Life in Barraba - January 2012

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The Highway Wanderers Chapter of the CMCA

Jan 2012

Another Barraba Artisans' and Farmers' Market

Sunday , 29th January 2012

Yesterday we had our second Barraba Artisans' and Farmers' Market this year. The weather was quite threatening because is was really raining before we had to set up at 8 o'clock. Because the weather forecast said that rain was quite probable, we set up under the awnings in Queen Street rather that in the Mall where everyone, the vendors and their stock and the customers would have got wet.

Because the weather was not good we had a smallish number of locals visit the market. I met 22 out of town visitors including several kids in strollers. These visitors were pleased with my words to them and were impressed with Barraba.

The vendors all got to sell a fair amount of their stuff but not all their stock. We were hoping to have our Barraba Community Inc boss, Dave Drummond who set up the market last year in February and was always our co-ordinator until he set up a business in Manilla and couldn't spare the time to come to Barraba. He had sent an message saying that he would come yesterday but that didn't happen.

I am now worried about my talking to Barraba people about all the things I am concerned about. Many people don't accept anything I say even though it is generally true facts. They treat me as a newbie and an engineer, thinking that what I believe is unacceptable. I have resolved to stop my efforts to convince them of the things I find important. I will probably stop making any presentations to any of my volunteer organisations.

Another Barraba Artisans' and Farmers' Market

Saturday , 14th January 2012

Today we had the first market this year, the seventeenth since the beginning in late February last year.

The weather was good in the morning so we didn't have any major problems. Sadly we only had a few vendors and my thought was that the others were probably away on holiday, some my fellow executives in Barraba are away on holiday.

Even though the market was quite small we had plenty of visitors, 16 of them were from out of town, the third largest number of out of town visitors in all of our markets. Everyone I spoke to was impressed with what we are doing in promoting Barraba.

Another major problem

Friday , 13th January 2012

Wednesday night was marked by a great disaster in our back neighbours back yard.

The first contact was a horrible sound, lots of crackling and lots of roar, which sounded like some machine was on fire.

When we went to look we saw a hugh fire behind our bamboo trees at the back of our back paddock. The flames were terrific, about 3 metres wide and 5 metres high, very frightening. I rang for the fire brigade which took a few minutes to get here by which time the fire had died down somewhat.

Yesterday I talked to the captain of our fire brigade. I told him that I had rung for them because I thought the fire was caused by flammable liquid. He told me that it was bamboo which always burns like that. He said that he had told the guy that he shouldn't have set fire to the stuff . I thanked him for telling me what had happened and I said I assumed that the firemen had confirmed that any threat had gone away and he nodded..

Today I went into the back paddock to check what had happened. There was lots of burnt bamboo the other side of the fence but our bamboo had been somewhat affected by the fire though it was mostly still alive. I had to cut off lots of pieces of the bamboo because they were in the way of the next door neighbours horses when they were entering our back paddock. The horses were happy to see me doing that for them.. I was upset because the neighbour had caused some damage to stuff on our property. I realise that my calling the fire brigade was very reasonable.

I spent quite some time doing that work and wasn't able to go out again and mow the tall grass left in the back lawn because I was very tired, I needed a shower and a lot of rest.

Xmas messages

Wednesday , 11th January 2012

We have received a great number of wonderful xmas messages from our friends, many of whom are overseas and known by us over 50 years ago. Lots of the messages were replies to the xmas cards and emails we had sent to them.

The most unhappy message told us of a death in late March 2011 in a road crash caused by someone hitting our friend's car which was going on the correct side of the road. Our friend Ann died instantaneously and her husband, out friend Peter, was badly injured and had to be flown to a hospital and spend several months there. He is still affected by the injuries but he is recovering somewhat. Peter was pleased to get our news letter and asked another of our old friends for our email address so that he could send us the message. I replied with deep condolences, sympathy, and best wishes.

Another message from some Australian grey nomad friends was unhappy because it told us that their son was still having to get new kidney transplants.

The Tall weed Problem has not yet been solved

Tuesday , 10th January 2012

The problem I reported on 20th December has not yet been solved

The ride on mower has not yet been fixed so I only have a pushed motor mower which is keeping the front lawn and the nearest half of the back lawn properly mowed. This work causes me some considerable trouble because the weather is quite hot and sunny and I have to do some very energetic work for over an hour.

After that work I have to take a shower and rest while my pulse rate comes down from somewhat over 100 beats per minute to 60 beats per minute in about half an hour of rest.

I yet can't mow the back half of the back lawn because it needs the ride on mower because it has grown very tall and the pushed motor mower has much trouble when it has to cut very tall grass.

I have been offered a ride on mower to borrow by a good friend of ours so I might be able to get that task done soon.

The brush cutter did work for a job when I trimmed off about half the tall weeds on the north side of the back lawn.The whipper shipper line was all used up and I could't reload it easily. I tried to replace the whipper snipper head with the brush cutter blade but I couldn't get the change over done so I have to reload the whipper snipper line if I am going to finish the tall weed trimming.