The sheep always camp up when there is a storm due – you can learn a lot about the weather by watching nature and it’s creatures. They will know something is going to happen, long before us humans do. These sheep have made themselves comfortable on a dam bank as one of the weekends’ storms roll through.

sheep huddle around the dam

Tuesday night we had a massive storm with ferocious lightening, and thunder that just about lifted us from our beds. And rain. When we awoke, the sky was blue and not a cloud in it – or so we thought from looking out of the bedroom window.

After a coffee, the boss thought he was awake enough to venture out to the rain gauge. While he was out there I started making the lunches – only to be interrupted by the power going out and a huge clap of thunder. I curiously looked towards the window, then I saw it.

Even though the sky behind me was blue, towards the coast was black. As the cloud moved in, the brightness of the morning faded, but not before I snapped this shot of the brilliant bougainvilleas with the cloud barring down on us.

Bouganvillia, blue skies & thunderstorms

I think this harvest is going to be very frustrating.

Clouds coming in over Mount Howick

It hasn’t really rained when we wanted it to – well, not in the amounts we would like to have seen this year. The dams around the district have been drying to a puddle, and most farmers that have stock are worried about how they will water them. Us included.

It’s amazing how a short, sharp thunderstorm can turn things around. And there have been plenty of them in the last few weeks. The rain hasn’t been that widespread; you’ve needed to be under a thunder cloud to really get a dolloping, but there are plenty of people who have been. The highest reading I’ve heard was 186mm over about a week.

Not great weather to harvest.

in comes the rain

Until last Friday we’d only had a few showers – a couple of millimetres here and there. But by the time Sunday afternoon came around, we’d had nearly 40mm!

It started when I went into Woolies for my weekly shop. When I came out an hour later, it was still raining, and raining heavily. It was almost like a tropical downpour.

I was caught with quite a few others under the verandah of the Boulevard shopping centre, unable to put a toe out without being drenched. Finally it subsided, and slipping my shoes off so they didn’t get wet in the water that was flowing over the curbs, I raced for the car, unpacked the shopping and headed home.

Maybe I should have headed in the other direction, because the rain followed me.

Dark tentacles of thick, grey cloud rolled over Mount Howick as I pulled into the drive. The rain kept up heavy and steady for nearly twelve hours. Showers followed-up all of Saturday.

Love the colours of hay and the dark clouds

There’s been a bit of sunshine over the past few days. We did get harvesting briefly yesterday and for most of today, but the forecast is for more severe thunderstorms over the summer period. I just hope we can get the crops off before we have any more thunderstorms. The issue if they do come is that they might ignite fires.

Looking towards where the hay photo was taken from

Making Round Hay Bales

Making hay is one of the fun things about the farm … unless you get hay fever, like I do!

For the last few weeks I’ve been sneezing my head off and will continue to do so until harvest has finished.

Rye grass, grain dust, normal dust and ‘fines’ (minuscule particles of hay) send me into a world of itchy throats, weeping eyes and sneezes!

But I still love watching the hay being made and if I keep up with my medication, I can actually rake the hay for the boss.

The baler trundles along eating the rows of freshly-raked hay. Inside, the machine wraps it into a tight bale before covering it with netwrap and flicking it out the back.

When it looks like this, the cows do their utmost to break into the paddocks or storage facility!

Weather is such an interchangeable thing. And sometimes it changes within minutes.

The boss came home for lunch today – a luxury at this time of year, what with hay making, shearing and lambs to weigh, all in the next twenty four hours. After a cup of tea and a chat, he wandered back out to his ute, Rochelle and I in tow, only to be met by dark, thunderous looking clouds.

‘Don’t think it will get us,’ says the boss. ‘The sea breeze won’t let it come in.’

I nodded, waved him on his way and went to do some of my own jobs. All the while, the sky became darker and darker.

I should have had my camera; there were some fantastic photo opportunities, but of course I’d left it behind.

