Author: doug

Those nine dreaded words

In the last few weeks, a backhoe and dump truck, accompanied by a crew with shovels, have been cleaning the roadside ditches.

But if they’ve been cleaning them, the water should flow freely, no? Let’s take a look at the culvert (red arrow).

The culvert is black plastic. Here we can look into it from the top because the previous government worker, with a grader, sliced off the top of it. Do you see any sign of water inside it? No, you don’t: bone dry.

Likewise on the other side: standing water.

This is because the government workers didn’t just clean the ditches, they deepened them, to below the level of the drain pipe. Stagnant water, mosquitoes. Lovely.

And this is how far they got into trashing (note standing water) the ditch in front of our house. Why did they stop? Lunch time, I guess. A week ago.

“We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”

After the fire: strange

It’s fascinating walking our normal dog walk route and noticing the changes – and anomalies – since the fires. Here the plastic part of a broom – in a burned area – is neither charred nor melted, while the wooden handle – extending into an unburned area – is completely burned. 

I guess it’s possible someone moved it since the fire two days ago, but we’ve seen no one the last few days, nor any signs of activity other than firefighting in a very few places.