Getting ready for summer -it is going to be hot and dry

It didn't take long for the winter rains to dry up here in Perth. Far too early, for me, the forecasts began to be for weeks of no rain, and in this Mediterannean climate that could go on until March. 

The sandy soil dries out quickly unless mulched and shaded.

What is even more concerning are the reports and predictions that this summer will be hotter than ever, and the sea temperatures hotter also.  The toll on our environment is going to be a major concern.  

Click here for the BOM prediction of hotter, drier weather in Perth  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-01/el-nino-weather-pattern-in-wa/103032024

 

About two years ago, Perth and the South West had one of those 'heat bubble' type of weather patterns. The accustomed afternoon sea breezes never arrived. The houses got hotter and hotter and had no time to cool down before the next hot day arrived. It was just after Christmas and went on for about 10 days. 

All the passive cooling strategies we had set up around here, all the shade sails and grapevine pergolas, all the ceiling fans were suddenly not enough.

It was hard to sleep.

Plants died in the heat. Trees were stressed.

We went to the shops to see what we could add to the house to help cool us down. They were selling out of anything which might cool people down - fans, portable air conditioners, the lot. The sales staff confessed the warehouses were empty and that even if you could buy something more permanent like an evaporative air conditioner, there were no installers free to put them in. One guy said his own flat was too hot to sleep in. 

In the end we got a house wide evaporative air conditioning system installed in March of that year, and we LOVE it. In our dry climate it works really well, is very cheap to run and if there is any run off I was able to put in on the garden via a low-pressure sprinkler. 

There are times, however, when we know this system won't be enough. If there is a lot of smoke due to bushfires, or if the humidity is too high, you can't run the evaporative air conditioner. It is not normally a problem in Perth, but the climate is changing! 

We saved up for months, and this week we put in a couple of Reverse Cycle Air Conditioners. They are in the bedrooms. This is so that we can ensure a good night's sleep, and we can always retreat to the bedrooms if the rest of the house is too uncomfortable.

DD is also happy that it will also give her a heater for the winter time. These RCACs are efficient but can be noisy, especially for neighbours. In the process of cooling rooms, they vent hot air outside, which makes the problem worse for our cities. 

Apart from this, I am working hard to get the garden ready for the summer. The reticulation is always in need of some tweaking after winter. I have shade on the veggie beds. I try to grow climate hardy plants, but in summer there is really not much which will survive a 45C day, especially if it goes on for weeks. 

Of course, some of these strategies are not available to people who are renting. There are landlords who do not even have insulation in the roofs of places they let out, and in this climate it should be mandated by law. 

I support the team of activists at Better Renting . Better Renting is a community of renters working together for stable, affordable, and healthy homes. They are doing a survey this summer of the type of conditions renters are facing, and also will be providing strategies for those who are too hot in their rental. Click the link to find out more. 

Meanwhile, I have found some tips for renters here from Milkwood -and they are really practical. 

 https://www.milkwood.net/2022/10/10/rental-permaculture/?fbclid=IwAR3gSv5SRP-RpaeRa-WxkQ9rq0XrPmZ07lugZyteNMPN-1_Qc7VBReBxZdM

What I learned in a heat wave

 

It has been hot here, and for a long time.  Perth has broken its record for the longest stretch of days over 40 degrees Celsius, as it swelters through one of its hottest summers on record. Little over halfway through summer, Perth has also broken the record for the highest number of days over 40C between December and February.  So far, 10 days have broken that mark this summer.

Summer is only beginning- we have the months of February and March to go through yet.

The beach is a lovely way to start the day -but we don't stay after 9 am as it is too hot and too hard to stay safe from UV rays. Even though we are only 7 km from the beach, the wonderful 'sea breeze' which is so famous in Perth for racing in after a hot morning, to cool things down, has been weak and hardly made it to our place, for about a week now. 

DH and I have been remembering how things were when we were kids -in those days people had no insulation in their houses. They used to sleep outside on hot nights, or just put the sprinklers on and let the kids run around in their bathers all day. Some people who live in rentals are still in houses that are poorly set up for hot weather, and that makes it very hard.

