Floods & Flatulence

As you know, I have the misfortune to live with a couple of harmless nutters called Pea and Chook.  Pea is a Brit or POM as we Peruvian Aussies like to call them.  POM of course stands for Person Of Malodourousness and in Pea's case it has been particularly apt since he became a vegetarian a couple of months ago.  Why the sudden change in his diet?  How come he's gone from being a carnivore to rival the tyrannosaurus rex to a flatulent, lettuce and bean munching bunny rabbit?  He claims it has something to do with a goat that was slaughtered for himself and Chook by a Balinese village leader.  Apparently the poor thing cried all morning as if it knew what it was in for.  Well, wouldn't we all under those circumstances?  Actually I suspect that the real reason behind his sudden conversion is that he's too bloody tight-fisted to pay the price they're asking for meat these days.

Of course the price of meat and probably Pea's precious vegetables will be soaring even higher soon.  The damage wrought by the floods on Queensland's farms will see to that.  Still at least that might mean that Pea loses a bit of weight, he's getting a bit porky lately, so you see there is a silver lining to every cloud.  Which reminds me, as I sit here on top of my little red shelter looking out of the window beyond the telly, the rain has eased to showers and a guinea pig like myself has a lot to be grateful for.  I am dry and well fed.  My home has not been washed away or filled with stinking mud unlike thousands of poor people and animals in so many parts of Queensland.  I am alive and kicking and have not lost any friends or relatives.  Even a cavy can spare a thought for those less fortunate.

Pea came in from the garden yesterday, (his first sortie out there since the rain eased) astounded by what the rain had done to the slope down by the dam.  Part of the slope, he said, had just dropped a metre as though there had been an earthquake.  There was no sign of a mudslide.  A twenty metre stretch had just dropped.  He says it must have been saturated and just given way in a neat line.  He took Chook down to see it and they both returned shaking their heads in disbelief.  A couple of large trees had also come down (Maybe that means fewer bats - another silver lining.) and that upset Pea more than anything as it means he'll have to spend hours sawing up the wood, getting hot and sweaty and probably covered in leeches.

I wonder if this extreme weather will change the minds of some of those climate change sceptics.  I guess it might if they are among those who have had their houses inundated with muddy water.  Meanwhile Pea is not helping the situation at all.  He seems to be one of the leading sources of greenhouse gasses at the moment and as such has no right to complain about global warming.