Climate Change

I heard on the radio discussion about the record high temperatures, mid-high 30'sC, this week in Northern Victoria. This prior to the cold snap today, as I write we have fire blazing following cold wind and hail.

It prompted me to recall the Four Corners program on the ABC which screened before we left for Tassie last month. The crux of this was accounts by farmers that harvests were earlier now than say thirty or forty years ago, namely wine growers and cherry orchadists who both said harvest was now three to four weeks earlier.

This concurs with my experience. We used to start picking beech foliage mid to late November. Earlier than this the new foliage was too soft and would not hold up, in as far as keeping in water for the florist. I notice that in the last few years we are picking beech in late October. This means these deciduous trees are shooting bud weeks earlier in October than they used to.

I had to laugh today. After a week of unseasonally warm to hot weather breaking records for April, I was in relaxation mode this morning it being Saturday. The forecast cool change and my free time led me to climb into the roof to look for the dead rat/mouse that was the cause of the foul odour in my office for some days. No sooner had I got up the ladder and through the man hole there was a huge torrential rain with hail that made so much noise in the roof cavity that I was totally unnerved.

I searched for the dead animal and found a decomposing rat embedded in an insulation bat. Down I came with detritus in a plastic bag. I went outside. The deluge had washed out channels in our driveway and blocked drains sending water where it was not wanted. I could see dripping from the spouting when I took the ladder I had used to get into the roof outside, so I used to it inspect the downpipes. Blocked. Full of leaves and ice from the hail. My hands felt like they would freeze off as I cleared the crap.

From heat and sweat and a hard week there I was nearly bloody freezing.