Trapped in by rising floodwaters I am watching our mighty river (the Macdonald) harvest masses of timber and other debris and send it speeding downstream. People’s possessions pass by furniture, water tanks and more. The power and velocity of the river is phenomenal. It will be a good few days before the roads and bridges are accessible or before anyone can get to us. The power and all communications have been out most of the time so all in all it’s a very quiet time here. Lucky we have a beaut open fireplace to keep warm, make toast and bake potatoes. Having designed for disaster, as any well-prepared permie would do, I’m not at all fazed by the situation. We have a well-stocked pantry, fresh water, a garden to harvest, chooks if I have to and all I need to get by for weeks. I could do with a cow though as I’m nearly out of milk.
The sad thing about this big flood though is that it has washed away all this season’s pecan harvest on the riverbank. We had just commenced harvesting our pecan nuts and this flood couldn’t have come at a worse time. The trees had shed their nuts on the riverbank but the flood swept them away. This year wasn’t to be. Some weeks ago, before the flood, we had a major hailstorm that stripped the trees and shed immature nuts pods, then, just as we recovered from that we had a great plague of cockatoos. Thousands of white cockies decorated the pecan trees like snow. Over night virtually, they ate hundreds of nuts and stripped branches to the ground. Now, the flood has finished them off. It’s definitely not the year of the Pecan. So, some of the challenges of farming – its definitely not all sunshine and pecans every year but we must look forward to the next.
We do still have some of our delicious organic pecan nuts for sale at $15 kg plus postage or we can deliver to Ryde for Pick up. Order on-line info@permaculturesydneyinstitute.org or call 4568 2036
