Snake Bite

Dear Family and Friends

Nothing has changed as yet. We are still Willows but we plan t0 leave Monday but we are open open to change.

What have we done since our last blog? Sewing and Pottery have now finished untill the tourist season next year. Annette, Val and I continued sewing till we finished our last projects. It was so quiet with just the three of us but we had a really nice time.

The rec club is down to opening just on Saturday Sunday nights now and once they use up all the leftover fish and chips it too will close till next season.

Ken and I took a drive to Springsure last week. After checking what the road was like we decided to take the dirt road as we were told the road was graded and wasn't too bad. The road was fine and Springsure was a fairly small community so it didn't take us long to have lunch and take little look around. The landscape changed as we got closer to the town as mountainous crags seemed to dwarf over you.

Just on the edge of town is Mt Zambia and Virgin Rock. The Virgin Rock was named this as a feature on the rock resembles the statue of the virgin mother with child. Time has eroded the rock somewhat and the feature is not so readily noticeable as it once was. Even so we didn't have any trouble finding the section where this likeness can be found.

Ricky, Sharon, Tracy, a friend of the girls, and myself went on a girls day out to Capella and Clermont. All up it was a close to three hundred klms round trip. the purpose for going was that Tracy wanted to cheque out the op shops and she had been told there was a couple of good ones at both Capella and Clermont. Tracy is wanting to start selling stuff on E Bay and she was looking for items that she could use. We all bought something so we all came home happy with our purchases.

I mentioned that a few snakes have been seen recently and I have now seen two, thankfully on both occasions I was in the car and they were on the road. We did have a big scare here this past weekend on Sunday night. If you have followed our blog you might remember us telling you about Geoff who is known buy everyone as Spider Man because he has a whole room in house where he keeps and breads spiders and scorpians. Geoff was at home and went out to the car to wind up the car windows. As he opened the door and reached for the handle a brown snake, one of the most deadliest, reared up from under the car in an aggressive way. They have three dogs and one of them must have been aware that the snake was there because at that same moment Rosie their dog jumped at the snake. She caught the snake in her mouth about six or seven inches below the head and started shaking it to break its back but unfortunately as she was shaking it the head of the snake shook from side to side. As a result Rosie was bitten by the snake. In just a few minutes they realised that Geoff missed a snake bite by millimetres but Rosie hadn't, she had been bit. Geoff jumped in the shower with Rosie in his arms and turned on the cold water as this cools the body and slows the blood flow and lowers the adreniline level. While Geoff was in the shower Madds (Geoffs partner) rang the vet to have him at the vets ready with the right injection for Rosie for when they got there. It took them less 30 minutes to get in there. They were very lucky. Rosie survived, ....just ...., it was touch and go for a while.

We have also done some more fossicking. While Ken was helping Ricky fill up their 1000 litre water tanks I went out to their dig and got three good buckets full of wash. I got a doozie of a blister for my efforts and a small number of stones and one dog's tooth. A dog's tooth got its name because it looks exactly like a dogs tooth. It is the end of a crystal that has broken off. Its

not good enough to have it faceted but it is good enough for us to have it polished and have a clasp fitted. It's made a nice little necklace which is our first piece of stone that we have dug ourselves. It is possible that a couple of the other stones may be faceted but they will only be small stones if they are.

That's it for now.

Love to one and all Ken and Lyn

Wllows

Dear Family and Friends

At the risk of being monotonous we are STILL at Willows. It is a totally different place than what it was a few weeks ago. It has become a sleepy little quiet town. Sharon and Ricki are still not wholly well yet. They seem to get a bit better and then it hits them all over again. Pottery has now closed down till next year. It becomes too hot to do it in the summer months. There are just three left attending sewing. Val, the park owner, Annette who lives near Lithgow and myself. We have continued to sew whilst Annette and I are here as it extends the time Val has company for sewing.

The local fire Brigade did a burn off last weekend and at one stage the fire got away on them. the fire actually went under a house on stilts. The owners don't live here permanently but they would have been very worried if they had. The animal life were on the move pretty quickly. We often see kangaroos in and around the streets so it wasn't a surprise to see them hoping around but I also saw Betons and little Pottaroos which I think are one and the same. Quite a few snakes have been seen lately. One chap in the caravan park had one crawl in his annex so he made lots of noise so it would leave plus there have been others seen in the park over the last few weeks. A couple of King Browns have been seen crossing the road and just today Shitty Kitty brought a small dead King Brown home minus its head. So we try and keep alert at all times.

We went out to Sharon and Ricki's dig area and brought back another three buckets of wash to do and we got lucky. No brilliant star sapphire but what is called a dog tooth. It is a part of the top of a crystal. It can't be faceted but it can be polished so we are having than done and then we will put a clasp on it and then use it as a necklace. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Barry, Ken's mate has headed home to Sydney and was quite surprised when he spoke to Ken today and found that we are still here.

We are off into Emerald tomorrow to do some shopping before we move on so that's about it from me for now

Love to one and all

Ken and Lyn