Tree Care

A year and a bit on from planting the new flowering gum and it is not doing very well.  It seems mostly healthy, but it has not grown as much as expected.  In summer I had a look at the soil, and it was very compacted and dry, with no organic content.  So over the last day or two I made some changes.
1. I pulled back the weed mat and removed all the kikuyu grass stems criss-crossing under the weed mat.
2. I dug out a small amount of soil and replaced it with compost.
3. I mixed in the compost a bit, keeping to the surface area ( I didn't want to damage the tree roots).
4. I added some rock dust around the sides of the tree.
5. I put the weed mat back down, and covered it with a fresh layer of mulch.
6. I watered the tree and surrounding plants with seasol.

Now to wait and see if this has helped.

New Tree

Just before Christmas last year, my neighbors at the back (in a new townhouse built on a subdivided block), asked me to remove a tree that had large branches over the fence. They also asked me to remove a large silky oak tree, because it dropped leaves on their deck. While I could see their point on the tree with the branches over the fence, the silky oak had been there a lot longer than their new house, or their deck, so I wasn't planning on doing anything about it.

Sadly, when the arborist came to deal with the tree with the spreading branches, he told me the silky oak tree was bifurcated (starting to split down the middle) and would soon become dangerous. A second silky oak was also becoming dangerous because the water board had cut through the roots near the trunk in order to access the sewer ( the tree was planted in a sewer easement, to they had the right, but I am a bit cross they didn't tell me what they had done). Both silky oaks were about 15 meters tall, so could cause a lot of damage if they fell over.

He also told me that one of the Alders was dead and needed to be removed.

So I suddenly went from 5 large trees along the back fence line to only 1 :(

Here is a picture of three of the trees. Only the tree in the middle still remains. The trees on either side were the 15 meter silky oaks.

And here is the pile of mulch that is all that remains of the silky oaks ):

I wanted to plant at least one new tree straight away, to make the garden a bit less barren. My parents, lovely people that they are, gave me a flowering gum sapling for Christmas, and Dad even came over and planted it for me! Given that this required digging out a quantity of heavy clay soil and filling the hole with bought in soil, this was a lot of work. The new tree is planted well inside the fence line, and should only grow to 5 meters, so it is unlikely to cause a repeat of the problem with the previous trees.

So I now have a new raised garden bed, with a flowering gum.

Here is a picture of the gum, and a picture of the first flower it put out for me:

I have a bit of work to do, putting in new plants to fill out the garden, but I want to take my time for the rest, and think about what I want.

Pistol shooting

The weekend before last a friend of mine organised a group of us to go pistol shooting, at a local shooting club. It was fascinating and a lot of fun!

First off we were given a safety briefing, and an explanation of sighting. Most important rule, only ever point the gun down range (towards the targets) even if you are sure it is empty!

The first session was using air pistols. The shooting range was pretty fancy, with automatic targets that you could send down a wire and call back just by pushing a button. The range was built in part for the commonwealth games a few years ago. I can't say I demonstrated much accuracy with the air pistol, but at least I put holes somewhere in the target with most shots :)

For the next session we moved to a different range, and were using .22 revolvers. We were shown how to load and unload the revolvers and then allowed to try shooting towards targets. The targets were set to 10 meters instead of the usual 20, to give us a chance of hitting them.

This was a bit different to the air pistols as the revolvers were heavier, and had a noticeable recoil when the trigger was pulled. Also, we had to wear hearing protection, and the smell of gunpowder was quite strong.

Towards the end of the session one of the instructors noticed that I was not gripping the gun quite right, which is why my aim was so bad.

The next session was using .38 revolvers. With my grip corrected, I actually did much better with these than with the previous, lighter guns. The recoil was a bit stronger again, but nothing too alarming.

Finally, we were given a chance to take turns using a gun belonging to one of the members, a glock semi-automatic pistol. The recoil from this one was much stronger than from any of the previous guns. At the end a gun club member showed us an example of shooting this with rapid-fire and the strength and skill needed to rapid fire one of these was something we were all now able to appreciate!

The final round of .38 revolver shooting was scored, and I came about middle of the pack for accuracy.

All in all it was a lot of fun. I can easily see why target shooting is a sport many people enjoy, although why anyone would want to shoot a gun at living things for fun remains a mystery to me.

Garage

Over the last couple of months I have finally had a garage installed. It is a colorbond garage, with portal structure.

