While my son and I are no strangers to YouTube and toy reviews, my daughter – not being Transformers-inclined – had yet to make the jump.
Well all that changed this weekend when Acacia presented a fun and facinating chat about the character Stitch from Lilo & Stitch. She informed viewers all about the character and the franchise as well as presenting some of her favorite figures!
Here in NSW we are facing an unprecedented level ofBushfire danger. ATotal Fire Banhas been instituted for the entire state, aState of Emergencyhas been declared and some parts of the state have a danger rating of‘catastrophic’– a rating that has never needed to be used before!
Living on a fairly remote farm that backs onto a huge state forest, our family has been very concerned. So much so that we have instituted our ownemergency fire planshould worst come to worst.
There are plenty of official sites that can guide you through how to come up with your own emergency plans, and I heartily encourage every reader to visit the sites relevant to their state as well as download the relevant apps. What I’m going to share here is some of theevacuationprecautions I and my family have taken, in the hopes it may provide you with someideas of your own. In particular – ouremergency bags.
We have several emergency bags packed. The whole idea of these is that they are pre-made and ready to go, saving valuable minutes if you need to get out fast. Our emergency bags are packed with such items that can stay in them forever –notitems that we will have to remove a few days later because we need them. Hopefully these bags will hang on hooks for the rest of their lives unused, but better safe than sorry.
Clothing for the day
Despite the heat,long clothingisessential. Should you end up in an area with sparks flying through the air, you don’t want those sparks touching your bare skin. So long sleeved tops and long pants are the order of the day and they should be natural fibres like cotton, not synthetics that have the potential to melt onto your skin.
Leather bootsare also the most preferable footwear to have. In our case my wife and I own heavy duty leather boots but our children don’t, so we would put them in their most suitable footwear and carry them if required.
We have a bag packed specifically with clothing to change into at a moment’s notice. Again, every minute you can save counts.
EvacClothing Bag
Chances are you might not be able to return to your home for a couple of days until the fire has passed. So you will need a few changes of clothes, but taking into account you should notover packas space in your vehicle will be at a premium.
For each member of our family we packed the following:
*2 T-shirts
*1 Jumper
*1 pair of Long Pants
*1 pair of Shorts
*2 pairs of Socks
*2 pairs of Underwear
*1 pair of Pyjamas
EquipmentBag
There will be specificequipmentthat you may need when fleeing from a bushfire. All this should be kept together and easy to access if needed.
In ours we have:
*One torch with fresh battery
*One small fire blanket
*One first aid kit
*One tube of burn cream
*One pack of face masks
*One pair of fire resistant gloves
*One battery powered radio
Pet Bag
If you have pets you naturally are going to want to take them with you. In our case because we have two pet goats this would entail hooking up the trailer. But for most people your pets may consist of a dog and cat (which we also have). So when packing make sure you have enough pet food for a couple of days and leads for every animal – you don’t want to escape the fire just for your cat to run away or your dog to go hungry. A dish to put water in is also advisable.
Food & Water
Chances are wherever you evacuate to will have food and water available. But again that motto – better safe than sorry. Have a bag packed full of food that does not need to be refrigerated and can keep you all going for a day or two. Pre-packaged food likemueslibarsand biscuitswill serve you well, as well as bags of nuts. Also tinned food such as ham, salmon, tuna and so on. Take as much water as you can reasonably fit. Because we would be taking autewe can afford to take a 25 litre container in the back.
MiscItems
These are items that you don’t need to survive but will be incredibly hard to replace should you lose your home. This includes forms such as birth certificates and passports, as well as more personal items such as jewellery and family photos. What you pack in this bag is up to you, but one of the bags you may need to give the most thought too. Also, because these are items that youcan’tstore in anevackit permanently, make sure you know the location of these items in your house so they can be collected up quickly.
So these are just a few different suggestions for what to take if you need to evacuate and a possible way to have them prepared. Again, I encourage everyone to check out the official sites in order to get even more guidance and information about the best way to go about this, but hopefully this blog willgive you a good starting point on advisable things to pack.
Got any other tips on what to pack in case of Bushfire? Pop it in the comments section below.
