News & Updates from Vicki Avcin ~ AusCrafts · Page 40
Queensland broke a new record on Tuesday when 16cm hail stones pelted a small town just north of Mackay while other places recorded equal to the previous record of 14cm and many stones around 15cm.
There may have been bigger stones in uninhabited areas but the 16cm was officially recognised as photographic evidence with the chunk of ice against a ruler.
The central Qld coast was again buffeted with wild weather yesterday (Wednesday) also with planes flipped at Mackay Airport and many reports of trees down and hail going through rooves.
Meanwhile the whole eastern coast line has been hammered also.
Fortunately we have escaped any hail (although hubby thinks we may have had pea size in the storm that woke us up rudely in the middle of the night) and just had good rainfall.
No destructive winds either but other places have had the whole storm kit. A town near Byron Bay in NSW looked like a town in the snow fields yesterday with hail a couple of feet deep which blocked roads and made life uncomfortable.
This weather is due to continue for a couple more days yet. Hopefully we wont get the bad stuff! Storm season has begun so another 6 months of these storms and thats not including the cyclones! Its getting wilder every year!
Since we have moved weve had several storms which to have them so frequently is exciting. Although severe storms have been forecast they havent been too bad yet. For two mornings in a row weve been woken at 3am or there about with thunder and lightning.
Last night hubby said we had some small hail (I slept through it!) followed up with a lot of rain and weve just had another storm pass over us with heavy rain.
Since weve been here, in the week weve had the rain guage set up, we have had a total of over 90mm which has been fantastic.
It makes a big difference to being in Hervey Bay where we wait weeks for rain usually watching storms/rain go round us and the area is still drought declared with severe deficiency rainfall.
How I wish I could somehow send some of it up there. We have to have some earthworks done at the front of the house as the front verandah has been flooded several times now.
As there was no carport here weve had to put up a temporary cover for the car in case we do get any serious hail.
I think the poor girl (car) isnt used to all this rain because she didnt want to start after a couple of the downpours and shes getting wet feet being parked where she is.
But definitely not complaining it sure is awesome getting all this wet weather now and to think the wet season hasnt even started yet!!
One of the things about being a firefighter is being aware and preparing ones property for fire and storm season.
As a Volunteer Community Educator Ive spoken to many people about making sure there are no large trees close to structures (homes, sheds) on their property.
So one of the first things we had to do was clear some trees that were only 5 or so metres from both our house and the neighbours shed.
The neighbour was happy that we wanted to remove them as shed been trying for years with the previous owner to get rid of them.
So last weekend they went. There was 4 big gums and a couple of smaller trees which we then had to clean up.
As wed also had 3 big gums removed at the back a week prior and the effort to clear all the branches and timber up, we decided to hire a tree chipper/mulcher for a week to make life a little easier…… and quicker.
It was great to see the difference 2 hrs work made to the front yard. We still have quite a bit to go and get rid of the logs/tree trunks but the tree lopper will come back and remove most of them.
We will keep some for firewood next winter.But at least we know that any big storms wont bring these big trees down onto the house and the gutters will be able to be kept clean and no chance of embers landing if there was a fire in the reserve down the back of our property.
We have a tree in our yard that I had never seen before so after asking in a gardening group and some googling we found out its called a Drunken Parrot tree or botanical name Schotia brachypetala.
The tree originates in Africa, so another imported tree.
It gets its name because it is heavenly laden with nectar and birds and insects love it at this time of year.
The rainbow lorikeets love it and get drunk on the fermented nectar and get quite noisy for a couple of weeks at this time of year.
It seems it is a friendly tree unlike the other tree that is grown here from Africa, the African Tulip tree, which although it puts on a wonderful display of flowers is actually poisonous to our native bees and is now being removed by councils that planted them for the shade and floral display in parks and on footpaths.
It is up to property owners as to whether they remove the tree on their property or not but they are being advised to have them removed.
I love the unusual flower that the Drunken Parrot tree has.
Loving being close to family and able to see them on their birthdays now.
My son had his birthday on the 17th and although we came down for his 40th birthday party a couple of years ago, we havent had the chance to spend many birthdays with him over the past 20 yrs so it was so good to be actually able to spend time with him again.
Grandsons birthday was a couple of days before my sons and this is the first year we have been able to celebrate with him and he was 6…..
Super 6… and able to attend his Spiderman party on the weekend. First birthday with him ever!
Of course parties mean seeing all the family for the celebrations too and we are so happy to be spending so much time with them all now.
My daughter commented the other day that weve seen each other more in the last 3 weeks than we have in the last 4 years!
Many more good times to be had now.
