Water and Dry

Hi everyone,

Starting this post with a glass of wine before dinner.

It's been an underwhelming day I must say.  The morning was spent preparing for the job interview this afternoon.  So, not exciting but gratifying because the information came readily to hand and the thoughts and ideas were readily flowing.

After lunch (the last of the vine leaves, Strassburg sausage and cheddar) I drove over to Tatura for the interview. Not much need to rehash it in detail: don't feel I shone really but also no big missteps.  It'd be a maternity leave contract with a hard end date in April 2016.

Something that may affect it one way or another is that the Bureau of Meteorology is prognosticating a long El Niño weather pattern, which means up to two years of below average rainfall and warmer summers (according to reports in the Country News and the Sydney Morning Herald). So, rough times ahead for rural Australia.  The big-picture situation isn't helped by the fact that farmers here tend to be deeply, deeply sceptical on the subject of climate change and react to suggestions of long term dry conditions in the same way as a mediæval churchman responded to heresy.  Regardless of the denials, conditions are still dry here: even the big dam here is still dropping and there's debris I've never yet seen appearing above the water now.

Post interview I went to Shepparton to pick up some groceries and extra food (Fran and Michael will be up this weekend) and stopped to post mail at Shepparton East.

Back to the farm a bit before sundown as the old boy had asked me to be back to give a couple of cakes their anti-scour tablets as he didn't feel he could bend to do it.  A bit exasperatingly, after we got the calves in he gave them the tablets themselves. I wouldn't have minded, but if I hadn't come back for that I would have squeezed in a run on the Goulburn River Trail while I was out.

It's a chilly evening here right now and the fire is very welcome.

I may call it an early night: usually folks want to watch Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, which I find tiresome (basically, a series made by Australian liberals sneering at the Bad Old Days of eeeeeevil conservatives, stupidly credulous Catholics and poor victimised minorities; this would be ok if it wasn't produced at public expense!).  We'll see. I may do a follow up post later.

Enjoy your evening!