Trailer trash

Well this weekend I decided that I should finally get around to doing that trailer that you may remember from the early posts on this blog. I went out late Friday afternoon to get some steel box section and some mesh for the sides. I'd decided that I was going to make a high sided one with mesh on the upper sides to contain the piling up of cut twigs and branches from our land. I've seen this kind of trailer on the roads and, like Ute's they're quite common. However, when I actually got down to it, I decided that it was almost sacrilegious to attach brand new steel to such old and rusty stuff, especially since it was quite a lightweight build in the first place. So I scrapped all the metal off it, and I've used the axle and the tow hook, and that's it! Now I have a very substantial frame built, but I've run out of steel to finish it. I'll post up pics when I've got near to finishing it.
Sadly, although I blathered my arms with factor 30, I still got weld burn on them. Quite red and sore they are.... Probably a combination of the sun, which was out all day, and the weld arc. I really enjoyed it though...

Now the more observant may notice that there is only one post here, as opposed to the normal 7. This is because I wanted to draw your attention to the list of links that you'll find below. Some of these are old faves, and some are just quite interesting. I'll add more with time...but for now, if you HAVE time, you might like to take a look.

Mid day stop press...

Daile woke up on Monday morning and told me that this week I'd get a job. She was right. I was offered a Project management job just now (Friday) with the company I mentioned 'Moreton Hire' until a 'better' opportunity comes up, which they say will reveal itself early next year. In the meantime, I'm to shadow the other project managers, and find ways to improve the work that they're doing, from the inside as it were. The job that's due to come on stream next year is a new company that is being developed by the entrepreneurial owner of the company. He has several other successful companies already, so it sounds promising. Apparently the reason for the vagueness is that they don't quite know the shape of the role yet. I expect that it depends on how I do in the first role...so its sleeves up time!

The other really good thing that happened today (so far) (its only 2pm) is that Phoebe has got into the Kindergarten that Daile really wanted her to get into but which we were told there was a 2 year waiting list for. Obviously they liked Daile, since they found her a space.

Good eh??

'Nice bit of dirt' (as they say in Oz)

Today I went up to Boxer Ave, as I did yesterday and the day before. I've only managed to average fairly short hours each time, because I've usually had something else to do before or afterwards. I'm firmly of the opinion that we've bought well here. When you're on the site, listening to the cacophony of bird song, its truly magical. I'm finding it to be a tonic to work there. What I've been doing is clearing the site of all the fallen timber that was cut down as some kind of marketing exercise in order for the punter to be able to envisage what the site could look like with a house on it. Its sad that so many had to be cut to achieve this, especially as they claim to be so tree friendly.





Within all this fallen timber there is, as you might expect a fair amount of insect life, and you will by now have realised that I find them really interesting. The idea that some of these critters are likely to be very painful or even lethal is partly scary and partly fascinating. Not that I'm taking any risks... I'm just very keen to find out about this stuff, call it self preservation I guess.
The other day, when Daile, Phoebe and I were up at the site, Daile pulled a bit of bark off a big log, and under it was a scorpion. She had not been wearing gloves, so the discovery was the more worrying. The girls are advised about the dangers, but they don't seem to be all that worried, which is scary too.

Today I had 3 interesting encounters. The first was a really fierce looking hornet that was hovering around the outside table, and which I decided to remove. Here it is around Phoebe's leg...



Given the size of it, (it was big, or perhaps it just felt big because of its fierce colour) I was a bit worried about the sting. When I caught it with a tennis racket, It was madly trying to sting something, and its sting must have been a good 3 or 4 mm long. OUCH! It also had quite terrifying looking jaws. I put it into a jar, where it carked it in about 10 mins. As it shuffled off its mortal coil, it thrust out the sting in one last defiant effort to hurt something. The photo that shows it with the sting out was at the moment that it stopped moving.





While I was at the site later, I was just sharpening and setting the teeth of the chain saw, when I heard a noise behind me and when I turned slightly ... there looking at me was a Kangaroo. I just carried on sharpening, and sneaking looks through my legs and out of the corner of my eyes. She (for the sake of argument since I didn't see anything hanging down...as they do with Kangas...) seemed to relax. She appeared to have noticed me at the same time that I'd noticed her. I slowly made my way over to my bag, but by the time I'd got out the camera, she was moving away.



Later, whist I was in amongst the timber with the saw, a little critter came scurrying down the trunk of the tree that I was chopping up to 'fend me off'. It lept over the slot that the chain saw was in, missing the blade by a couple of millimeters only. I switched off the saw and took these. It was a mantis. Only it LOOKED more like an ant. I prodded it with a stick and it reared up! Apparently not dangerous to humans so it says on the net... http://www.geocities.com/brisbane_hoppers/BoxerBarkMantid.htm





So far, everything that I've come across at the site scurries away when disturbed, with the exception of this one, so it was a relief to know that its not dangerous, though it might hurt a bit I'd guess.



I had a successful interview yesterday, in as far as they seemed to like me and take me seriously. No job from them yet, but they are checking out the other companies in the group, so hopefully they may find me some slot to get going with. If you're interested they are called Moreton hire, and their web address is www.moreton.net.au - this is one of their 'tents'.



Finally, here's some pics of a little walk we did with the girls on Sunday to show them what a subtropical rain forest is like. This was just a little (1km ) walk that goes to a little fall and back. It was enough cos it was raining and they were not properly kitted out for that. Some of the trees are truly spectacular, and the roots are complex and spooky looking.







This pic is of a tree that has been got by a strangler vine,





and this is one that has had the vine removed...leaving deep tracts of damage.



