La Nina

Break out the world's smallest violin for us. After about 12 years of severe drought caused by El Nino--the worst in 100 years-- La Nina has taken up residence again in Australia. We'll try not to begrudge the continent its much-needed rain, but we've had a number of rainy and cold days lately and, well, this is just not what we signed up for. November is supposed to be atypically cool and overcast. What? Just as we bought a surfboard? Come on!

Let's look at the bright side--Australia really needs the rain, especially in the inland regions of New South Wales. Some of the land was virtually dying and some scientists even thought the damage irreversible, but since March 2010, the crops are growing again and the farm animals have something on which to graze. Bushfires, always a terrible threat, will be less likely. And maybe the highly venomous brown snakes and massive lizards won't feel the need to come to our pool area for water. That said, when it rains, the humongous huntsman spiders seek shelter indoors. We had one the size of a soft-shell crab stroll across our floor the other night. Not funny. I could have cooked him up and served him between two pieces of bread! But I digress--another benefit of La Nina is that this intense down-under sun won't fry our American pallors too badly.

This might be a good time to quote a well-known poem about Australia:

'My Country' by Dorothea McKellar (1904)

I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror - the wide brown land for me!

As I copy this, we are experiencing a deluge, and I am on high alert (Def-Con 4) for more huntsman spiders.