Today it’s all about a mini cyclone that ravishedour land. Cyclones are not usual in our part of the country -  droughts give the most grief; but one thing is constant: we are forever starting over in country Australia after nature dictates who is boss, many, manytimes. I featured the 1974 floods in the third novel, The Tan People, a flood that absolutely decimated the cattle country of inland Queensland, a flood that was to go down in history with the famous Lake Eyre of the inland, being filled to capacity for the first time in 500 years. My characters are always fictional but I have lived the life…and the true Aussie spirit usually shines through with the people banding together, always there for each other. 

   Oakdale was the only property affected by the freak of nature this day.  The cyclone took its narrow destructive path through a strip of forestry plantation.  We were simply unlucky to be in the way.  Iwalked through the paddocks after the mini cyclone flattened stands ofStringybark and Bloodwood, Forest Oak and Blackbutt, decreasing our cattlenumbers significantly in the process, shocked and numb in the wake of rampagingwinds and lashing torrential rain, feeling blessed to still have our home andeveryone safe. My mother-in-law had crawled under the heavy kitchen table paralyzed with fear by the noise of crashing trees, timber and iron (theoutdoor sheds) – a nightmare in the making. Wonderful people from my husband’sMasonic Lodge traveled out to our property and replaced the iron roofing onour most essential sheds. The saw-miller from our local timber mill brought hislogging truck for the beautiful timber-trees that had crashed to the earth. Wewere paid for the logs and were very grateful for the help from the littletown. Our cattle numbers would build up again in time. 

More tomorrow.

 Comment:  info.colouredsandstrilogy.com.au

http://colouredsandstrilogy.com.au