Bicycles, bicycles

There must be thousands of organizations in Australia that collect old bikes and do various things with them. In the US, this entire layer in unnecessary - any bike sitting unused for more than 1/2 hour gets stolen. The US system is much more efficient at getting bikes to needy individuals. What's on in Sydney?

What kind of dirt?

The soil in our backyard looks like hardpan clay? (I really don't know soil classifications). Anyway, it's bare dirt in some spots where nothing is growing, and the weeds and grass seem to grow just as well in the concrete cracks as they do in the soil. I thought I'd need to get a pickaxe to break through the surface.

So since it's been raining for 24 hours, I decided to stick a pitchfork into it and see what it looked like underneath. Surprisingly, it looks like fairly rich, black dirt - however, there's a layer of maybe 8" and then you hit some rocks. Also, most amusingly, when you break into it, even after 24 hours of rain, only a very thin layer of the dirt on top is wet. The rest is pretty dry. The water runs off the surface rather than soaking in. I've heard that if you put the leaves of some native trees in your compost, the leaves have a wax that will coat the surface of the soil, and that doesn't let the water soak in.

Ants

When the first English settlers planted a garden in what is now Sydney,  everything was devoured by ants.  The ants are still here.

Hot? ...or REALLY Hot?

How can you tell when it's really hot outside? When you turn on the cold water tap, and can barely keep your hand in the water that comes out because it's too hot. Apparently it was 109F in Sydney today, fairly dry, but then there were clouds and a thunder shower. The heat then rain left a nice herbal scent in the air, but also seemed to bring out the flies. I am rethinking my notion of insulating the hot water pipes - maybe I need to insulate the cold pipes as well?!

Obnoxious drunkenness

Oops - somebody shit in their own bed. Alcohol ban extended

Canterbury Cockroach

These seem to randomly run across the sidewalk here. cockroach video

Campsie retail shift?

From what F had told me about the council approval process, I was thinking competition would be stifled here. It is in some places, but Campsie (essentially Chinatown, but also significant Korean, Vietnamese) seems to be a free-for-all. There are about 4-5 fresh seafood and meat shops within 5 blocks. All of the seafood shops are unfavorably smelly - you have to go to the next train stop to find an un-smelly one! A new Chinese supermarket (all goods labeled in Chinese, AND they have a twitter account?!) just opened that is selling what the equivalent of about 30 nearby mom&pop stores are selling. Will the storefronts be emptied? There seem to be enough customers and loyalties, but I'm sure things will shift. Campsie is a destination shopping hub for some people.