Good though eh? When they're bigger we'll do some serious walking in this. Its a spiritual experience.

Seeing things?

OK I'm taking a bit of a risk here...but I've come across these pictures of animals. I'm stretching a point really but do you reckon that this looks like Nick's 'Photo face'? You know the expression he always pulls just before you press the shutter...?



And there's something about this mouse that reminds me of Joe...can you see it too? Not the fact that its a mouse or anything like that, but just 'something' about the expression. Probably a memory from when I used to pick on him as a kid....



Ha ha...sorry lads. It was just a moment I had.....
(Any similarity between actors and real life is purely by chance and you can't sue me...or take offence)

Gill? Ha ha... Could use some trendy specs really....



Me? Not for the skinniness, just for the inclination of the head?



Got any better ones? Send them to me and I'll put them in.

Here's another funny thing I saw today from a local school....

Duality versus Monism

This week has been one of thought and frustration for me. Thought about what I can do to make a living here, and frustration at the difficulties that I'm facing. I wish that I had a speciality of some kind, and that I could capitalise on it. The nuts and bolts of the problem for me is that I'm a generalist, and I've done fine out of being one for my whole career. The jobs that are advertised on the mainstream recruitment web sites are all, well er....mainstream! I'm realising that I've got to carve out my own job somewhere, because the systems that 'human resource' [sic] departments use to filter applicants don't have the subtlety to see generalists as anything other than 'unsuitable'.

Part of me wants to just get a job...any job really. Another part of me realises that at 47, I'm not going to get too many more chances to change direction and that whatever I land on, is going to probably be a significant factor in my future. Our societies are driven by commerce and the pursuit of profit... and its not pretty. I'm tired of the profit motive and the holy grail of 'efficiency'. I'm tired of TV and advertising. I'm bored with the trappings of this 'life' and material things, and yet I'm unable to get away from the obligation to be a part of it. Ideally, it would be great to have a job that one could feel was in some core way a contribution to a sustainable future for our kids, rather than a continual closure of mind to the growing environmental imperative. But environmental jobs are few and far between, you have to have a doctorate in rocket science and be prepared to work for air and a wet down. Think I'm kidding? Check out this advert...one of many that I've seen recently:
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Environment Management Officer

• Passionate to ensure environment protection standards are maintained
• Problem solver?
• Effective communicator?

Working initially as part of the City Standards team, you will contribute to the environmental management of the City particularly with respect to vegetation and waterways compliance. You will also be integral to the auditing of development permit conditions requiring protection of the environment.

You will hold tertiary qualifications in the field of Environmental Management, Environmental Engineering or Environmental Studies and have experience in environmental management, solving complex issues and communicating with a wide range of people. Well developed research, analytical, organisational and project management skills are also required.

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I forgive you right now for thinking that the job is a high payer...you'd expect that it would pull some serious hitters wouldn't you? I mean 'well developed research, analytical, organisational and project management skills are also REQUIRED.!! Not 'desirable' note...but 'REQUIRED'. Go have a guess. £65k? No? Got to be at least £40k...even though its a government post....? Na...think again. This demanding post is worth precisely $44k (dollars). That's £19,246.90 thank you very much. The same skills in the commercial environment would be worth more like $75 to $95k. Still not masses, but realistic perhaps. Its not easy to make a living, but was it ever?

So, I'm seriously considering sales. The thing about sales is that you can do it off your own bat and the company that you're selling for doesn't have to take too big a risk on you because they're paying you a low base salary only, and the rest is commission. I HATE the idea of sales 'per se', partially because I think that marketeers are the spawn of the devil (sorry Bill) and the whole mess that we're in globally is largely a result of marketeers and salespeople persuading the gullible public that they need things that they really don't. I'd probably do 'OK' at it, and I'd give it my best shot, but what worries me is that I'd wake up each morning hating it a little more than i did the day before, and if I were actually able to make some decent money at it, then I'd feel torn up inside about not being able to let go of it. Does any of that make sense?

Consider this by Wendell Berry, an essayist, social critic and farmer, who finds sufficiency in the discipline of work. His immediate context is agriculture not the production of crops as much as the husbandry of the land.

"The model figure of this agriculture...." Berry writes,

“….is an old man planting a young tree that will live longer than a man, that he himself may not live to see in its first bearing. And he is planting, moreover, a tree whose worth lies beyond an conceivable market prediction. He is planting it because the good sense for doing so has been clear to men of his place and kind over generations. The practice has been continued because it is ecologically and agriculturally sound; the economic soundness of it must be assumed. While the planting of a field crop, then, may be looked upon as a ‘short-term investment’, the planting of a chestnut tree is a covenant of faith.

Nearly all old standards, which implied and required rigorous disciplines, have now been replaced by a new standard of efficiency which requires….a relentless subjection of means to immediate ends…instead of asking a man what he can do well, it asks him what he can do fast and cheap. Instead of asking a farmer to practice the best husbandry, to be a good steward and trustee of the land and his art, it puts irresistible pressures on him to produce more and more food and fibre more and more cheaply, thereby destroying the health of the land, the best traditions of husbandry and the farm population itself.”

Wendell Berry - 'The logic of sustainability'


This is where I am in my heart. I'm not afraid of hard work, just of destructive work. I'm worried about all our children's future. I'd like to do something positive, but I can't find an outlet without relative privation, and that's hard to do when others don't agree with me, or feel so certain of the future outcome of non action. Aaagh, what to do? Sell out a bit more...just a little more? No doubt I AM a romantic about this, but I cannot afford to be a romantic 'poseur' as one of my favourite authors Thoreau has been called.