Resilience in Christchurch

Its a little more than 24hrs since the devastating earthquake struck Christchurch. My close family member, shaking and shocked yesterday is now cracking jokes. He now has his flatmate's mother and dog staying in their home. There is no water, electricity or sewerage. Everything fell off shelves in the quake. The dog was covered in tomato sauce as he cowered in fear.

There is, however, food, a barbeque, a wood fire and water in the tank.
Even more importantly is a willingness to survive, help their friends & neighbours. Best of luck and love to you all. You are in our thoughts.

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Preserving

Well done Queenslanders. It was great to wake up this morning to find the effects of Cyclone Yasi, while terrifying and destructive, were not as bad as they might have been. Obviously good planning, intelligent population and proper standards (building etc) have helped enormously.

I have been following the commentary both on TV & radio while spending the day at home doing some preserving.
Given its a cool & cloudy day here in Melbourne (due to Cyclone Yasi effects no doubt) I thought I would spend the day picking my Nashi Pears from the tree and preserving them. So I hauled my youngest out of bed and together we have been picking, peeling, slicing and boiling.
I ran put of preserving jars after the plum preserves earlier in January so I have been looking for more large jars. The only place that I found is way out the edge of the city. It now only has 4 large jars left following my visit.
My eldest will no doubt say the time, effort and cost of doing home preserves is much greater than buying similar fruit at the local supermarket. And this is true.
But at least the family know the methods used to preserve home grown produce. Something many city dwelling youngsters have never encountered. You never  know when these skills  may prove useful. If we ever have to stay inside like the good folk of North Queensland we may have these preserves to keep us going. Any one for Pears in red wine & cinnamon?

Bye Bye Bananas

Have you checked ABC's Cyclone Yasi Live blog yet? It is good to see the use of social networking infrastructure to disseminate information while the towns along the Queensland coast still have power & mobile phone coverage. Good luck Queenslanders and I hope you manage to survive this cyclone without major damage and loss of life!

It was awesome to look at the Cyclone Comparison  information and compare the estimated rainfall of Yasi (1000mm, 295 kph winds predicted to that of Hurricane Katrina 380mm rainfall, 240kph winds).
I wonder what those "experts" or politicians who suggested that large portions of farmers and population move north due to drought think now? (2006?) It seems to me that the Tropical North of the country has huge variations in climate, even greater than the 30 degree temperature swings that Melbourne suffers.
Imagine designing a city to cope with 1000mm downpours, 300 kmph winds, baking heat and long periods of drought as well. The infrastructure costs would be enormous.
I think I'll have to buy up a big load of bananas this week and freeze them. Last time Larry took bananas off my menu for 6-8 months!