We are a creative homeschooling family of 3. I have homeschooled my 2 boys from the start and we do lots of unit studies and get out into our beautiful part of the world as often as we can.
As the boys are getting older and we are getting busier I find I am posting less about our journey but will continue to update occasionally.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

The Mighty Mighty Clarence River

Is Flooding the Clarence Valley-

These are the cows that live in the paddocks around us and everyone is pitching in to move them to higher ground
- by motor boat and row boat, walking and swimming through flooded paddocks, and the wonderfull horses and the horsemen who are riding them through flood waters, without saddles and in shorts. They are having to cut fences as the flood is rising so fast and flowing so strongly, the boats and animals were just swirling around in circles, so they need to follow the highest ground, not the roads and gates.




This is the view from the hill just near our house- and this is almost how high it got,
thankfully it peaked last night and is dropping .


It was down much more this morning -
much to the delight of my 2 little boys who have a bad case of cabin fever and are so glad to be able to get outside and run and jump in the breaks in the weather.


There are all sorts of things to explore and discover-


And this river red gum that grows beside the road is our unofficial flood level marker-
It is lovely to see it and to see more and more of it -

The poor chooks are not very happy with the weather, but the ducks are loving it-
The dogs are enjoying all the walks as we constantly go to look at 'where it is now'- they are wet and muddy and having a wonderful time.

Mr10 has been keeping the birdfeeder topped up for all the local wild birds and Emerald was out on the verandah in her cage having a bath when 4 wild lorikeets landed on top of her cage and had a visit with her for about 10 minutes- it was very special and the boys and I were having a lovely cuddle as we all watched- they flew away when the dogs came onto the verandah.
The photos through the screen door did not work out though.

The wild weather is not over yet but I am feeling much better.
We are amongst the lucky ones, we had a leaking roof and our vegie garden is badly eroded, but we are here at home and with power- we are warm and well fed and have everything we need.
I feel that we are blessed.
Many people are still evacuated, peoples homes, cars, caravans and sheds have been inundated, people have been hurt and rescued and some have died, animals as well, there have been mud slides, bridges washed away and even roads have collapsed, but we are safe. DH is safe as well and he is away in another flood affected area.
The wind is still gale force and more rain is still coming but I think the worst of it is over for us.
I hope all those people down river from us and people in other area's affected by this awesome weather are safe and OK.

More Photo's on the local ABC- images from all over the North Coast

3 comments:

The Magic Onions said...

Isn't Nature powerful! Every now and again she shows us her strength and all we can do is marvel. It looks wild and wet where you are... your boys are having fun!

Tan Family said...

Amazing photos! Thank you for sharing all of this. So much to learn from flooding rivers.

Currawong said...

Wow, glad to hear you are one of the lucky ones. Those pics are awesome!

I used to live in Iluka so have an intimate connection with the Clarence. I remember it flooding and seeing trunks of trees floating out to the sea, and the dirty, muddy water. Amazing to watch!