How to collect firewood

Yesterday the Bureau of Meteorology forecast 40% chance of a shower with 1-4 mm.  In fact what happened was about 3 hours of quite solid rain, totalling 20.8mm.

It didn't seem too savage however and there was little evidence of run off when we walked round the top paddock this morning.  So I was a bit surprised to see a very large log below our creek crossing when we went further down the drive.

 Then Frances squeaked as she had looked at the other side of the crossing.  Hooley, and also Dooley!

When I started to clean this out a few hours later it seemed that this log was pretty much filling up the old culvert.

It was quite obvious that even if I could saw this up it was going to be very difficult to lift it out.  So the Pajero was called in.  Using the ropes I recycled from the Captains Flat tip in the Good Old Days and sticking the car in 4WD I soon popped it out.

Here are a couple of snaps of man at work.

 Note the depth of water relative to the gumboots.

As I delved further into the heap another big log appeared.  Pajero to the rescue again, with the assistance of Frances as spotter.  The chainsaw provides a scale.

 Here is the first part of the heap of firewood.

I finished my impersonation of Paul Bunyan on the 14th of March.  In total I removed 4 trailer loads of firewood.  There is still a large vegetative mess evident which I will deal with as the opportunity arises.

In later discussions with a neighbour it emerged that not all the wood stayed with us.  Quite a lot went over the crossing and continued on downstream, taking out flood gates as it went!  Others have given their rainfall readings which makes an interesting pattern, especially the 50mm further up the Whiskers Creek catchment.

Overall the falls seem very patchy!