Tuesday, February 24, 2009

February Dragon*

It's been about four weeks since I last blogged, and the main reason it's taken so long has been the bushfires in Victoria. Our worst natural disaster, the current death toll is 210 people, and at least 7000 are homeless. Fires are still burning in Victoria weeks later. There are stories of great tragedy and great heroism as well as wonderful generosity which outweigh the stories that might make you despair of the human race. Being too far away to help out in a physical way, we've donated (over $100 million has been raised so far). Just about every school, business and group seem to be raising funds-I've never seen anything like it. There are also various initiatives in the craft/blog world to make handmade things for survivors as well as restash our crafting friends in Victoria. At the same time as the bushfires, around 60% of Queensland was under water. What a country we live in. We've had similar conditions to those in Victoria, but have been lucky so far to avoid any major fires. We've still had no rain (the odd shower) since the middle of December, so it's extremely dry here.

On to other things (briefly)-I've spent the last 4 weeks stitching on the model. It's mostly done-the magazine has it for photography for the next issue (it's being released in parts), and then it will be back to me for a few more days stitching. I'm planning on using the next few days to go through my WIPs (both stitching and knitting) and work out which ones I want to be working on in the near future. Maybe I'll even take some pictures.

To finish, here's a picture of our Easter Lily. This was planted in a garden bed that is basically dirt-no other plants (they had been moved) and consequently hasn't been watered (I think we forgot that there was anything else planted there). A couple of days ago I noticed a shoot, and it's now flowered. Ideal plant for there conditions, really.

* February Dragon is a novel by Sth Australian author Colin Thiele about a bushfire (aka the February Dragon)

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