It’s been mainly cold here with a bit of rain and a few very foggy days plus one morning of slight frost last week, but mostly a couple of degrees above freezing in the morning. We have had some sunny days and I have been working outside a bit more. I have had to repair the screen I built to block the view of the neighbours, the dirt piled up behind it was pushing the whole thing out and some of the sleepers were subsiding into the clay. I have built an inner wall using old sleepers and metal stakes, straightened and added cement around the support posts, and lifted up the outer sleepers that had subsided. It’s looking straight and level now and I am thinking of putting the gladiola bulbs down in the gap. The other project is digging out all of the daffodil bulbs from the front flower beds that have been allowed to multiply for 15 to 20 years. We bought 2 nice crepe myrtles to replace them, and I am dividing up some cordylines to border those areas. I may also move a couple more rose bushes to our patio garden area. I bought a couple of black currant bushes to put in somewhere, and we are going to get a couple of hazelnut trees from the local nursery. I still have not decided on a plan for the vegetable garden, for now the chickens have free range to the entire area. I am worried about the quality of the soil there, they used treated timber for the old garden beds, and I have found some of the wood used as stakes for those to have thick paint on them, which may or may not be lead. I may have to completely move the garden, get new dirt, and build the chickens another place just to be safe. We are still getting 2 eggs a day from them which is fun.
It was sad to see that the U.S. has gone over 603k dead from the virus and over 52k in Texas. It looks like a lot of people there are refusing it even as the new more infectious Delta variant is spreading. I was reading that more than 50% of Republicans are simply refusing to get vaccinated, but at least 70% of Democrats are already vaccinated with about 5% still hesitant about it. It sounds completely insane. They are still getting about 300 deaths a day there, 98% unvaccinated. Maybe that will solve the issue of all the new voter suppression laws enacted by Republicans.
Over here the outbreak in Victoria seems to have died down a bit, but now they have a new outbreak up in Sydney where a shuttle driver transporting international air crew got it, spread it to his wife, and so on. He wasn’t vaccinated and wasn’t getting the required daily testing. There may also be the start of another outbreak up north in Brisbane. No new fatalities in Australia, but here in Tasmania we are still cut off from those states for a while longer. To add to the mix, a woman in her 50’s died from a blood clot linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine, so now they are only recommending it for people over 60 for the first dose, but OK for the second dose if you have already had it. Now everyone wants the Pfizer vaccine which is in short supply. We were due our second dose of AstraZeneca in 6 weeks, but I managed to get it pushed up to July 15, only 3 weeks now!!! I also went ahead and got my flu shot last week, and Eva is thinking about getting hers as well. There still seems to be no real urgency in the vaccination campaign here, mostly bland public service type announcements. They are still not providing details of the numbers “fully” vaccinated, only the “total” number of vaccinations, because they think it looks better for them for politically, with a view to the next election. It’s very frustrating, poorly managed, and a complete shambles. We have only been spared because of our isolation from the rest of the world.
