Recently, i was at a major supermarket in Brisbane and I overheard an employee who was stocking milk say to his colleague, "There's not much here. Are we ordering less, or what?" His friend groaned and replied, "Ummm, did you miss the floods? The major dairies are all gone."

My Husband works in a fruit and vegetable shop in the city, and he has been getting customers angry at him, because the shop doesn't have a certain type of lettuce, or snow peas. Most of the stock in the shop was coming round about routes to get past closed roads, and the major Brisbane fruit market has stopped functioning. The retailers and wholesalers have figured out a temporary, but inconvenient system.

It has been covered by the all the news outlets. How can people be surprised? And how on earth can they blame the retailer for not being able to source stock?

The freaky weather that is impacting our (MY) food supply is a strong La Nina event. For the last few decades we have had regular La Nina events, but they have been considered moderate. the last strong one was 1988/1989. So we've had dry years, interspersed with moderate years. Now, we are finally having a wet year. Incidentally, 1974 floods occurred during a La Nina event.

No one of my generation (i'm 28) or possibly even my mother's generation has ever experienced widespread food shortages. (I've been hungry before, but because I was broke, not because there was nothing to buy.) This year is going to be a hungry one. Queensland's main food regions (vegetables, grain and beef and dairy cattle) were hit by flooding, and now the rest of the state, where much of our fruit is grown, is going to be flattened.

Straight after the floods in Brisbane, I had the eerie experience of walking into a major supermarket and the shelves were empty.

We all found ourselves self rationing. We didn't want to buy more than our fair share.
If there is only a bit of something, you didn't want to be the one to take the last bit.

My sister was shopping for her house warming dinner and wanted to make bbq ribs with salads. There were hardly any salad veg, and definitely no meat, milk or bread. Any thing that the shops rely on regular deliveries of was gone. She changed the menu and we had a lovely sit down roast dinner. When food is scarce then old fashioned food is the answer. We had silver-side with roast potatoes, pumpkin and onions. There was also a vegie cous cous for the strange vegetarian. Peasant fare, cheap to buy, stores well and easy to cook.

I feel an anxiety, like I need to get out there and start planting more food in my garden. I feel like I should be stockpiling. Is this intuition? irrational anxiety? or a reasonable reaction?

summer blahs

This morning, at 8am (Queensland time), my son informed me the temperature on our veranda was 40C, (104F). I am glad he has discovered temperatures and is having fun with the thermometer. However, I really didn’t need to know that. The veranda is the coolest place in our house, because it faces south and gets great cross breezes, being two stories up. I could have cried, I literally let out an involuntary whimper. I don’t function well in the heat, my brain doesn’t want to work, and I feel sleepy. We are all off our food. I keep plying my son with frozen poppers and smoothies trying to get vitamins and protein into him. The cat isn’t eating either. I can’t even bring myself to add to the heat by putting on a pot of coffee, or making some toast. Whatever the forecast temperature is for Brisbane, you can safely add 3 or 4 degrees, and that is what it will get to at our house. Today is supposed to be 36C, so voila 40C!

Note: The temps I am whinging about are the same as those experienced down south recently, however, when you take into account the humidity (today its 74%) when it’s 40C, the apparent temperature is 50C+.

I know that people, who live in places with cold winters, often express jealousy about my year round growing season. And yes, it is really lovely to have the opportunity to grow all those tropical fruits, and have fresh herbs, like basil, 12 months of the year.

You know what, though, I am jealous that northern hemisphere countries get at least a three month break, where nothing grows. No lawn to mow, no weeds, everything neat and tidy, covered by a layer of snow. You can sit inside, gaze out the window and dream of the next spring while frosts keep your garden beds nice and bare. Here, the weeds have taken over everything. The grass is head high in some places, and anything I planted on purpose has bolted to seed weeks ago, or is too bitter to eat from lack of regular water.

(Note: the grass is so high because we rent and we are not legally allowed to perform “maintenance” on the property. We can’t even fix holes in the walls, or repair a leaky tap! Trust me my Husband loves mowing, he would be out there weekly if he was allowed.)

True, I have only experienced snow, twice, on holidays. I can only guess at the hardships a serious winter brings, but right now I am hot, and chafy, and my head is pounding, because I can't physically drink enough water to replace my sweat, and I just want to be able to hop out of a shower and not break into an instant sweat. The humidity here is so bad that damp towels go mouldy even if they get hung on the clothesline straight after being used.