Ah the classic Scarecrow, truly a mainstay of peoples vegetable patches over the years. Scarer of birds and amuser of children. In the Wizard of Oz it was someone desperately in need of a Higher Education degree, in Worzel Gummidge’s case it was an inanimate pile of straw turned sentient being who was constantly trying to get his end away with a store manikin. The Scarecrow is a bit of fun that adds some colour to your vege patch but as most folks know it is generally highly ineffective at actually scaring birds. However today I am going to teach you Big Angry Trev’s secret to building a Scarecrow that actually works! And the good news is, it’s actually easier to make than the classic one!
I’m the slightly skinnier one
You will need the following materials:
One 1.8m x 15cm x 3cm board
One 1.5m x 15cm x 3cm board
One 40cm x 5cm x 3cm board
One 2 meter metal stake
4 wood screws
One potplant pot, bright for preference
One pile of plastic wrapping
One pair of pants with elastic waistband, synthetic and red for preference
One adult males top, synthetic and red for preference
One pair of gloves
One cap, red for preference
Bailing twine
Tools
One drill
One permanent marker
One sledgehammer
Now a lot of these material choices may seem weird to your classic Scarecrow constructor, but I will explain my reasoning for these choices at the end.
Step One:
Pop the 1.5m board through the tops sleeves. So that it sticks out either end evenly. Put the 1.8m board through the top so that at least 40cm of it pokes out the neck hole. Screw the two pieces together.
Step Two:
Put the gloves on, going over the cuffs of the sleeves and ends of the wood. Tie in place with bailing twine.
Step Three:
Strech the pants over the piece of wood, the wood should be long enough that when you stretch the elastic waist band over it that the band snaps back over it and holds it in place. Screw the short piece of word about 2 inches above where the clothing top ends, through the pants at the back which will help hold them up.
Step Four:
Take your pot and draw a face on it (you can go for scary but this really won’t make much difference to the birds and may scare your kids so I go for friendly). Pop a hat on the top. Stick on the top of your Scarecrow and take a bunch of plastic wrapping or old plastic bags and stuff inside to help secure in place.
To size your pot, simply use the bonce of any passing child as a measuring guide The term ‘Villawood’ should scare away both birds and anyone with a sense of morals
Step Five:
Hammer your metal stake in. Tie your scarecrow in at least two different points to the stake using bailing twine.
Ta-da! You have yourself a Scarecrow!
Nothing scares birds more than a fat guy wearing fashions from 2002
Why Big Angry Trev’s Scarecrow is more effective than the classic design
*The Clothing is Polyester instead of Cotton: It will hold moisture less and be more resistant to the elements, therefore less inclined to rot or weigh down you Scarecrow so it falls over due to water logging.
*The head is Plastic: No rot at all compared to a stocking filled with straw
*No Straw – Point 1: Everyone insists that you stuff the body and limbs with straw in order to fatten your scarecrow. No matter what people say, straw will eventually rot. This will cause your scarecrow to literally come apart at the seams quicker.
No Straw – Point 2: By not stuffing your Scarecrow with straw, it means that the clothing will flutter in the wind. This means movement and movement is far more likely to disturb encroaching birds than a completely stationary effigy.
Bright Colours: Some people actually say birds are colour blind. Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact humans are practically colour blind compared to birds, in the same way our sense of smell cannot compare to that of a dogs. Birds have evolved to recognize that the red of certain flowers and fruit is OK, but for the most part they stay away from red because in nature red more often than not means DANGER! Your traditional Scarecrow is made up of browns and yellows natural and non-threatening colours. By making it have a lot of red, it will have a much greater likelyhood of scaring off these feathered fiends from your hand-grown, home grown veggies.
Boards instead of Broomsticks: Who the frag keeps breaking off the ends of their broomsticks so that they have spares just lying around? Who sweeps that hard? By using boards and wood screws rather than broomsticks and twine your Scarecrow will have far better structural integrity.
So will this Scarecrow actually keep birds off your veggies and away from your fruit tree’s? Debatable. I know my chooks give it a wide berth but then they aren’t terrified of it either. If birds are a massive problem then netting or, going to the extreme, a timed scare gun will be more effective. But those options are either loud or expensive or both. Scarecrow’s add a bit of kitchy charm to your veggie patch and they are great fun to build with your kids so considering the relative inexpensiveness and simplicity of their construction they can be forgiven for not inciting mass terror amongst birds. However this Scarecrow has a better fighting chance than most, and I’ve not seen a crow after my silverbeet after popping my rotund fellow up.
