<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/dec/17/farming-has-always-been-gambling-with-dirt-but-the-odds-are-getting-longer>
"Smell is the most evocative sense. I lit a mozzie coil this week and a flood
of childhood memories came back. The great long, dry days of summer stretched
before us as the five of us slept side-by-side in a canvas tent like a can of
sardines. Playing cards in a classic Australian caravan park. Running across
hot sand before jumping on a towel to save our feet. Summer meant sliding down
green waves, dodging bluebottles, too much sunburn and fish and chips.
In the last 30 years though, summer has meant harvest and the battle to get the
crop off in a reasonable state for the best possible price. It has meant never
knowing whether the wheat would be in the bin before Christmas Day.
It used to be a fairly good rule of thumb that the canola was ready in the last
week of November and the wheat was ready to strip in the first week of
December. Life is not without hurdles and ours always include summer storms,
machinery breakdowns and labour challenges, but those dates were fairly
constant.
Over the years, the crops have ripened faster. This year, the canola was early
and even the wheat was ready in November. That early start was interrupted by
some of the biggest rainfalls of 2024, close to 110mm or more than four inches
in the old money falling in a week.
The thing about the climate crisis that messes with your head is its
incremental nature. The summer storms are still there but it is as though
someone has turned up the contrast dial. We get harder, faster falls coming out
of nowhere. A storm ripped through a narrow strip a few years back. It took out
a shed roof and the side of a cottage with no warning on the radar.
I had pegged 2024 as a dry year but, after adding up the rainfall, it turns out
the annual fall was pretty close to the average for this district. It just fell
in summer more than winter and in greater extremes, a bit like climate
scientists had predicted.
Science, hey?"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
