Leaves, Moles in Holes and Winter Soup

Dear Great Gran,
After months of not corresponding, here's some colourful early June scenes by the lake.
Julie throwing leaves in air.
All the world's a stage.
Reaching highMole in a hole (checking depth of post holes for espaliering the apple trees)Tucking into soup while Stephen and Julie work in the kitchen.much love
Brendan

Boolarra fires

Dear Gran (and others!)

when I left Boolarra this afternoon, Mum and Dad still didn't have phone or internet, though they do have power and water. Mum gave me some photos she took: here are some of them.



Smoke seen around the house















Sean in full SES gear hosing down the garden.



Fire below the house.






























Fire above the house, seen through the taped-up kitchen window. The above two photos were taken less than a minute apart.

The spruce tree below the house, burning.

The woodshed burning.



The supersoaker is not, apparently, standard CFA issue. Yet.


This explains why they lost water pressure halfway through the fire.



One of the two mudbrick houses on the hill above Sue and Neil's house that was burnt.


much love,

Julie.

Cakes, Flowers, Butterflies & Mountains

Dear Great Gran,

Back on Boxing Day, Momo and Ruth are getting ready to 'help' Lorraine ice the birthday cake -

And here is the most genial host of the party with the birthday girl

We had a great time at Dinner Plain - not least because of the new year's eve overnight hike.
Here Julie frolics amongst the wildflowers - in the background you can see the burnt forests from 2006 bushfires in the Kiewa River valley:

A green butterfly landed on this flower while were having lunch...

Here's the same flower with Mt Feathertop beyond...

...I am very tempted to cut and paste the butterfly from the previous photo onto this one using Photoshop!

love
Brendan