As I sat down to eat dinner on Tuesday evening, I had no sooner polished off one Honey BBQ chicken drumstick, when the earth shook.
I knew the image on the front of the Continental Cook-in-Bag Honey BBQ Chicken looked pretty scrumptious and the experience exceeded all expectations.
What has also exceeded all expectations, or is challenging my compassion for fellow Aussies, is their reaction to the largest earth-shaking Victoria has had in 109 years. But then, the epicentre of the quake was a mere 14km from Moe. Bogan Central.
These are not people who are aware of real earthquake devastation like Christchurch experienced last year, or China, Italy, Columbia and a thousand other places...these are people who are upset because they sloshed beer over themselves with fright and their patio furniture was knocked over.
Mind you, there were a couple of big jolts and Gaia rumbled for 10-20 seconds. As I sucked the Honey BBQ sauce off the chicken drumstick, I heard things rattling upstairs - before I felt the movement below. It was pretty impressive.
I went outside. My neighbour three units down came outside. Then his neighbours three units down came outside and we all whooped and hollered and laughed....because, quite frankly, earthquakes of this scale don't happen all that often in our part of the world. Nobody got killed. The damage is minimal although I did notice a dead tree in the front-yard of an abandoned house a few doors up from where I live, is now only being held upright by two power-lines.
I called the State Emergency Services about that and tested the theory of 'no good deed goes unpunished'. It still holds water. There's no such thing as ringing in an initial report of a fallen tree on powerlines and going on your way. No when you leave your name and a contact phone number, which then becomes a beacon for 2-3 people to call, wanting to know more details. It's amazing how people don't listen. I told them the property was abandoned yet they still asked questions that only the owner of the property could answer. There's only one tactic for that: keep repeating the same information as many times as it takes until it gets punched in.
Memo to self: give false name and contact phone number next time.
Prior to Tuesday evenings rattle, I had been fussing over creating a mandala-altar, which had several crystals balanced on rocks and, surprisingly, none of them had been displaced by the shake.
Thursday 21 June 2012 was our Winter Solstice here down under and it rained all day, not hard rain, a soft steady patter and I had placed outside, among the flowering violets that carpet my backyard, all my crystals, rocks, pinecones, shells and other things, for a good cleansing. Particularly my elephant ornaments, of which I have four, and some brass and copper vases that have been around since my grandmother's day. Over 100 years old.
I went outside at three o'clock something Friday morning and looked at my bower of sparkly shiny, awfully clean objects, in the dark of night and listened to the soft pit-pat-pity-pat of raindrops falling from branches and my mind wandered to alpine fields and the terrible circumstances of the Thredbo Landslide in July 1997.
The cause of that landslide was not an earthquake. The investigation found the cause to be a leaking mains water pipe and the Alpine Road built on a vulnerable slope of debris. 3500 tonnes of debris came crashing down a slope about midnight on July 31 1997, killing 18 people.
A leaking water pipe.
A whole lot of rain has fallen in Melbourne - about 25mm. I've been collecting rainwater and drinking it - sure is sweet. The cold and wet snap hitting the state has brought welcome snow falls to the Victorian alps. Falls Creek, Mount Buller and Mount Hotham have all had falls of between 10cm and 15cm. A further 50cm is expected by Friday night, 22 June.
Meanwhile, there have been solid rainfalls across Victoria including 30mm at the Grampians.
The Bureau is forecasting steady rain through most of the day on Friday.
Good weather to get down with Norse mythology and Sif through some cupboards and doors.
Hearthside Surfing;
Blast from the Past: Goddess of the Week from October 12 2009 : Sif
Faultlines Weaving their Way across Southern Australia :
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