"Klara" wrote in message
Farm1 writes
We've had 6 years of continuous drought where 30 year old trees
have
tried to die but been resurrected by 3 days of watering. Last year
the
grasshoppers ate just about everything in the garden including
stripping the leaves totally off 2 apples.

I've heard about the dire effect on the Australian wheat harvest,
etc.
So worrying.

Yes. A third of this years wheat crop has already been written off
and food prices are rising. About 3 years ago my favourite breakfast
cereal hit $8/ pkt (3.22 UK pounds) so I hate to think what it will be
this year. Our Federal Government (which like the US, has refused to
sign the Kyoto Agreement) has very suddenly begun to do an about face
on climate change. They have finally realised that it is country
people who run businesses or farm who are hurting badly and with an
election less than a year away they are obviously getting a wee bit
nervous as this is their main voter block.

Maybe this is a silly question, but does 6 years of drought mean 6
years
unbroken sunshine and few if any clouds - or are the clouds up
there,
the rain just doesn't come down? (I guess I'm trying to get a
picture of
drought in terms of how it works globally, now that there is drought
in
so many parts of the world.)

We never have a lot of clouds where I live and rarely get a day or
more of rain, (or even overcast) just showers but even those have been
rare of late. Some months there is no rainfall at all and most months
with lower than average rainfall.

We own one farm which we bought specifically to drought proof
ourselves. It got about 50 inches of rain a year when we bought it
about 14 years ago but that would be under 30 inches now. It is
right on the edge of a coastal escarpment which is the type of
location I knew from my childhood and this location usually means good
rain as any clouds rolling in fromt eh sea usuallyd rop some rain as
they come inland. The troubleis that most clouds are now coming
across the Continent from the west it seems nad then swinging south
before they hit the more productive land in the SE of Aus.