Tag Archives: friends

The RFS saved our farm from bushfires and friends & family saved our sanity

Despite, thankfully, not losing our home like so many other poor souls, our family was affected by the unprecedented bushfires this summer. We had to evacuate our home for an extended period – twice, with the flames getting to within 500m off our back fence and 200m off our side fence. These were scary times for us, like many others across the state. If it wasn’t for the RFS fighting the fires tooth and nail for months on end, I have zero doubt our property would have been consumed and they have our families eternal thanks.

Image taken from the cab of a fire truck on our road the night we had to evacuate. (Photo Credit: R. Oldfield – NSW RFS)

These fires affected our entire family unit. We had to cancel our sons birthday party and all my wifes family coming for Christmas. We had to spend Xmas itself at relatives homes instead of in our own. We had to tear our farm apart to try and make it as fireproof as possible, and we are still now trying to put it back together. We had all our most treasured personal belonging stashed in three other people’s homes and likewise for our animals three more. We stressed and fretted and on one night drove for our lives as the police came down our road on their loudspeaker ordering people to evacuate, our animals and children in tow. We sat up until 1am at my mother-in-laws house watching the reports come in about a house destroyed on our road, wondering if it was ours and if we would have a home to return to.  We consider ourselves fortunate that all we lost in the end was a few fridges and a deep freezer full of food (a waste of good ducks though).

So yes, we were much luckier than many, but the NSW fire season was truly a horrible month for our family.

 

So the RFS saved our home, but what saved our sanity? Easy to answer – community, friends and family. Without these people my wife and I would have descended into madness long ago, and ours is a tale of how people pulling together made what was a terrible experience so much less worse than it could have been.

 

Here are some of the examples of how we were helped by truly wonderful people:

 

Community & Emergency Workers

*The Grader Drivers that came to our property on two separate occasions and put in fire break lines everywhere they could, in an effort to stop any grassfires that might make it in onto our land.

*The local branch of the RFS, who provided constant updates and were always able to answer any questions we sent to them, even at 2am while our road burned.

*The local member who posted constant updates and videos about what the fires were doing in our area for weeks on end and was an excellent source of information. I may have been a Greens voter all my life, but there is a National’s member who has earned my vote!

*My sister-in-laws friend taking in our chook and 8 of our ducks for a full month and caring for them, despite never even having met us before.

*Our neighbours across the road and next to us keeping an eye on our property in case there were spotfires while we were evacuated.

Grader driver putting in containment lines in our back paddock

 

Friends

*My friend Jordan driving over a hundred kilometres and spending 3 hours in 40 degree heat evacuating all goods from the Transformatorium shed into the main house (we thought that the firey’s might be able to save the house but would probably let the shed burn if they had to). Then in the hot sun helped me clean out gutters, that had never been cleaned before, of dead leaves and other flammable material.

*My boss and friend Toni from work storing my 3000+ Transformer action figure collection in her loungeroom for an entire month, despite it meaning she could hardly move in that part of the house.

*Our friends Lisa and Scott taking our pet goats for extended periods on two separate occasions and feeding and watering them every day despite the heat.

*Our new friends and neighbours down the road, Bill and Lynne, feeding the poultry we couldn’t evacuate, even though it meant a daily drive closer to the fire front.

*So many of our close friends messaging us with comforting words and emotional support, yet allowing us the space to breathe when we had to.

 

Family

*My brother-in-law Matt driving over a hundred kilometres with his chainsaw to cut down every tree within a 5m radius of our farmhouse, then staying the night so the next day he could seal breaks in our guttering so they could hold water in case of ember attack.

*My sister-in-law Jo storing so much of our personal belongings, taking our fish for several weeks, and making us Christmas dinner

*My mother-in-law Noelene putting us up for long periods – twice – while we were evacuated, looking after our dog and storing even more of our belongings (my wife’s family rules!).

*Our children, so young and yet so brave. Being evacuated twice, missing out on birthday parties, missing out on spending Christmas in their own home. That’s a lot for a 4 and 7 year old to cope with and they both took it in their stride.

*And more than anyone, my beautiful wife. By my side we spent so much of our summer trying to fireproof a farm that had never before been threatened by flames and was a tinderbox ready to ignite.

 

Ours is just one example of how families and entire communities came together to support each other during this horrible time for our state and indeed for our country. If ever there was evidence that the spirit of empathy and generosity is still well alive in this land, it’s been well and truly presented this summer.

 

So to all our friends, all our family, all the community and all the members of the RFS, on behalf of our family

Thank you!

