Pig patties.

On Wednesday night in our part of Victoria, the beautiful Yarra Valley, we had a really windy night. This is not unusual for this time of year, we often get damaging winds forecast, and it is the kind of weather when many kids trampolines are found the next day, upside down, and in someone elses garden.

There is a shed under there somewhere….

When there are such winds, branches being blown down or trees being blown over is quite usual. We have been quite lucky in the past, each time a branch or tree has come down in our immediate area it has only meant that we spend the next weekend outside with a chainsaw, along with the occasional minor fence repair.

That night however, our luck ran out and a tree just over the fenceline (so that would really make it the neighbours tree, but I’m not pointing fingers 😉 ) fell with a resounding crash. Nothing was damaged other than the fence and a small shed in the corner of the old dog run.

The dog run is usually uninhabited as the killer dog it was built for has long passed on. Its only purpose now is to occasionally house strays while it is waiting for its next incarnation as a chook house. It was unfortunate the tree had fallen now though, the previous Sunday was spent turning it into a porcine half-way house and it was now harbouring a temporarily homeless, and much pampered, pet pig.

Sadly for Sausage* he was tucked up in his bed of hay at the time of impact. The poor old pork chop would have had a rude awakening when large branches inserted themselves into, and all around, his bedchamber. Luckily he was unhurt, although the same cannot be said of the shed. One part of the roof is now at about hip level, and a wall partially demolished. Sausage can’t escape though, as the way is blocked by other large branches, and really, I expect that he will stay away from that side of the shed for a good while now.

I have spent the day dealing with guilt ridden neighbours, photographing the damage, and dealing with the insurance company. Amazingly, the call to the insurance company was the least painful part of the day! I spent about 40 minutes on the phone, only 10 minutes of which were organizing the claim. The rest was just having a very funny conversation with a lovely girl in Sydney.

Hopefully the assessor won’t dispute the claim although I think that the fact that he will have to climb over the trunk to get to a position to see the damage will work in our favour….

Below is a photo of the Sausage tucked back up in bed the morning after, with a branch partially blocking the doorway. I think the most annoying thing for him last night was that when all within earshot came to see what was going on and not one of them gave him something to eat.

Sleepy Sausage.

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*Sausage is not his real name. Each time I go to feed him I call him a different name; Sausage, Pork Chop, Ham Steak, Sweet and Sour…. The self-righteous neighbours closest to his pen had made the mistake of assuming that because we are not vegans like them, any edible creature who sets foot on our property is there purely to be served up with sauce. Idiots.

Those eavesdroppers are not really known for their sense of humour, so now they have to suffer hearing the Man and I discussing the porkers potential deliciousness every time we wander up to his pen. When he was being fed iced buns on Thursday the one doing the feeding jokingly commented that the sweet treat was not good for him. I suggested that it was all good because “it sweetens the meat” and that we should feed him apples now to save time later.

I think those neighbours will learn to mind their own business soon enough, after all, it was their tree that came closest to killing him, not our heathen, carnivorous ways 😉

Show us your weather!

Over the last few months Courtenay Bluebird over at Bluebird Blvd and I have been trading weather stories as we both live in very different places and are experiencing the opposite extremes of weather at the same time.*

Today we have a beautiful clear blue sky and are absolutely freezing here in the Yarra Valley, 11°c at 12.30 in the afternoon as I type, and the mountains I can see across the valley likely have snow under the trees.

The weather in Victoria being what it is though, at any moment it could start raining and not stop for days, bringing on flooding. Giant hail could be on its way, damaging winds could bring down trees, lightning could start a fire…..

At the other end of the spectrum, poor Bluebird is suffering through the Texas heat and apparently not enjoying it at all, I really feel for her. In a few months time it will be summer here and it will be my turn to mope around the house wishing for some sort of extreme weather anomaly to bring a blizzard in to break up the heat.

There is no point complaining about the weather in Melbourne as the climate is along the lines of ‘don’t like the weather? Just wait a minute’. We often have four seasons in a 10 minute period, never mind ‘in one day’!

I remember going to an outdoor concert many years ago and coming home a complete mess, a huge dust storm blew up, choking us, only for the drowning rain to turn it into a mud bath. Soon after, the blazing sun came out and we ended up with sunburn, turning to mild hypothermia by the evening, naturally we had a great time…

Since we have both been weather obsessed lately we though we would include you all in it too and have a blog carnival, so come on! Join in! We would love you to do a post about the weather you are experiencing, it can be writing, photography, art, anything! We really want to see what all you people around the world come up with, and if everyone is as weather obsessed as we are.

If you do a blog post submit your link to bluebirdblvd@att.net.  Please include “Show Us Your Weather!” in the subject line and Bluey will include it in a sticky post on her blog from the 1st to the 7th of August 2012 to share it with everyone. Have a look here for her Show us your Weather invitation page for more details.

Here is my photographic contribution to the carnival. Over the weekend the Man and I were in the city, a rare event. Yes, I packed an umbrella. It was a beautiful day and rained intermittently. This picture is taken from Southbank, the newly trendy part of Melbourne, looking across the Yarra River towards the rapidly disappearing buildings of the main CBD.

It is appropriately moody in black and white through the sheeting rain. If you could see behind me it would be to a crowd of the well-dressed cowering from the rain under a verandah for the five minutes of the downpour. I just had time to take a few pictures before the rain cleared, the sun was back, and we all continued on our way.

This picture is making me cold just looking at it, although I didn’t even need a jacket that day. Aaahhh, Melbourne, I love your changeability!

Rain at Southbank, Melbourne.

*If you would like to see exactly what the weather I am having at home right now is have a look at Britannia Creek Weather Station, a live weather station a short distance from my house.

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Thanks to those of you who participated in the blog carnival.

Sparks in shadow with “Storm”

The Why About This with “The View”

Old New or True with “A Tempest Between Four Walls”

Meeka with her haiku

Aubrey’s Blog with a beautiful piece of writing entitled “Windy”

Moseblossom with her wonderful illustration “Rain”

and of course Bluey with her essay “Delusion, by Degrees” explaining what those hot months of summer can do to a South Texan mind….