Friday 7 December 2007

Bugger!

Yesterday was a stinker of a day. 37C in town and 35C up here. We were happy that no fire had broken out near us and looking forward to the change. Little did we know!
We were on the road when the change arrived in full force late afternoon. Fierce wind gusts tore off tree branches and flung them on to the road. A tree was down on the way home and we had to clear one side of the street to be able to get through. Closer to home the car's windscreen was hit by a tree branch, but luckily (or rather surprisingly) it didn't crack. On the radio one disaster after another was reported. Lightening strikes starting fires, winds causing dust storms, fires raging. We heaved a sigh of relief when we were finally home.

The first sign that the wind gusts had been / were fierce was when we noticed that one of the new water tanks had flipped over. We checked that the other one was firmly anchored and hoped for the best.

The wind was still raging when we went to bed. But no rain!

At 3am we were rudely awoken by a terrible noise. Our first thought was, "The tank!"
Out we rushed with our torches. The tank had gone walkabout. Or should we say, it had taken some flying lessons?
It had landed smack in the middle of the dahlia patch. Thankfully, its journey was stopped by the pergola. Otherwise it could have done quite some damage. There was not much we could do at that time of the night. Sleep came reluctantly after that.

This morning we were greeted by this sight.


This is just outside Mama Gnome's bedroom window. It's lucky the pergola stopped the tank. I don't want to imagine what could have happened without it.


Don't be deceived by the black sky in the back ground - still no rain!

Assessing the damage to the dahlias.


The bottom of the tank. I'm not optimistic.

But we still consider ourselves lucky. None of us was hurt, there was no other serious damage. A tank can be replaced. (Oh and the flower gnome might have to go dahlia tuber shopping.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

thank goodness none of you were hurt. Pity about the tank. Can you get insurance? Just a thought.
The poor dahlias, alas Flower gnome has to go shopping. Lucky it wasnt the tomato bed

Tassie gnome

Anonymous said...

Hey Tassie gnome. Fortunately the dahlia's didnt get badly damaged. Unfortunately I dont get to go dahlia shopping. Vegi gnome tells me you would like some tubers next year. There are about 9 known varieties the rest are unknown at this stage as they had been burried around the place for ages and I hadnt labeled them. Will post a picture once they are in flower and let you know what duplicates I have. Apart from the bed in the pic there are another 20 plants in the vegi gnome's table grape patch. oh, and the insurance will pay for a new tank, so now we have another wood shed which we will use the ruined tank for. Cheers, the Flower Gnome.

Otto said...

Oh Dear! I similar incident happened on my parents farm some years ago. A field bin ended up against the wall of a neighbours house 3 km away and not one fence was flattened. It literally flew there.