Then the thunder sounded, so it was time to head home and settle the troops – Hayden in particular gets worried about thunder.

‘We’ve got to bring Meita inside, Mum. What if she’s hit by lightening and killed?’ he asked.

Unlikely.

‘Meita doesn’t need to come inside, she’s a dog.’

‘She needs to, she really, really needs to.’

‘Oh, whatever guys.’

They shot off to get her and before long I had a Jack Russell and a pup playing at my feet, chewing everything in sight, including my toes and barking madly. All of which made it nearly impossible to work!

I ordered that Meita return quick smart to the kennel, which thankfully they agreed with and Hayden left the house with the pup tucked under his arm… Then I heard a blood curdling shriek.

‘SNAKE!’

Of course.

I dealt with that, while the thunder rumbled all around and the rain fell and came back in to keep going with my work.

Somehow, the pup had reappeared, so I gave up and went to take some photos! The top one is the view from my office window afterwards – I love the way the hill glistens and all the bush looks like it’s been washed.

The other, is looking over the barley crop at the front of the house.

Reports are coming out of lots of hail, which has decimated crops and one of my friends, just to the north of us, had 65mm! We might have had a couple of mm if that, which we’re pretty happy about since we’ve been cutting hay for the last week.

The weather that Australia, in particular Queensland,  has been having, is incredible. I’ve cringed at, not only the destruction that Mother Nature has brought, but the grief and pain caused to humans and animals alike. The TV news seems to be full of detailed reports, shocking images, crying, homless people and animals moved from their natural habbitat.

While Carnarvon, (at the top of WA) and Queensland were flooding, parts of WA were burning. While Queensland was being hit by Cyclone Yasi, NSW, South Australia and Victoria, were/are enduring heat waves and more flooding.  Tassie has had floods, the Northern Territory is green, when it should be red! The list goes on.

Well the farm has had a few odd happenings, recently, too. We had a 47 degree day, a few Fridays ago and yesterday we had a freak hail storm – the hail melted the minute it hit the ground, but the rain that came with it was phenomenal!

We could hear the storm, before we saw it. The noise that the rain made, was nothing short of a drumming on the ground, then as it hit the tin roof, I felt like it might cave in, with the force!

I stood transfixed at the window, watching the birds drop from the sky, to the safety of the ground, the stock, heads down, run for bush and the dogs (who hate thunder) run for the safety of the garage. Finally I shook myself into gear and grabbed the camera!

Suddenly, as quickly as it started, it stopped. The sun shone from between gaps in the clouds, the stock ventured out from underneath the trees and started grazing again, and of course everything from, the trees to soil, looked like it had been washed.

As does this rose. The sun is shining now!

Katrina Germein, Emily Gale, Kate Gordon and I have got together to raise money for the QLD Flood victims.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve stood in front of the TV crying at the images and feeling so completely helpless. I couldn’t volunteer with the clean up, from down at the bottom of WA!

So after talking to these girls on Twitter, we came up with an idea of asking other authors to donate signed books, manuscript assessments and anything else that is slightly ‘bookie’!

The response we had was just amazing. If you head over to the website http://authorsforqueensland.wordpress.com/ you can bid on signed copies of books by authors including: Rachael Treasure, Helene Young, Bronwyn Parry, Fiona Palmer, Lisa Heidke, Kylie Ladd, Katie Fforde, Craig Silvey, Wendy Orr and all of the organisers books, just to name a few. I’ve also thrown in three manuscript assessments (to be used after July) as have other authors.

I really hope that you’ll come on over, take a look and see if there is something that you love, or that would be a great Christmas or birthday present for someone.

Come on! Let’s show the Queenslanders how much we care for our fellow Aussies!

* Winning bidders will be notified by email and instructed to make their donations to the Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal . The donation to the appeal must be the pledged amount or higher.

Once winners have made their donations they need to email us their receipt as proof of payment. We will then organize for auction items to be distributed.

We ask that you only bid if you are  in a position to purchase the item. Genuine bids only please.

