The day the sky turned red

 It was a 40 something degree day, the day that the sky turned red and I thought that we had entered the set of a movie scene. 

We had moved to our farm about 10 days earlier, still excited about being in a new area and even using GPS to get our bearings to get to the closest Kmart, Woolies and Coles ( which in reality is only 12 minute drive away ). 

I had boxes still packed and piled up all around, barely emptied the kitchen items and essentials and was prepping for our first Christmas at the farm. 

I call it a farm - in fact, it's just a block, 21 acres in total. The history of our "farm" was back in the day it was a roaring dairy farm with evidence still in some of our paddocks. It then evolved into a table grapes farm for many years. Cattle and sheep roamed for some time on these acres and then another farmer decided to pull all the vines out and plant acres upon acres of barley. I've been told that when it was planted with barley it looked magical with the flowing green in the wind for as far as the eye can see. 

Fast forward to last year December - we have approx 1 acre of fruit trees and that's about it. It's not a working farm at all. We moved for the "tree change", for space and privacy. 

Okay, I'm going a bit off track here. Back to that 40 something degree day. 19.12.2017. I was working remote at the time from our new home in a little room that i had set up a camping table, fan and computer. Wifi was all that i needed to be able to perform my job. Kids were on school holidays and Steve was pottering around the yard near our large shed area. 

In a moment, Steve came roaring in through the back door and screamed out to all of us to get out of the house stat. " There is a massive storm coming this way! Grab the kids and the puppy and get the fuck out of the house"

Within 20 seconds of us getting out of the house and sitting on the back porch - the sky changed from sunshine and a hot breeze to a dark red brown haze. The sound of the wind roaring through was extraordinary. As us four sat under the porch we watched shrapnel fly past us; sheet of iron, furniture and fully water logged queen mattress lift in the air like a feather and fly through the air about 100 metres before crashing through one of our paddocks fencing. We heard a massive crash, which was one of our household LPG gas bottles go through our colour bond pool fencing. 

Hail started. Water started pouring through one of the light fitting under our porch and we watched as the wind pushed the rain and hail horizontal, barely touching the ground. 

"Mum? Are we going to die?" 

"I don't know mate, we'll be okay" 

It was like a scene from a twister movie, this storm came in three waves and it is still spoken about in the area today. Our whole town had no power for 3 days. Our pumps on our water tanks didn't work. There was no wifi and with the blistering heat, no cooling. 

After the storm had past, we ventured out to assess the damage. 6 massive gumtrees crashed down. We were missing a couple of sheep - which i swore had flown away but returned miraculously a couple of days later. Our property damage was estimated at over $20,000. 

Welcome to the country! 

The only way to charge my mobile was to drive into town and grab food and supplies while the power outage was going on. You could see trees fallen, power lines down, verandahs ripped off, roofs ripped off, 100 year old Palm Trees collapsed. When I rang our insurance company they advised me that our area had been classed as a catastrophe zone. 

Our town was rocked. And right before Christmas too. We were one of the lucky ones. No one was hurt. 

Many, many residence lost crops, homes and had extensive damages to their properties. 

I tell you what though, community spirit is alive and strong in the country. The next day, everyone was checking on each other. Us newbies, knew no one and we still had people driving up our 100 metre driveway on their quads, introducing themselves and making sure that we were okay. 

Every time that we see the wave of a storm coming from the west ( which is where those amazing Sunsets are that i watch every night ) we now understand the magnificent force that mother nature is. 

The day the sky turned red and the wind roared with all its fury. 

I'll never forget it.