Here are some things I have learned during this heat wave: 

1.. Most of the garden has survived on it's regular watering, but you get some emergencies. There is one chilli plant in full sun which got very shrivelled, but a couple of days or watering has brought it back. Please note -chilli won't germinate unless it is over 30C, and it generally looks fabulous in hot weather, but this is weather is extreme.   Roses are pretty cheery too, even if the flower crisps and dries in one day. The grapes are fine with the hot weather. I have been giving the eureka lemon some extra water because it really was stressed. Don't know if it is going to pull through.

We are still harvesting blueberries, and some eggplants, and herbs, grapes and rhubarb. 

The little pond in the wine barrel, tucked in shade under the patio, still loses a lot of water through evaporation! I am topping it up every 2 days. 

WORMS - I nearly lost all of the worm farm, but read about a technique of putting bottles of frozen water in the farm to cool things down and so far they are still alive. I also throw a wet hessian coffee sack over them to try to keep them cool. 

We have had tiny ants trying to get in the house -and anywhere else they might find moisture and coolness. It takes a bit extra diligence to make sure there are no places they can make ingress.

The local birds are heat stressed! We have a lot of water bowls out for them, and in this weather we need to refresh them in the middle of the day. Birds I don't normally see are now coming into the garden for water. These big trees to the west of us, in the Council owned walkway, are wonderful! In the late afternoon, from about 4:30pm, they cast a shade over the house and bring the temperature down immediately. Mature trees and green spaces help to cool communities by as much as 10 degrees and the shade they provide cools our homes and streets. 

Our older cat is not really interested in eating much at the moment. I guess I understand that! She is sleeping in the coolest place she can find. 

2. We probably will need a RCAC  or some other kind of air conditioning soon. Up till now, with Perth's usual pattern of just a day or two of extreme heat before a cool change, the passive cooling strategies we have taken have kept us pretty comfortable. In a week of hot weather, however, the house just heats up, and it doesn't get cool if the overnight temperature doesn't drop very much. We have shade sails, we have a grape pergola on the north side, we have extra insulation, we have thermal curtains. We operate this house like a yacht- we open to the breeze, we close against the heat, but it isn't enough.  

This may in fact be the new normal for Perth- climate change is making every extreme 'more extreme'. Cold is colder, hotter is hotter and for longer. Drought goes on and on, or rain brings floods. 

Of course the very worst time to try to buy airconditioning is during a heat wave! There are no stocks in the shops, due to transport problems due to COVID, and the installers are flat out. We are thinking of installing a split system to service just our bedroom and our daughter's bedroom, as it is the heat overnight which is really debilitiating. If we can do that, then a "swampy" - an evaporative air conditioner- would be something we would add to the rest of the house at a later date. I am swinging wildly in opinions about the best options here, and continue to do research. I need some quotes for installing systems which will work here before I decide. 

3. It is better to stay busy than think about the heat! I have a new book about preserving the italian way, and have made some pickled onions as one of the first things to try. I am also working on my quilt.  Reading is a way of escaping into another world, and my local library is a treasure! 

4. When it is hot it is OK to cut yourself some slack. I allow myself to buy bread rather than making it (I just feed the starter and hope for the best). We sometimes have sandwiches for dinner! I cook a roast chicken in the slow cooker to avoid heating up the house with the oven. We want salads, watermelon, icecream. Sometimes a risotto or a quick pasta is OK but no-one has much energy or desire for hot food. I have read that heat kills more Australians than any natural disaster, so it is important to take hydration seriously. 

5. Respite can be lovely -we went to the local pool today, and the other day we took Mr 7 to the local cinema. A few hours in airconditioning is a lovely thing, to escape the hottest time of the day -our son and daughter in law invited us over to their place last night, where the evaporative ducted air conditioner was working to perfection. 

Escaping to a library, shopping centre or museum is a bit more complicated as our COVID situation makes some indoor settings problematic, but so far it has been OK. We got our third vaccine shot -the booster recently. 

I found some good stories here, that you may wish to check out

Self seeding plants -they come up by themselves! 

A lovely story of permaculture in indigenous communities in our North West of WA Here 

Surving in the heat -don't make these mistakes 

Lockdown, fires and other emergencies!

 For 10 months we have been living a dream existence here in Western Australia with NO community spread of the CORONA virus. Yes, that is right -ten months, due to our hard borders, quarantine arrangements and so on. We were living in ways other places in the world could only dream of -going out to dinner and concerts, family meals, friends able to visit. 

