Safe and Dry

As any of you in Brisbane are probably aware, the northern suburbs of were hit with quite a nasty story last night. It was lovely and fine (if hot) all day, then late afternoon the clouds came up. We saw it early, and after checking the radar on the Bureau of Meteorology webpage, knew there was a large storm heading out way. We had time to batten down the hatches, put the chickens away, and make sure anything that might blow away was secured. DH had started clearing one of the gutters (gutter guard is supposed to be going on this week!), when it hit.

I was inside with DD, watching DH still out in the rain, when I saw one of the trees up the back (on the neighbours property) fall, and yelled for him to come in. He couldn't hear me, but thankfully came inside soon after. We retreated to the bedrooms with torches and mobile phones, because we have some large trees on the living areas side of the house that I was a little concerned about. They're large trees, and old and strong, obviously they've stood their for quite a while, but better safe than sorry. We were lucky that no trees came down on our property, only a few small branches, but many roads were blocked and roofs damaged by falling trees elsewhere.

In fact, I'm happy to report, the worse damage here was to my corn plants, which were blown over in the wind. Thankfully none of the stems were damaged, and they weren't even really uprooted, just blown over. We've straightened them, and staked them up with some tomato stakes and baling twine woven through them. Hopefully they weren't damaged too much, and will continue to grow and produce some corn for us! This is the tallest I've ever had corn grow (usually I think it doesn't get fed well enough, corn is a heavy feeder), and it doesn't even have any sign of cobs yet. I tell you, we're eagerly awaiting this corn, and will be quite upset if it's been damaged beyond repair.

Despite the leaking gutters, our tanks are nearly full. The poly tank is totally full, and we've transferred some water to the smaller garden tank, and the stainless steel tank is three quarters full. It's very very nice to know there is plenty of water there to see us through the coming season.