Rain stops play, but this place will live forever

Verity

Winter has recently included a quantity of freezing drizzly rain.  So there's been nothing to do but sit inside by the wood fire and go bush walking with awesome visiting kids who don't give a fig about cold, night falling or punctual meals.

It's going to rain on and off all week and next weekend, which is a bit depressing.  We have two completely free days and a couple of volunteers offering to come and help next weekend.  I'm worried I'll going to spend two days making them hot cocoa and feeding the fire instead of getting muddy.

For the sake of any Canadians reading this, can I say it was MINUS THREE DEGREES last weekend. You're impressed, aren't you?  That's cold enough for ice to form in the bird bath. Sure, that was at dawn and I was asleep, but still.  MINUS THREE, MAN.

Yesterday we went to a celebration for the 1000th property in Victoria to be protected forever by a Trust for Nature conservation covenant.  We are one of those thousand.  Here, have a Sugar Glider.

It's great being in a room full of people, and you don't know most of them, but you know you can walk up and talk to anyone and they'll be a kindred spirit.  Also, it was at a winery, and Lindy Lumsden brought along her pet microbat, and fed it meal-worms.

A conservation covenant is a voluntary agreement between the landholder and the state government, which creates binding alteration to the land title, and is annexed to the planning legislation.  The allowable land use is altered forever to prevent land clearing and other negative uses, and promote positive action like restoration and weed prevention.  Trust for Nature brokers the covenants and performs a number of other useful functions.

The great thing is that the present Prime Minister is getting ready to pass climate change legislation that will actually pay landholders to preserve natural areas in this way, because permanent biodiverse reserves are an efficient way to promote soil carbon and prevent dangerous climate change, so hopefully one day we will have a landscape full of reserves across the country, connecting private and public reserves.

To celebrate the 1000th covenant, Trust for Nature has done number of endearing things, including making this video (nb the animals start moving at about 1.39).

If it ever stops being cold and rainy, normal blogular service will resume.