We all knew one case could change everything, and on Sunday it was announced that a security guard in a quarantine hotel had contracted the UK variant of the COVID 19 virus -which is believed
to be even more easily spread. Our State Government immediately ordered the South West corner of our state into lockdown. No movements apart from exercise for one hour per day locally, and we are allowed to shop for essentials. 

Then the fires started east of Perth.

Read about it here

Our son, daughter in law and the three children are evacuated to their other grandparents' place. We don't know how long for, as the fire conditions are bad at the moment with strong winds. No rain in sight for several days, although a cyclone 'up north' might bring a bit of unseasonal rain by the weekend. 

Their house is OK at the moment, but more than 50 homes to the north and east of them have been lost today. The air is full of smoke. 

So here we are, hoping for the best. I hope to update this story in a few days with better news. 

Then our son, daughter in law and the three children evacuated to their other grandparents' place.  

I'm saying YES

Earthmotherwithin has been out and about this week, attending the Say Yes rally in Perth. I am proud that my DH and DD came with me, to say Yes to the price on carbon which Australia has been talking about for far too long. This is a picture of the people who came to the Say Yes rally in Perth.

This is what it is about:

http://youtu.be/omGKw4XgFEc

I am trying to live more simply -for many reasons, but mostly because I am convinced that climate change is real, human activity is involved and that we must learn to live with less in order that all should be able to live.

Western Australia, where I live, has been subject to a 40 year drying trend, and if we can't turn around the dependence upon carbon fuels soon, we will lose even more of our annual rainfall.

Reports like this indicate how important it is to do something now.

A new independent commission, made up of leading Australian climate scientists just found that the next decade is the 'critical decade' to stop devastating climate change before it is too late. The longer we wait the more expensive the solutions will be.

I believe that the carbon tax that our government is talking about is not going to be enough on its own, but it is an important first step to make the transition to a clean energy future.

If you want more information about the science of climate change, I encourage you to have a look at the climate commission website for more information.

It could have been so much worse

Ex-cyclone Bianca crossed the coast over Perth last night, but apart from some strong-ish breezes and a bit of drizzle, you would not have known it.

It was thunderstorms that accompanied the unsettled weather which did the damage in the towns of Northam and York, where houses and schools lost their roofs, and in Geraldton, sadly, one young person died when she came in contact with live electrical wires brought down by the storm

We are glad that we have had a quiet weekend. We are glad that we have excellent emergency response teams, which warn us about such possible dangers. We are glad that we took their warnings seriously. My DH is still a little muscle sore from cleaning the gutters, but gutters always need cleaning after summer, and the job is not wasted.

I am glad we finally put together our 'emergency box' of things we would want all together, to take with us should something drastic happen.

I am also glad to hear that our eastern states are also on a reprieve from a cyclone which was bearing down on North Queensland yesterday.

Much to be grateful for!

In the path of a cyclone!

The Weather Bureau is warning of the approach of Tropical Cyclone Bianca, heading for the South West of WA and due to cross the coast early Sunday morning. At the moment the prediction is for a Category One Cyclone by the time it reaches us, with winds of 100-120k per hour and possible flooding of low lying areas.

This is pretty rare in these parts. The last one was in the 1970s and caused much destruction and the loss of 5 lives. I think we should take the warning seriously, and prepare for it, even though most of us haven't had much experience of it. Those who live in the North West of WA are much better at this than we are. My DD and I have just had a talk in which we tried to remember what the people of the north usually do when on 'cyclone watch'.

So today my DD will take down our shade sails and the temporary shade structures we have built over the veggie gardens. We will put away loose objects and lift the cafe blinds on the patio.

I will make sure we have some batteries for a radio. We will begin an emergency box in which we have a few important papers and -perhaps by tonight-a disc of scanned documents which we will want to have on hand.

Should the power supply be affected by strong winds (the most likely scenario for disruption is power poles down) then we have lots of candles. As we have gas for cooking we would probably be able to keep on cooking even without the electricity, and we always have the barbeque for back up. I have a well stocked pantry and the fridge and freezers would be Ok for a few hours at least.

I hope all of this is not necessary. I hope that Sunday morning comes quietly with a bit of welcome rain. With the stories from Queensland, Victoria and NSW lately, however, we are all more aware than ever that the weather in this country can be wild and disruptive, so I guess we are all taking the warnings to be prepared much more seriously than we would perhaps have done so in the past.

I hope that those of you my readers who are also in these parts are prepared for this event, and that we are all safe with our loved ones on Sunday night.