 

Related Articles:

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Bushfire Danger: Packing your emergency bags

Fires SE Rylstone & Kandos

Meet & Greet at the Collectormania Fair

You know, it’s not all gravy being Big Angry Trev.  I know what perceptions that a lot of the public hold of me; that I eat imported lobsters off plates of gold, served up by nubile & busty fangirls who pay for the privilege of catering to the every whim of their idol.

But no, sometimes it’s damn hard work.  Especially when your online fandom want a real life public appearance.  On this site, of course I am known to you all as Big Angry Trev, purveyor of whimsy and wisdom.  Then to the Transformers community I am known as Big Transformer Trev, collector extraordinaire and Ozformer of the Year.  It’s an honor to be venerated by ones peers on the world wide web but sometimes you have to give a little something back.  You need to show up, shake a few babies, kiss a few hands and generally let people feel the warm glow of bathing in the light of your reflected glory.

 

To this end, I made a public appearance at the Collectormania Toy & Hobby Fair in Penrith.

 

It’s a bugger of a drive, I can tell ya that!  Espeically on a rainy Sunday morning.  The Blue Mountains seem to consist of constantly changing speed limits enforced by a plethora of speed cameras and cop cars just waiting for you to miss a single sign.  Combine that with half the time you are driving on the edge of a precipice and it does not make for a relaxing country jaunt.

When I finally reached my destination I was greeted at the door by Shannon, one of the main pillars of my Ozformer of the Year campaign and a stalwart supporter.  Like many celebrities I have let many of my basic social and survival skills whither so Shannon was to be my guide to the toy fair as well as a buffer between me and the general public.

Big enough to hold back the adoring hordes

Not long after entering I was quickly accosted by one of my long time fans Adam.  Adam has been a bit of a Fanboy of mine for 20 years, even back at the start when I was doing movies and television for a living.  Adam had his usual reaction to seeing me – a girlish squeal of delight and the development of a mild erection. Given the regularity I illicit these reactions from my fans I was able to still smile and give him a hug, albeit from the side rather than the front.

“Yes yes, I am your sexy god. I get that a lot”

Shannon then gave me the tour of the Fair.  This was my first toyfair and I found that they are significantly different to pop culture expos.  No cosplay for a start.  No huge displays either.  And there were very few women to be seen.  I think I saw less than a dozen the whole morning and those that I did see might as well have had ‘wife’ or ‘daughter’ stamped on their foreheads.

It was very hot in there too.  I had to lose my trademark black jacket after 20 minutes, lest I start to perspire and smell like a lot of my fellow fair attendees.  There was a definite essence in the air that suggested many of these guys were leaving their parents basements for the first time in a long while and bathing beforehand had no occurred to them.

It seemed like most of the stalls at the Fair stocked one of two things – either Pop! figures or Matchbox cars.  Neither are really my cup of tea but I was able to find at least one I liked.

And of course, courtesy of my trusty guide Shannon, I was able to locate Transformers.  I’ve never been a 3rd Party collector, considering how many official toys there are to collect, but I will say that a 3P Bruticus I came across was a thing of beauty to behold and it took a force of will to walk away.

However I was rewarded with some G2 goodness!  G2 Optimus AND G2 Megatron!  Shannon was even able to haggle me a better deal on the Optimus.  Given how much one pays online for toys like these, I was starting to see the Toy Fair’s appeal.

As Shannon showed me around I got to meet many of my fans from both the blogging world and the Transformers community.  I got to meet Cranky – who was surprisingly cheerful – and Carlo and Dallas who couldn’t wipe the smiles from their dials.  Also Hursty who has a Soundwave collection that surpasses even my own! Then came Brendan, the self-styled ‘Angel of Death’ who used his dark powers to lure me out to the carpark where… ehem… some shady deals were made (yes I lost LG43 Trypticon but I came home with some G1 goodies to replace him).

The Carlo Kid
Trev: “So whats your favorite thing about meeting me so far?”
Dallas: “Well, we met 2 seconds ago so I’d say ‘this moment right now'”
‘Shannon 2’ as my tour guide most unfairly referred to him.
Fan sandwich

Soon it was time for refreshment.  Meat and beer were highly sought after so I took a cadre of my more presentable fans and we ‘did lunch’.  When Dallas turned up with some dark beer it earned him a place of honor next to yours truly, much to the admiration and jealousy of his peers.

Liquid social lubricant

 

And that was it.  Quite the experience.  Again, this kind of thing is expected of one from time to time, but I will say that the lads I got to spend time with and the rare toys I walked away with made the trip well worth while.  I hope next time I have to do Big Angry TrevBlogger, or Big Transformer TrevOzformer of the Year appearances I get to meet such great guys again.

 

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