transporting trailer owned by Noel Little from Kalgoorlie, and transported them about 20km N to the mine, and positioned them in a square layout. They were great buildings, very comfortable and roomy. Two were built in 1907 when the narrow-gauge line was first installed - but they were still in good condition in 1972 - and the other two were built later, possibly in the 1940's. They provided us with lots of accommodation on the mine, and when we were doing mining/exploration contracting in the area. Unfortunately, we installed a kero fridge in one of the newer buildings and it caught fire, and burnt that building to the ground. Luckily, the brother was nearby when it happened, mid-morning, and he managed to contain the fire to that one building. Bloody kero fridges were responsible for a lot of house fires. Quite a devastating loss, unfortunately - and we lost a beaut, vintage classic, "Icy Ball" ammonia, wooden-chest refrigerator from the 1920's, in the fire. I think it was a Crossley. Quite rare, I've never seen one anywhere else.

I'd rather be warm than frozen. Broome is just fine by me, especially with Cable Beach to compensate for the heat. We've had a mild Spring, and probably a little wetter and slightly warmer than normal. Overall, rainfall for the S.W. of W.A. is down for the year. The 7 month drought we had between October 2023 and May 2024 killed quite a few trees (including big ones), and left the soil moisture profile, very very dry. The cropping season looked terrible in April, not a skerrick of moisture in the ground anywhere. But the farmers went ahead and cropped normally anyway, dry-seeding paddocks by the thousand. Then we had reasonably good rains in May (76mm), June was better (118mm, close to average), July was quite wet (170mm, well above average), August was wetter again (138mm, also way above average), Sept was a bit dry (39mm, well below average, with 18 days with no rain), in Oct we got 47mm, above average - and Nov has produced 10mm so far, a little below average. The Northern Wheatbelt and the Pastoral areas further North had stunning Winter rains, thanks to tropical moisture feeding in regularly from the NW, off the Indian Ocean. Kalbarri had 317mm for June, close to its total annual rainfall of 341mm, just in that one month! The Northern Wheatbelt got too wet to spray crops in July, they had to revert to aerial spraying and drones! But the grain coming out of the Northern Wheatbelt harvest now is staggering, some farmers are reporting 4 tonnes to the hectare for wheat (20 bags to the acre in the old money), a mind-blowing performance for country that is normally marginal. Overall, even though rainfall was below average for most of the S.W. of W.A., the crops have done well, with rain coming just in time for many. Some areas went backwards because they missed out on vital rain amounts at the right time - but overall, the total crop tonnage for the State is starting to look like it will make nearly 19M tonnes, which will be the 3rd biggest crop on record. With Summer only a few days away, the projections are for warmer minimums and slightly higher maximums, making for a warm Summer to come. But at present, we've had very little hot weather for Spring, and it's been a quite enjoyable period, weather-wise. It's going to be 34° today, before it drops back to the high 20's and low 30's for the rest of the week, then dropping back to the mid-20's for the weekend, with the chance of a few showers. https://www.giwa.org.au/wa-crop-reports/2024-season/giwa-crop-report-november-2024/

Spacey, didn't you notice the article about decimal clocks in France was dated 1st April?? LOL

Just another unwanted bike that's not a Harley, for the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs to throw on a bonfire!

The rollercoaster of Life.

What, no photos of being bogged to the eyeballs in red mud? 😄 Classic Red Centre photos there, Willie. It's interesting how you get people who love the place and other people who can't cope with the isolation and silence, the dust and the temperature extremes. 50° in the middle of the day and 0° at night. I can remember a story a bloke told me about how they were camped out in the Red Centre and it was a bitterly cold night with an icy South-Easterly wind blowing, typical of mid-July. The mechanic/boilermaker/welder with them took off in a ute and came back half an hour later. He'd recently found an old rubbish tip and he'd scrounged a big old, woven wire-mesh bed frame from it - you know the ones with the wooden perimeter frame and the woven wire mesh tightened between the wooden outer beams. He stood the bed frame up at about a 60° angle, dragged over the long welding leads from the engine-driven welder, hooked the earth lead and electrode holder to it at diagonally opposite corners, then went back to the welder, cranked it up, and adjusted the output so the wire frame just started to glow in the dark! The bloke told me it was the best outdoor heater he'd ever come across! He said it was like standing in front of a giant toaster! It certainly kept the cold at bay!

In the company of thieves.

I think someone's had a lend of you with Photoshop as regards the Glasgow freeway interchange. This is what it actually looks like.

I've got "work clothes" that I don't bother ironing (for when I'm getting down and dirty around machinery and workshop work), but I do iron a range of "good" shirts, for when I want to appear in clean public areas, such as pubs, restaurants, offices, shopping centres, etc. I only wear a suit to Anzac marches, weddings and funerals - but a suit does give you a certain level of pizzazz. SWMBO has a big thing about "smart dressing", i.e., looking your best in public. I think she has a point, if you're smartly dressed, you always garner attention faster, and provide a more impressive appearance to others you wish to interact with - especially those in positions of power or Govt regulation. And she says nothing looks worse than an old person who is scruffy and unkempt in their appearance, it looks like they've given up caring about their appearance and personal hygiene.

Heavy metal.

A handsome devil.