But who knows, it could all change on any upcoming day.

I do not remember the last time I took a breath and did not smell Smoke.

For now, I do not remember the last time the sun was a normal Colour. The light is a weird orange colour for much of the day. Those are not clouds in that photo - that is smoke.

I do not remember the last morning where I woke up and did not immediately turn on the scanner to find out what the fire people are up to. I am extremely grateful we are still allowed to hear them - the police went encrypted digital some time ago.

However today the local RFS scanner frequency has been offline for a lot of the day, and I have no idea what is happening out there. It is unsettling not to know. Facebook is full of incorrect information and we can't be sure what is real and what is not real. We certainly can't rely on the media. I'd rather hear it from the horses mouth.

For most of us we are living in some kind of suspended limbo - many of us feel that it is not necessarily a question of if but of when.

I know here that if we get ember attack we are likely going to lose everything. We've prepared our property as best we can, moving all the Leaf Litter to the chook pen yard - the chickens will be evacuated if required, along with the cats and ourselves. But we have neighbours who are elderly and who have an overgrown block - many of the plants on their block have died in the drought and it is just a tinderbox waiting to go up in flames. If that happens, I would expect we will lose our house.

So, we wait and hope.

Our cuckoo kitten is now a lanky teenager, so incredibly long. She is an oddity. Obsessed with the sink and water, a great jumper and very much an explorer cat. She is keeping Happy busy, they chase each other around the house, normally right after we head to bed. You haven't lived until you've had two cats run over you at full pelt.

The chooks are doing well and greatly enjoying their leaf litter. They'll mulch that down in pretty quick order, providing we water it regularly which attracts bugs which they then take great delight in digging for. continue reading

Original article: We Are Ok.. For Now..

This content was published by Snoskred on her blog - Snoskred - Life In The Country