Tuesday 3 January 2017

The storm before the calm

Well there wasn't too much calm before the band of storms rolled across our region late yesterday. I think everyone was just plain exhausted and crabby from the unbearable heat during our second heatwave in just a few weeks. New Years Eve was so hot I thought I may not survive to see the first day of 2017 :-) However, after the four inches of rain that fell here last night it has cooled down once again and we can all breathe easily as the calm returns.

 


 This is what the radar looked like at 5.37pm yesterday.
 
 Source: BOM

It got more colourful as the night wore on and the rain bucketed down so there was lots of blue, red, yellow and green on the radar for much of the evening. Thankfully there was no wind nor hail in the mix. We were so grateful for the cooler change after so many sleepless nights and for once, I slept for more than three hours at a time. 

 On the hot days I made up some Mango Ice Cream to which I added a frozen banana and put it into some ice block moulds. These are the ingredients and you can find the instructions here:

Mango Ice-Cream


1 cup milk

1 cup cream

1 egg

1 cup freshly sliced mango

½ cup sugar (I replaced the sugar with Dextrose)

½ teaspoon vanilla





 Just as well I took a photo of these begonias the other day as they didn't survive the downpour. 




 The figs did...




 ...and the Snow on the Mountains.  I discovered tonight after doing an online search for the plant that it is not actually called 'Mist on the Mountains' which the CEO has been calling it for years and I didn't know any better. Regardless of the name it just grows like a weed here.




These delicate tamarillo flowers survived and hopefully they will turn into red tamarillos not the orange ones that the CEO doesn't like and is trying to get rid of. However, the latter do have a tendency to come up in the compost heap :-) 




Then there is the one and only yellow lily growing in the middle of nowhere where it never gets watered. I am sure it appreciated the four inches of rain. 

I am now taking note of the heatwaves on my blog so that I can look back during the year and calculate how many days we had in the mid thirties or higher. Last time it was a whole week and the latest one started on Friday and finished yesterday on Monday. We need to work out if it is going to be worth investing in aircon as it is getting really difficult to cope with extremes of weather as we get older and the CEO has a heart condition so that doesn't help. According to gardening guru, Annette McFarlane, we live in a cool temperate zone and our summers weren't as hot years ago so aircon wasn't really needed but we will need to make changes if the climate continues to get warmer. 

How about you? Are you finding the climate is changing where you live?  







24 comments:

  1. I was thinking of you yesterday Chel, when I was checking in to see where the storms were heading. The storms seemed to move slowly.

    How is the flavour of the ice-cream with dextrose rather than sugar in the mix? Do you notice much of a difference?

    I think it is a great idea to keep a record of the heatwaves in your area.

    Everyone is complaining about the hot weather here but I distinctly remember back in 2002 we had day after day of really hot temperatures up to 36 degrees. Of course we are only just into January and high summer usually starts in February.

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  2. Sherri, the ice cream tastes fine. I am used to not having much sugar now though so perhaps for someone else it may not taste sweet enough. Yes the storms were slow moving and I found looking at the radar fascinating. Obviously I need to get out more :-)

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  3. Hi, I hope all is OK after the storm ?
    The ice cream looks very good. You have such wonderful flowers.
    Happy 2017 to you and yours !

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    1. Yes Monique, we had no damage apart from a few plants that got flattened. Happy 2017 to you and your family as well.

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  4. The rain didn't get to Hervey Bay. Today was overcast and threatened to rain all day, but that was it. Even though there was no rain it was a lot cooler without the sun belting down. We live in hope of rain.

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    1. That's a shame Jane. The storms often miss us but we were right in the middle of this lot....thankfully.

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  5. Those figs make my mouth water - grilled and served with mascapone cheese and vanilla

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    1. Hopefully they will actually ripen before something eats them, Mr.HM. There are a lot on the trees this year so perhaps we might end up with a few.

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  6. I agree with you Chel, that the old 'cool temperate' climate might be a thing of the past now. It really is nice to see normal January weather back again, although being in Brisbane at the moment, the humidity is getting to me a little. I always enjoy looking at your garden.

