Some Summer Rain and Some Little Surprises.
It's been raining and cold. Winter day temperatures at times. Of course for those of you in the northern hemisphere, this would be pretty normal, but this is South Australia and it's the first month of summer. It's positively strange weather for this time of year. I'm not complaining about the rain, it's always welcome here. I'm just somewhat puzzled.
Almost looks tropical!
It did mean a delay in putting the chicks out into the run. Normally it's warm enough to put them out at 3 weeks old when there are enough of them to keep each other warm overnight. However, with it dropping chilly and the risk of them going into the rain and getting wet, I kept them inside a little longer. Chickens aren't the most sensible as adults, never mind as chicks. They'd probably be daft enough to run around in the rain then get hypothermia.
One of the pepino plants was attracting the ants and when I took a closer look I found what looks to be some form of scale insect being farmed by them. It's different to what I'm used to seeing on the citrus trees.
The Apple tree is putting on a lot of growth, but I hadn't been seeing any apples actually growing. I did do some hand pollinating and had seen some bees on the flowers earlier this year, so I was starting to get concerned that no fruit seemed to be setting. However, when trimming back some of the extra growth for the rabbits I got under the tree and saw some apples growing. They're being sensible and growing out of direct sun.
The rabbits haven't had as much outdoors time with the rain, so my daughter, @izzydawn, took the opportunity to get some photos of the baby bunnies today. We have a colour show up that we've never had before. I thought it would be grey when it was first born.
Not sure what you'd call this colour.
Mum and bub.
Argghh... geez those bunnies are so cute! crazy weather, at least they are fury sized old and will keep warm, but sucks to be them next week when 40's hit :)
Oh great, the 40s are coming back again! They'll probably be staying inside in the aircon then. I have some frozen bottles ready too.
Everything does look lovely and lush and all those little furry babies - so sweet. We had the strangest summer, it was the hardest summer we've ever had. Even our hardy perennials struggled. All the old timers around here say they've never seen weather like what we've been having and I heard about a big farmers conference in our province where they are talking about the change in climate and sharing ideas on how to adapt their methods - fascinating to see it all unfolding but scary because change happens so slowly and they always talk in 5/10/15 year plans! Food prices are going up and we had such a bad year that we are buying more food that we are used to. Weather and our own resilience are big topics of conversation this winter. I hope your summer is bountiful!!
That's interesting @walkerland - worried too. This year I'm not planting much, mainly because we are going away. But the following year it'll be bums to the ground trying to figure out better systems to cope with this crazy weather we're gonna have into the foreseeable future.
Don't be fooled by the lush look. We've got some pretty scorched areas which aren't looking so green. We've been focusing the water on the important areas.
There are predictions that food prices will continue to shoot up. A lovely organic apple farm in the south had a massive crop failure last season. I don't think they were the only ones whose crops were down. It was particularly sad as we knew the owners and they've decided to sell up, with her health not being so great any more either.
I hope you get a better season next year.
It's been cold and absolutely pissing down here in Wellington pretty much non stop for three years - the rain this weekend is really something. Meanwhile numpties on the mainstream media keep on about global warming...
That sounds like England! Maybe you can start a business selling bottled New Zealand rain to us here.
I think all the water in NZ is being sold to China! - there goes another 580 million litres:
China's looking well hydrated!
The consistency of seasons appears to be one of those anecdotal, back-in-the-day things we'll be telling little ones on our knee when we're old. Adaptability is key! As will be growing foods and fruits that are less sensitive to the oddities when they happen.
I think garden journaling - to record the changes and how various plants adapt ad produce - is going to become really quite important.
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Indeed. We've always had those unusual years (el Niño, la Niña cycles), but I'm not sure if we can even tell them through all the randomness now.
It will be interesting to see what adapts the best. Do you have any predictions?
I think this is really interesting, and I'd be interested to find out what Australian varieties of vegies in particular that are being touted as 'climate adaptable' - withstanding dry summers and early croppers would be good.
Those bunnies are so cute, I could just smoosh them.
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STOPThe rabbits are super cute. It's been raining for days here, and windy. So many weeds. It's all a bit overwhelming really.
Hubby's in Mt Gambier where it's been raining for about two weeks and drops to 4°C at night. He's still not got a rental, so he's camping in it.
I have never heard of pepinos before but looked them up when I read this and they don't seem popular for their taste. I never trust the internet so I will try to check them out when we finally make it to South America.
I really love rabbits and I think my next post will be about the childhood trauma I have that deals with rabbits and why I can't eat them 35 years later.
I'm glad you are getting some moisture there. It seems like there is more and more desertification all over the world and it's pretty scary.