I thought we may have been in for a few thunderstorms, when I looked out of the window, this morning but as the day drew on there wasn’t much sign, except for a few thundery looking clouds on the horizon.

We’re weaning calves again (to read about that click here) so I was towing the water cart down to the yards, to fill their water trough and this was my view.

If I turned around and looked to the north, this was my view!

A stark contrast!

We were so ready to start harvest today. Yep, we were. Yesterday the boss said that he’d be swathing the oats and then start harvesting standing barley… depending on what the moisture was. (Can’t harvest if the moisture inside the grain is too high – it doesn’t store well.)

So, even though we knew there was a forecast for rain and the atmosphere had been threatening all day, we went to bed, thinking the header would probably be going today.

Not so.

The thunder and lightning we had last night, was truly amazing. It was surround-sound thunder; rumbling right over the top of our heads, then away to the north, the sound would almost fade and then come straight back over the top of us!

The lightning was spectacular; I kept thinking; “A little bit of rain would be good. We don’t want any fires!’ And we got a little bit. The gentle beat of rain on a tin roof and thunder as were all snug inside, is a good sound… until someone took the lid off the watering can and emptied it on us, hard and fast! It bucketed down! I don’t think I heard rain like it, all through winter! 17mm in less than 30 minutes!

My first thought was ‘great, no fires,’ as it got louder and heavier I thought: ‘Crap not that much!’

It was so heavy that my roses that looked like this, (above) yesterday, are now all shredded, the  petals embedded in the dirt, where the heavy torrents of water, pushed them.

Anyway, we’re not harvesting today! As I write this, the rain is steadily falling, although it clears up and then comes back again. It’ll probably be gone by tomorrow, leaving in its wake a few farmers that really wish it hadn’t been at all!

The rain will have done wonders on our sorghum crop, it will put harvest back for some time… more writing time, maybe!

Oh, PS: Don’t forget about The Ultimate Getaway and the Christmas phone call!

Yesterday was a shocker of day. The wind blew hard from the north and it was above 35 degrees. I was really pleased that I chose yesterday to head to town and do the shopping! (Nothing like air conditioned shops and ice cream!)

There was a forecast for thunder storms in the evening and that worried us. Last year was terrible for dry storms. I can remember looking out of the window, watching as the lightening hit the ground 360 degrees around us.

It is actually quite frightening, because you never know when it’s your turn to get hit and with a huge granite hill in our back yard, you would think that we’d be sitting ducks!

It’s the dry grass, crisp stubbles and kindling throughout the bush that allows it to light up, the second that the bush is hit.

Thankfully, this is how the evening ended, not the way we thought it might!

Just a reminder about the two offers I’ve got going at the moment The Ultimate Getaway (if you book before Christmas you’ll get an extra 10% discount) and the Christmas phone call.

We started our main shearing on Monday – a busy time, but it’s always fun! I love the smell of the wool as it gets thrown on to the wool table and the hustle and bustle of the shed. Music blares out from the inside of the shed; it’s the only time we work in the yards to music, and the sheep, as they are stripped of their wool, come out looking rather bemused about what has just happened!

Yesterday was a bit full on though! There were forecasts of thunder storms, later in the day, so we needed to make sure that we kept the sheep dry (can’t shear wet sheep!)

We pulled the combine and augers, out from the machinery shed, put in transportable panels and filled it to the brim with sheep – all the while, the black clouds were getting closer and closer.

We still hadn’t managed to get them all under cover, so we shoved and pushed them into every little spot that had a roof and finally, as the heavens broke open, at about 10am, they were all in areas that would keep them dry.

The thunder and lightning was spectacular, the drops of rain, huge! But then it all stopped and the humidity went through the roof. Not pleasant conditions to be working sheep in.

Once again, though, Esperance didn’t let us down (we were still missing a season – we’d had three!). By 4pm, the wind had gone around to the south and it was cold! Then started the slow and steady drum of rain… 15mm later! Wonderful!