storms

Meanwhile a fierce electrical storm storms outside... posted casually by boynton at 12:38 am.
Turns out it was the worst thunderstorm in 100 years or Living memory and boynton has been hearing a litany of emergency stories and flood damage in nearby suburbs as local radio swings into quasi emergency service. All we got here was the sound and light show, with Flo barking along to the thunder until she was forced inside and sedated by armchair priviliges.
'Twas Sedgwick who earlier alluded to Lear and indeed one may have been inclined to witness bareheaded the full smite of the all shaking thunder, with Flo as a barking Fool.

King Lear and the fool in the storm form the BBC Painting The Weather
Stormy moods

Meanwhile the Bureau warns of more ahead advising: Please be aware that the atmosphere is very unstable

Walter Withers The Storm

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Comments: storms


Twas a good storm indeed. We of the southern suburbs escaped largely untouched, although my large rain guage in the back yard (otherwise known as the swimming pool) rose about 3 cms overnight. About midnight, I was out walking, and admiring the most spectacular light show in the northern skies, it was impressive. You could tell something big was brewing.
Posted by phlip at December 3, 2003 12:40 PM

I probably should have gone out walking - I was wide awake. That weird non-stop lightning - almost flickering effect.
Disturbing to think of near drownings happening just down the road here, and of stranded people being rescued by boats on the flooded freeway.
Posted by boynton at December 3, 2003 01:42 PM

"Please be aware that the atmosphere is very unstable"

It's not just the weather. It's the zeitgeist. (Though I'm fairly sure that it was the weather and not the zeitgeist that caused the leak in our kitchen.)

Taking heed of the Bureau's warning, I went out this morning and put down a deposit on a very nice second hand gondola. (One owner, low knottage, only driven across a Monty Python travelogue by a little old extra on Sundays.)

The Walter Withers could have been painted in the far reaches of the Woolshed Paddock No. 2 where I wandered as a youth.

A youth red in tooth and claw, a snake-wire in one hand and my trusty .22 in t'other. An armed knight alone and not so palely loitering with intent.

No rabbit was safe from my scorched paddock forays.

At 3 bob a pair from the local rabbit dealer a young lad could live like a king in a grass castle.


Posted by Sedgwick at December 3, 2003 02:24 PM

yes the effin gondolas would do a good trade I imagine along the tuscany reaches of the eastern fwy. There is a very large canoe sitting here which may do just as well that has been out on the Yarra once in 36 months.

btw A man who grew up not so far from Ararat and who wore similar childhood armour was telling me recently that the rabbits seem fairly safe now, and you can get done for disturbing them.
As this is ecologically motivated it's probably a good thing, but he found it rather odd, and a cause of (nostalgic) regret.
Ah - there's the zeitgeist now, rumbling.
Posted by boynton at December 3, 2003 02:59 PM

What! They are imported vermin. Stealing food out of the mouths of our highly indigenous Merino X Corriedale lambs!
Posted by Sedgwick at December 3, 2003 03:40 PM

but..... these days,. get rid of the rabbits and the bush comes to life (tra la, tra la.. see the poteroos gambol in the native meadows..) THEN..

roll of terrible drumbs. Jangle of frenzied theremin played with EXTRA MAGNETS to get it really growly,,

exeunt native wildlife. Foxes, no longer fed on bunnies, eat everything they can find. Even Sedgewick's poorly frog.

Big dilemma. Truly.
Posted by David at December 3, 2003 07:12 PM

A de Bono moment.

Solution. Import the following exotic species. Saxe-Coburg-Goths, all their heirs and successors, British Governors and Members of House of Lords (Living or dead, no matter. Who can tell the difference?)

Red jackets, horses and hounds, "Yoicks tally-ho".

No more reynards.

We then invite Chopper Robespierre over for his thunder downunder tour of duty to clean up the now surplus to requirements exotics.

Voila! Our no longer endangered libertoos, egalitoos and fraternitoos left to gyre and gimble in the land of sweeping borogoves and rugged mountain wabes to their hearts' content.
Posted by Sedgwick at December 3, 2003 08:23 PM

I'm six hats short of a lateral thought here, but note that Sedgwick is not called 'the feral eye' for nought. ;)
had assumed that the (alledged) rabbit restrictions were more to do with soil ecology - hadn't thought about the foxes.
It gets complex when you have to manage the exotics, the balance of ferals is also fragile it seems.
Still - a bush saw might do just as well as a theramin.
Meanwhile the rain was absoloutely bucketing down just as I heard the National News forecasting light showers developing later for Melbourne...
Posted by boynton at December 4, 2003 01:14 PM

Not arrived here yet. Sky dark and forbidding.

Note to self:
1. Check hull of gondola.
2. Get updated list of excised migration zones.
3. Round up a pair of everything ... hold the foxes and the rabbits.
4. Pack copy of "Begatting 101"
Posted by Sedgwick at December 4, 2003 01:46 PM