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    1. Barb, it is certainly 'cool and temperate' at the moment. I had a jumper on this morning. LOL!

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  7. After five years of very dry weather, we're having a gloriously wet, snowy, winter. Hopefully, that will be followed by a wet spring and a nice, hot summer. Our home is in the high, dryland wheat-farming area called The Big Bend in Washington State. I believe our town, Odessa, is possibly the driest place in the whole state. So we, in our way, are revelling in the wet weather you are also enjoying; we're just in a different temperature scale, literally. It's been below freezing for many days, now, since autumn began, even. We enjoy the changes of seasons very much. Thanks for sharing. Come by and see us at Prairie Cottage Corner when you have a minute.

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    1. Welcome to my little blog. I will have a better look at yours later as I had a peek this morning. You have snow and we have heat. Glad you enjoy the changes of seasons. They are very distinct changes over there unlike here.

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  8. Oh the rain was soooo lovely, I was so desperate to get cool one day I defrosted the freezer, that's another job off the big list.
    I noticed any food with fat or sugar content made me hotter on the bad days, so I stuck pretty much to lots of fruit and vegies.
    The mango icecream looks awesome so I will give it a try and substitute the milk and cream for coconut milk and just add some mango, it will probably end up like an icypole, so I will use iceblock molds.

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    1. I think we got more rain than your side, Margaret. Plus we got a storm on Sunday I think it was and my sister on the other side of town got absolutely nothing.

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  9. I make mango pops for my kids too, only I use a slightly different recipe. As tradition would have it, we only got the edge of the storm. I'm sure we're located in a rain shadow, which might be a good thing if storms become the norm in future. So we experience less volatility, but still get a portion of rain. Our second tank is nearly full. ;)

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    1. Chris, that's a shame that you didn't get much rain. Our side of town got more than other suburbs apparently which is a change as it is usually the other way round.

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  10. Oooh mangoes!! Too expensive here in SA at $3 each. Glad you've got a bit of cooler weather Chel. Your flowers don't seem to have suffered in the heat though.

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    1. I think I bought four Kensington mangoes for $5 or so in Coles recently, Sally. They were small ones though. There is a shortage of the Kensingtons because of the warm winter where they grow apparently.

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  11. Snow on the mountains...my great grandfather used to put one in a big can with dirt and send it home every time we would visit with my grandmother.
    We always called them grandpa plants and they just grew like weeds-everywhere, drove grandma crazy! Thanks for the memory!

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    1. Kathy, I didn't realise you had them over in the US as well. All these years I have called them Mist on the Mountains. I have no idea where the CEO got that idea from.

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  12. We were watching the radar too, Nanna Chel, and were so glad when the drenching rain came through and the temperatures dropped. Whew! Your icecreams look delicious! I made iceblocks over the new year weekend too, but a homemade version of a popular children's icecream. I haven't bought many mangoes this year, just a couple as a treat while we were on STraddie. Meg:)

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    1. I have bought a few mangoes and of course there is only one way to eat them....by making a mess. LOL! I would never eat one in front of a visitor. They are nice in ice cream or ice blocks though and not quite as messy.

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  13. I have noticed a change in the weather over the past year or so. The storms have increased and the heat not as fierce here, but maybe that is yet to come. It has been coolish most of the time this summer with only a couple of 40ish days in between. We had some of your humidity down here for about a week, with a huge storm right in the middle of it!

    That snow on the mountain is such a pretty plant. I have not seen it before.

    Enjoy the cooler weather,

    xTania

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  14. i never used to be bothered by the heat, the quirks of having low blood pressure i guess, anything below 33 & i was rugged up like it was winter, people here thought i was weird. menopause has hit now, am also not coping with the heat on flush days, very annoying, i still don't like air con prefer fans. it's been up around 38/39+ on the worse days.
    we are still enjoying the much needed rain here too, another couple of days would be nice.
    glad you survived the weather
    thanx for sharing

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