Sad news in the heat

It is very hot here and has been for several days. This is the third day about 44deg C, that is over 110F, and sadly Henrietta Houdan-Hen died in the heat yesterday despite having been given the run of the garden and when last seen alive was under the shade of a tree and pumpkin vines and in fact so cool Mum thought she would go and join them. Both chooks = chickens were given cool showers and iced water with ice cubes in, too. But still Henrietta died. Hannah is now in a temporary house rigged up under the kitchen table so she shares the air conditioning with me - and has an old rug on the tiled floor so she can walk. Apparently lots of chooks are in bathrooms and so on during the heatwave. People have been on talk back radio.. Hannah had two cool baths yesterday too, like many other chooks.

Now Hannah is lonely and Mum is trying to get another friend for her. In a couple of weeks she might get a sister from the same flock as Hannah but the owner is away... and anyway the new hens are not yet old enough to be sorted into hens and roosters.

Let us hope the electricty stays on here - it has so far, but with links to other states to get more electricity failing there has been compulsory two hour blackouts to make sure the whole grid did not collapse in addition to the unintentional ones taking out tens of thousands at times. This added to the problems by cutting out traffic lights and train lines in the areas. Train tracks were buckling, and over 200 trains cancelled due to heat stress on trains, air conditioning, electricity, and so on - they shut down two shorter routes totally and put buses on so they could use those trains on the rest of the lines. Police manned major intersections with the road surface melting and no shade - must have been round 60C = about 140F in the sun for those police. And there are bush fires, lots of them - the firemen are working all round the clock. That must be even hotter. Mum says the fridge is full of food so she hopes the power stays ON. So do I - it is comparatively cool inside with my air conditioner!

Someone checked out the old "fry an egg on the footpath" bit and it worked, only it took 25 minutes.

Bibs.