We got rain, and lots of it!!

Well last week on Thursday night (11th Dec) around 9pm it started to rain, and continued, and continued, and still continued. At around 7 in the morning I went out side and measured that we had had around 70mm of rain over night. Everything was nicely soaked including the chooks food, I dont think they were too impressed with "Chook Food Soup" for breakfast. This was the end of the street on the way to work, now you cant really see it in the photo but we do actually have gutters on both sides of the road, and that water is actually flowing down the road it is not because the drains had blocked up, there was just lots of water!!

But that wasn't it, the rain continued throughout the day and fell consistently, when I got home from work we had received another 60mm of rain (since I had checked at 7am), that's 130mm in less than 24 hours. I probably should say that for us 10 to 20mm of rain is something we get a bit excited about, and our average annual rainfall is around 250mm, so this was just amazing. It even closed some of the bitumen roads around the place because the creeks were flowing, really well. This is a picture of the road to Quorn, which at the time was closed, when I took this it was flowing at around 0.2m but apparently a couple of hours before that it was at 0.6m. As you can see this was a bit of a novelty event, people came out to have a look and for kids to play in the water, I haven't seen this creek flow in the (almost) 2 years we have been here.

While the rain was good, and we don't dare complain about it, after the lack of rain that we have had, the weeds have loved it too, and has meant that even DP has given me help to get out in the garden and try to keep the Caltrop prickle plants under something which resembles control. A little bit at a time is the key I think, it is amazing how much progress can be made by a quick, well half hour, stint of wandering around, pulling a few plants out here and there. This is what I now have to contend with, after this lovely rain, this is a ground covering plant but in this picture there are quite a few plants that are starting to mat together, and each plant can set heaps of thorny (magnetised to your feet) seeds.

The other interesting thing that came from this down pour is this:

No I didnt dig a hole and no we dont have a dog, on closer inspection the ground has collapsed and there is a tunnel either side, my thoughts is an old rabbit waren. There is rabbits around this area but I have never seen any in or around the yard. I thought because it is down the back of the yard maybe the lady over the back had once had an "escapee" rabbit that might have tunnelled under the fence, but no she has never had rabbits and she has been there for quite a few years. Ahwell ready made fruit tree hole, although I would have liked it about 2m this way a bit LOL.