We Are OK

Thanks to all who rang or emailed wanting to know if we were affected by the horrific flash flood in Toowoomba. I had just left the CBD when the inland tsunami ripped through our main streets.

There are many You-tube videos of this inland tsunami's incredible force and  devastation  as it tore through Toowoomba., down the range to Grantham, Murphy's Creek, the Lockyer Valley and onto Brisbane.

I haven't been down town since as I have been glued to the TV for news of the floods in Brisbane and Ipswich where my children and grandchildren live.  All are fine with only my eldest son David and his family having to be evacuated from a low lying area in Ipswich.  His house was an old Queenslander, possibly about a hundred years old.  It was built  high on wooden stumps so the water only came up to the floor boards.  Those old timers certainly knew how to build houses to cope with all seasons.

The long term concerns for us are the food shortages after the state wide loss of crops and live stock.  The forecast is that prices for meat, fruit, vegetables etc. and petrol will increase.

So out comes the fork and shovel....it's time to get serious about my veggie garden.
For over 3 years now I have had a surplus of chokos and pumpkins that I have passed onto Freecycle members.  Mostly young families, single parents and aged pensioners.  This year I have also had a surplus of eggs from my little bantams that have helped  to stretch their budget a little further.  With the inevitable increase of prices for fresh fruit and vegetables an even larger variety is needed.  I suspect that we will all need to apply the same ingenuity that our grandmothers used during the great depression for quite some time....even if we have not been directly affected by the floods waters.  There is already a state wide ripple affect, so we need to be prepared.

First pumpkins of the year scrambling over a shed.



This years Chokos on my clothes line