Rain!

Well it has rained in Brisbane over the last two weeks so my garden is surviving. It is typical summer rain with some quite fierce storms in the early evening. There have been a few serious hail storms. Unfortunately the rain is not falling in the catchment area for the dams so we still have water restrictions in place.

This drought has been the worst in 100 years of weather records, and all the politicians are finally starting to address two of Australia's biggest concerns. Firstly, it is one of the driest countries on earth and we have been wasting water for 100 years. Secondly, the land has been abused and a lot of it in poor condition. Areas which should never have been farmed were cut up into farming blocks and the trees were cut down causing massive erosion and the topsoil just blows away.

I am concerned that when the weather turns and we have good rain again, they will all forget about those two issues and find something else that is topical and in the media. Anyway, for now Peter Beattie, is considering some plans to reuse grey water and pipe water from the coast out to the west. Could work.

Personally I would like to have a rainwater tank so that when it does rain I can save all the water that runs off the roof. Then I could water the garden whenever I wanted and feel better that I am not wasting good drinking water on the plants. It is a tradegy that children in parts of Africa and Asia have to drink out of polluted puddles and we flush our toilets and hose our yards with pure drinking water.