I can remember spending winters in rural Victoria, as a child.
I love the feeling of a taking a walk, on a frosty morning. The air is so clear it tinkles. The grass crackles under foot and every spider web has a snowflake pattern dusted onto it. When you look back across the sparkling silver field, your footprints have dotted it with green.

I can remember, breaking the sheet of ice that had formed on the dog’s water bowl so that he could have a drink, (and throwing the shards at my sister.)

I love the smell of a shed filled with boxes and boxes of apples, mingled with the musty smells of chicken feed and a hidden litter of kittens.

Here, at night, I can smell fermenting mangoes, the musky, wild smell of fruit bats, and the strange smell of Christmas beetles. The hot breezes waft the rotten meat smell of the neighbour’s wheelie bins into my bedroom, and I lie awake in a puddle of sweat.

Oh ha bloody ha!
Stupid climate change, stupid el nino/la nina!
10 years or so of drought, then we get a years supply of rain in 48 hours!
grumble mumble razzafrucka sassafrum (muttley style grumbling)

(photo by Karen Chapman, news.com.au)

NSCF went under, because Enoggera creek broke it's banks.
Roads were shut all over the place, and despite Anna Bligh saying all was well with buses etc, it took me an hour to get my son to school (from Lutwyche to Wilston, 2kms/1.25 miles). We ended up walking, after waiting for ages, then, as can be expected, the bus passed us just as we were almost there.
I didn't bother to try to get my assignment back from NSCF, yesterday. It was hard enough just getting 5 minutes up the road.

(northey st carpark, news.com.au)

Some people are complaining that all the roadworks and developments have fiddled with the drains and creeks. It is possible, especially around the Bowen Bridge Road area, and Toombul shopping centre, but the floods were all over SEQ and North NSW. Can't really blame Clem7 or the airport link, for floods in Beerburrum. Fun to try though :).

I'm not sure that building tunnels under flood prone creeks and rivers is really a sensible idea, Mr Newman, Ms Bligh. General consensus on climate change is that storms will increase in intensity, cyclones will become more frequent and will range further down the east coast of Australia.

[T]he intensity of the 1-in-20 year daily rainfall event is likely to increase [...] by up to 30% by 2040 in south-east Queensland [...] The frequency of severe

tropical cyclones (Categories 3, 4 and 5) on the east Australian coast increases 22% [...] from 2000 to 2050, with a 200 km southward shift in the cyclone genesis region, leading to greater exposure in south-east Queensland and north-east NSW. (IPCC 2007, Chapter 11, Australia and New Zealand, "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability")

If the last few days is an example of what happens when a low pressure system hits Brisbane, I'm not sure we'll stand up to an actual cyclone...

rain lovely rain

Ok, I understand that cyclones are bad, but i have to thank Cyclone Hamish. The perceived temperature here has dropped, there is a cool fresh breeze that smells of wet earth and soft misty gusts of rain. sigh.
Brisbane weather satellite image

I want a backyard oven

I want a backyard oven. I want fresh bread, but it's too hot to bake, and it hurts to pay $3.50 for a loaf of bread. especially when i know flour costs them less than it costs me!

Ages ago I bought Earth garden's Backyard Ovens and i've taken to casually leaving it in conspicuous places. Unfortunately, HH just sings under his breath, "put it back, put it back, put it back where it goes" and shoves it back in the bookshelf. He has to shove, because my poor bookshelf is about to burst. I say the sagging shelves add character to the decor (what decor? would that be hand-me-down chic? or dumpster diving deco?).

Maybe if i just go on strike, not buying or baking bread, or muffins, or pizza, until i get my oven? Huh, that would hurt me more than him, I'm a carb addict. it might take him months before he realises.

I'm researching making bread in a camp oven, but i think we aren't allowed fires in our yards. Something about getting smoke on peoples sheets hanging on the line. I've tried googling it, but i can't find out from BCC. It's not like anyone in my neighbourhood uses their clotheslines any way, even in summer when there is free solar power to power the hills hoist.

I'm eagerly awaiting NSCF's next diy cob oven workshop, i'll drag him kicking and screaming. He might even have fun(?). Somewhere deep (very deep) inside him, there is a green hippy just waiting to get out, i know it, lol.

Help

I haven't posted about the fires in Victoria or the other freak weather events happening around the country. This is mainly because I have been feeling overwhelmed and a bit helpless.
If you are feeling like I am, visit this site to get information on the many different ways that you can do something to help people affected by the fires. You can also donate to the Premier's Disaster Relief Appeal to help those affected by the North and North West Queensland floods.