It's getting biblical...

[Bluenose]

Well, we had all the fires around here a couple of years ago, we've had 12 years of drought, now we're having major floods across half the state and we're expecting a major outbreak of plague locusts in a month or two.  Does somebody not like us?

[Swatopluk]

Well, fundies would blame you for your last election. It will become worse with a Green One in the coalition.
Also of course Australians are all descendants of immoral people that got deported there for their heinous crimes (like stealing food for self-consumption) and the Lord will strike them down for 7 generations (at least).

[ivor]

Let me know if it rains frogs.  I'll be in church the next day.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Burning it...?

[ivor]

It may burst into flames or get hit by lighting, but not my doing!

[Swatopluk]

Is that a lightning rod in your pocket ot does church turn you on?

[Opsa]

 

We've always had floods, fires, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, pest invasions, etc. It's just now that we're a global community we hear more about it.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Is not that there are more catastrophes, but that we know of the divine fury more often...

[ivor]

I think it's the tattoo of the devil shoveling coal up my ass...

[Griffin NoName]

Blue, hope the floods aren't as bad as Pakistan. Surprised at the locusts - surely they ought to wait til Passover in the spring?

[Aggie]

Hide the firstborn!

[Bluenose]

The floods have been quite widespread but nothing at all like the ones in Pakistan.  Its the usual thing here, we have years of drought followed by floods as Dorothea Mckellar put in in her poem:

My Country
by
Dorothea Mackellar
(1885 - 1968)

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die-
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold-
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land-
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand-
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.



As for the locusts, well, it is spring!  There are large areas where the eggs sacs are lying in wait under the ground.  Apparently in places there are literally millions of the little buggers waiting for a few warm day to hatch.  It is expected that in warmer areas they will start to hatch around about the end of this month, following through until November in other areas.  Because of the flooding, whcih will have well subsided by then, and the heavy rains we've had generally the last month or so, there will be plenty of feed for them when they hatch - the so-called green pick.  There is a major plan to spray them in the hopper stage before the fifth moult after which they have wings and take to the air.  There are problems with supply of sprays, the only spray that is certified for organic farmers is in short supply, partly due to the Department of Sustainability and Environment buying large amounts of it to spray effected area in state forest and other crown land and for use around rivers and streams.  It seems likely howwever that despite any such efforts the numbers will be so high that any form of control is likely to be almost futile.  Glad I'm not a farmer!

[Griffin NoName]

That song's preferable to "In English Country Gar-ar-ar-den"
[youtube]

[stellinacadente]

@ Blue hope you and your family are on safe grounds! Floods can be nasty... we had some bad flooring here in Nashville and that wasn't fun! (os so I hear since I was in Englad at that time  )

@Mental Block and Swaro... guys you are a crack up.. I have been LMAO

[Bluenose]

Thanks for the concern Stelli, if my place were to be threatened by a flood, it really would be a flood of biblical proportions!  LOL  The floods in the north of the state are now pretty much subsided, although we are expecting another largish rain event in the next few days.  However, the experts say that they do not think this will result in rising river levels agains, only a reduction in the rate of subsidance.  We will see, as always.


As for the locusts, I was talking to the Bluette - she lives on a farm in Westenr Victoria - and she says that there is a lot of locust beds in her area.  Everyone is getting kitted up for action for when the little blighters start to hatch but no one is kidding themselves that we are not likely to face an enormous problem once they do.  No doubt despite the best actions of everyone concerned the locusts will do a lot of damage.  I feel for the farmers - they have ebdured 12 years of drought, now it looks like a good year has come along and a swarm of locusts could wipe it all out for them.  Poor bastards can't take a trick.