Visitors

My brother and sister-in-law made it over to Tasmania from Victoria, no lockdowns or border closures. They had paid for some cheap flights a while back and there was some concern whether they would be able to even use them. Her sister and brother-in-law also came and they shared expenses on accommodation plus a very expensive vehicle rental. Rental cars are still in very short supply here. We met up with them in Launceston and they came out to see our place here in Legana, I suspect they may have been a little envious, but that’s just me thinking about how good we have it here. They did a bit of a tour round Tasmania, visited my brother in Hobart and a few of their friends and relatives, then flew back to Victoria. They may come back later in the year on the ferry, with their own vehicle. It was good to see them, it’s been almost 16 months.
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Things here in Legana have been nice, no rain but we have had a a couple of cloudy days to break up the unbroken streak of sunshine. Fog this morning, but it’s already burning off. We could get actual rain on Saturday so I may have to fire up the mower and give the back paddock the once over. I am still using tank water on the vegetable garden and to water the trees and shrubs I put in, but it’s getting a bit low now. All we have left in the garden now are a couple of zucchini that are playing out, tomatoes, and various peppers. I have just about finished feeding the old carrots to the wallabies, and the new ones are maybe 8″ tall now. I planted a short row and made sure to properly thin them out this time. The plan is still to either reduce the garden by half, or maybe get some of those corrugated iron raised beds for the patio area, or maybe turn the garden into a chicken run. We think we could also fit a small glass house on the patio, and with the raised beds that’s all we would need for the two of us.

One of the cats hurt his leg roughhousing around at night, stretched the tendon which became inflamed. Then he stopped peeing and his bladder became so swollen they had to use a catheter to release it or he would have died. Chocco is now our most expensive cat if you take into account the vet bills. He is feeling more like himself now, but was leaking urine everywhere for a few days. Today he seems a bit better, we haven’t noticed any wet spots on the pee pads or towels so maybe we won’t have to lock him in the room downstairs at night much longer. The worry is he will jump up on the bed and leak like he did the first time. We had to quickly change the sheets that time. We will just keep an eye on him for a bit longer till we are convinced he is over it. The other one, Latte, was wondering what was going on and even hissed at his brother when we brought him back from the vet, but they seem to be friends again now.

Australia got it’s first shipment of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine last week, but a second shipment was blocked by Italy, some kind of contract and supply dispute with the company. Anyway, our first locally produced doses will be out on March 22 and probably a million doses a week after that, so it’s not an issue. They are using the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine on hospital staff here in Tasmania today, as well as more people in aged care. I think we already used up all the Pfizer vaccine we had. For us it will probably be late March to early April before we get our shots and after that we should be good.