To protect the brand new concrete floor, I decided to paint it with paving paint. Because the concrete was so new, the first step was to etch it, which I did with White Knight Concrete etching solution. Ironically, this turned out to be much more work than the painting!

The first step in etching concrete is to mix up the solution, then pour it on a small section of floor, using a stiff bristled broom to work the solution in. Then use a high pressure sprayer to rinse the solution off. Move to the next section of floor and repeat. One thing I did discover is that after the floor had dried, I needed to go back over it with the broom and then re-rinse with the high pressure sprayer, sweeping residue out repeatedly.

Finally, after waiting a couple of days for the concrete to dry, I painted it, using a decking mop to apply the paint. I also added non-slip pellets to the final coat.

Sinus Infections and treatments

If you do not want to read about respiratory infections and sinuses, do not read this post. Don't say I didn't warn you!

For the last few months I have had the worst run I can remember with respiratory infections. From April through to the end of August, I have been lucky to have a couple of days in a row where my sinuses or chest have not been infected with some variety of virus or bacteria. The constant fevers, difficulty breathing, and severe cough have been very debilitating.

I have been asking my doctor for the last couple of months what is going on. Up until a couple of weeks ago he kept insisting that this is just a really bad cold/flu season (which it does seem to be). A couple of weeks ago he came to the same conclusion that I had, that the number of infections I was getting was too many to be explained by a bad season. So he gave me a referral for a CT scan of my sinuses.

While I was waiting for the results of the CT scan, I had a chat to my sister, where I mentioned my ongoing sinus problems. She had had the same issue a few years ago, and in her case CT scans etc. had showed nothing. She recommended that I try daily Nasal Irrigation, which she had found very helpful.

I had tried Nasal Irrigation a couple of times when I was coming down with a cold, but not as a regular practice. After researching the options a bit more online, it seemed worth a try. My sister had assured me that the expensive sachets that came with the nasal irrigation kit were not necessary, and that common iodised table salt worked just as well. Armed with this information, I started a daily regime of sinus cleansing.

The first few days, the saline solution was quite uncomfortable, and the process took a long time. I soon worked out that I needed to hold my head at just the right angle to get the saline solution flowing through. After a couple of days the discomfort subsided, and I started to notice an improvement in my breathing.

By this time the results of the CT scan were back, and I went to see my doctor again. He told me that there were signs that the opening from the one of the left hand sinus cavities to my nose was partially blocked by inflammation. This would explain the constant infections, as the sinus was unable to drain properly. He gave me a prescription for a steriod spray, to try to settle the inflammation, and confirmed that the nasal irrigation would be helpful, and that I should continue with it once a day. He said that if this was not sufficient to resolve the problem, then the next step would be surgery, to widen the opening from the sinus to the nose. Hopefully the surgery won't be needed, but it is good to know that there is a fallback option.

I have now been on this regime (nasal spray and nasal irrigation) for a week, and so far, so good. I haven't started any more sinus infections, and my cough has started to subside. I am not fully recovered, but I am on the improve. From what my doctor has told me, it could take months to get back to full health, but at least now I am moving in the right direction!

Changes

The last month or so have been full of change, good and bad.

First up, my hail damaged car was written off by the insurance company. Fortunately I was able to replace it very quickly with a younger and nicer car, so while I am a bit out of pocket on the changeover, all in all it worked out well.

Then the project I was working on was suspended, so I was abruptly out of a job. I have been thinking for a while about travelling to the UK, and had shelved my plans until the end of the year because work was so busy. Suddenly that wasn't an issue any more, so I decided that this was a golden opportunity to make the trip. I have blogged about the trip itself in a separate blog:

vctouk.blogspot.com.

The final change is that my sister has had her baby, which makes me an aunt. Definitely a good change there! :)

Storm

Yesterday afternoon we had a major storm, complete with large, damaging hail.Here are a couple of pics of the aftermath.


I had friends around at the time of the storm, so I didn't really get much chance to assess the damage until this morning. The only real casualties were the rear window of my car, and the polycarbonate roofing between the house and the sleepout at the back of the house.

Initially I was going to leave the car window as is, with just a tarp over it, until a repairer could reach me. But due to the scale of the storm, it seems that that might take several days. In the mean time, more heavy rain is forecast. I wasn't confident that the tarp would keep the car watertight, so I removed the broken window, and taped a plastic dropsheet over the hole, then put the tarp back over the lot.


My insurance company is flooded with calls, so it may be a day or two until I can reach them. Not much more I can do now.