Fire and Water!

A couple of weeks ago our poly water tank arrived.  The builders need water during the build, and it was about half the cost for us to buy a tank and fill it with water, than it was for the builders to supply a tank and water.  This way, we also get a tank to put on our shed when we get one... bargain!

It was pretty exciting to get water in the tank.  It was fun to watch, and it also meant that we could have a bonfire to burn off trees we'd cut down.  We were too scared to light it with no water onsite.

The tank arrived on a huge truck which backed 140m up our driveway!  Brave man!

We got to help roll it into place

Yeah right, Miss Spaghetti arms has no hope of lifting this!

The kids helped pull the outlet fittings through which the man dropped down into the tank tied to a rope

This big, very noisy truck, came with 9000L of water for our tank!

It's getting full!

He has to pull the house out quickly when it's full so it doesn't siphon out the water. 
That's $10 of water sucked out!

And now we have water!!! I didn't turn it on full to take the pic -
you really appreciate water when you don't have it, and have to pay for a truck to bring it in!

Now we get to have a bushfire, ahem... I mean a bonfire!

Stocked with a small bbq, loads of sausages, onion, bread, sauces, iced water (don't know why - it's freezing here at night!), hot choc supplies, tim tams, and of course marshmallows... we got together with family for a burn off party :)

It doesn't look real big in the photos, but it was a bit scary... all the dried leaves and smaller branches went up in a huge blaze.  So glad we didn't bring anything to help start the fire (ie. petrol!)  There was a slight breeze and I was really surprised how much it blew the fire.  Embers flew about 15 metres which really made me appreciate all our bushfire requirements on our home (that's a very expensive post for another day).  If the bush went up behind our home, we'd get a lot of embers on our on our house.  Fortunately it blew onto the soil area and not onto the dried grassy area.  I was keeping a listen out for the fire brigade, thinking one of the neighbours might see the flames and call for help.
 
The kids had a great time wandering around in the dark with glow sticks and torches, and toasting tons of marshmallows.  This is what we've moved here for!  (not cavities... relaxing nights around campfires)

About 4m high!

If you click on this pic you can faintly make out Daniel on the left with a shovel. 
The fire is almost twice his height - after it had burned for a while!

 

Because the fire was such a big area, we had to use really long branches to toast marshmallows as the
ground near us was hot ashes so the long branches allowed us to get to the flames