Hot again.
It has reached 46 degrees celsius in Melbourne city. Going by the fact that it is usually a degree hotter out here, I'm guessing it is about 47 degrees outside. Since we don't have air conditioning, we are keeping the house cool by hanging tarpaulins over the windows and wet blankets on the screen doors. Very effective, except I am burning the soles of my feet on our garden paths when I go out to wet the blankets again every fifteen minutes.
Update: Below is the graph of this week's weather - you can see today that it went off the graph! It was the hottest day ever recorded in Melbourne.
posted by Schütz @ 3:06 pm
14 Comments
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14 Comments:
"elvis" the skycrane went over my house-here in the leafy Eastern suburbs of Melbourne-at about 9am headed towards Gippsland ,probably going to dump water on the BUnyip Forest Fire. Colleague of mine was one of the volunteers in the Country Fire AUTHORITY teams that were at Boollara as the fire hit there last week. The heat was phenomenal even with all of their Protective gear.
God Bless our volunteer and permanent firefighters today
Yuck, that sounds horrible, David. Look after your daughters and don't let them get heatstroke!
I read a really sad article in The Australian this morning (while having a coffee in town after going to confession, LOL), about how elderly people in Adelaide have been dropping like flies because of the insufferably hot weather there these past weeks, with thirteen days straight over 30, five days in a row over 40 (one night it only 'cooled' down to about 33) and now yet more 40+ days.
One poor old man perished when, confused in the sweltering heat, he mistakenly turned his reverse-cycle airconditioner onto "heat" not "cool" and essentially cooked himself - other elderly folk perished in their unairconditioned homes and caravans like ovens; some suffering heat stress got so mixed up they put on their winter clothes. The story really upset me!
Have you enough fans Schutz? I earlier said God Bless our firefighters,well my son was called as a volunteer CFA member to his station,so my prayer takes on special significance.
Please pray for all our fire fighters, there are fires going all over Victoria - some whole townships, like Kinglake, are on fire, and there are no firefighters there because they are all off fighting other fires...
BLACK FRIDAY January 13TH 1939,VICTORIA Australia
Firestorm Saturday,February 7th 2009,Victoria and New South Wales, Australia
How true that poem we learnt in 6th grade,that has the second verse ending"
"Her beauty and her terror the wide brown land for me"
Or to give the whole verse of Dorothy Mackellar's poem:
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!
Although I prefer John O'Brien's "Said Hanrahan":
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
In accents most forlorn,
Outside the church, ere Mass began,
One frosty Sunday morn.
The congregation stood about,
Coat-collars to the ears,
And talked of stock, and crops, and drought,
As it had done for years.
"It's looking crook," said Daniel Croke;
"Bedad, it's cruke, me lad,
For never since the banks went broke
Has seasons been so bad."
"It's dry, all right," said young O'Neil,
With which astute remark
He squatted down upon his heel
And chewed a piece of bark.
And so around the chorus ran
"It's keepin' dry, no doubt."
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."
"The crops are done; ye'll have your work
To save one bag of grain;
From here way out to Back-o'-Bourke
They're singin' out for rain.
"They're singin' out for rain," he said,
"And all the tanks are dry."
The congregation scratched its head,
And gazed around the sky.
"There won't be grass, in any case,
Enough to feed an ass;
There's not a blade on Casey's place
As I came down to Mass."
"If rain don't come this month," said Dan,
And cleared his throat to speak -
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"If rain don't come this week."
A heavy silence seemed to steal
On all at this remark;
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed a piece of bark.
"We want an inch of rain, we do,"
O'Neil observed at last;
But Croke "maintained" we wanted two
To put the danger past.
"If we don't get three inches, man,
Or four to break this drought,
We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."
In God's good time down came the rain;
And all the afternoon
On iron roof and window-pane
It drummed a homely tune.
And through the night it pattered still,
And lightsome, gladsome elves
On dripping spout and window-sill
Kept talking to themselves.
It pelted, pelted all day long,
A-singing at its work,
Till every heart took up the song
Way out to Back-o'-Bourke.
And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"If this rain doesn't stop."
And stop it did, in God's good time;
And spring came in to fold
A mantle o'er the hills sublime
Of green and pink and gold.
And days went by on dancing feet,
With harvest-hopes immense,
And laughing eyes beheld the wheat
Nid-nodding o'er the fence.
And, oh, the smiles on every face,
As happy lad and lass
Through grass knee-deep on Casey's place
Went riding down to Mass.
While round the church in clothes genteel
Discoursed the men of mark,
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed his piece of bark.
"There'll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."
Around the Boree Log and Other Verses, 1921
I actually remember conversations between the men like that after church when I was young...
Oh, and for our overseas readers, just to make the point, there is massive flooding going on in Queensland to our north at the moment, while we are in a devastating drought down here in the south...
You have to wonder what God's thinking sometimes...
Perhaps God is reminding us WHO'S IN CHARGE.
Not to mention Schutz 14 dead and police fear that number could go to 40.
Prayers for you all from a snowbound freezing England.
Ttony, I have seen pictures of the "big freeze" in England. Hard to know if the planet is warming up or cooling down.
The fires in Victoria have been an utter horror and a tragedy. Whole townships have been lost, and many have been killed.
I spoke to a woman after mass this morning who evacuated her home and was caught by a fire on the highway, in smoke so thick that she could not see anything. A horrifying story, but one with a happy ending. She got through.
84 now confirmed dead. Lord, have mercy.
"Her beauty and her terror the wide brown land for me"
Exactly what I thought, Matthias.
They've stopped talking about global warming: it's called "climate change" now.
Your comment on the flooding in Queensland reminds me that we (Brits) tend to forget just how big Australia is: when flying to Sydney I usually wake up when the map channel shows the aircraft to be just off the west coast and I think "Nearly there!" before realising that we have about as far to travel as London to Istanbul! (Though I prefer the Immigration queues at either to Sydney's!)
Anyway, a churchful of prayers for you all today courtesy of the Bidding Prayers.
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