Well I haven't been very active in my blog over the last week due to a number of funny things. First I decided to get my Christmas Newsletter out and to do that,apart from writing it, I had to take pics of my dogs in Christmas Decorations and it rained for three days. I did manage to get some super pics of Fae on a colourful background which now appear on Facebook in my photo album which is fun, but the other dogs wouldn't sit inside. Finally I got a break in the weather on Thursday and rushed out into the garden, dressed up the dogs and got some shots, which also appear in my facebook album and chose one for my Newsletter.

So I then made tracks to Rose's place to complete the newsletter and drop in the photo. Now I might be pretty good at telling a tale or writing training stuff or writing reports, and I am better than average with a camera, I can train dogs as well, but my knowledge of computer stuff is next to zero. My friend Rose Johnston runs my website and facebook and puts everything to rights and organises my newsletter so I only have to push 'send'. Hey I am better than I was but I am still marginal when it comes to the whole sophisticated package. Over the last seven months the business of making my website work has been Rose's genius. Thank you so much Rose.

Of course I wouldn't have a website at all if it wasn't for Sandy Nasonte of Cox Web and design. She too is an absolute genius, and I think on occasions they both look at me as though I am from another planet. But hey I am an outside kinda girl, I love the hands on animal stuff and I try hard with the rest of it.

Anyway, while I was at Rose's place on Thursday doing the newsletter, there was a huge thunderstorm, lightening, sleet, wind rain in sheets for about an hour and a half. I had my dogs in the car parked outside Rose's gate and it was so wet I just had to leave them there. Becki-boo is a thunder freak and I knew she would be going nuts. Chan is a sensible boy and would probably be all right and Fae is scared of nothing. Finally the storm abated and I cancelled the evenings Flyball Competition on my cellphone to everyone as it was pretty obvious that the rain was going to linger. I was concerned for my Mother so I went into town and checked her out. She was fine. So I headed home.

As I was approaching Hamurana I noticed that there were a lot of funny looking trees with bits missing and there were huge amounts of branches and foliage on the roads and roadsides. It looked worse here than it did in town. I turned down into the Hamurana stretch of road that leads to home and a little way along was a small dog in the middle of the road. So I had to stop. Becki-boo was still panting and stressing in my truck so I thought the little thing had probably run from somewhere in the thunder. I set off with the little maltese something fluffy cross and started knocking on doors and finally found where he had come from.

His owners hadn't noticed he had gone because they had come home to the devastation of their back yard. They had a meter of water in the entire back yard, their fences were gone . and their trees were down. They had obviously been hit hard by something. So I set off to home with some trepidation. As I turned into Ward Road everything looked okay. There was a lot of foliage on the road, I looked across the road and could see that one of the superlarge poplars in Tetenbergs place had lost its top and most of it was on the road. I could hear chainsaws so I knew plenty of people had a big cleanup on their hands. All my animals and birds seemed to be all right . Some large chunks of my ornamental Japanese Maple, which is probably about 40 years old, were broken off and lying about. Our large Acacia in a central paddock has split in two and come down. Good firewood, it had a bit of a lean on it anyway, but all our fruit trees were okay. We had no power and that stayed off for about five hours. Dinner was a barbie anyway so no worries there. I plugged in my old Telecom phone and was able to reach people and tell them we were okay. As by now it was on the news that Hamurana had been hit by a Tornedo. I went out and settled my animals and noticed I was short of my two week old ducklings. Well they have obviously gone for good. No sign dead or alive. Don't know what became of them. Eight little bundles of fluff and two mothers. Bother. If I had been home I would have picked them up because they could not have withstood the power of that storm, but their mothers knew where the shelter was and how to get them there, so I am just puzzled. All 32 of the bigger ducklings were fine, no losses. All the tiny chickens and their mothers found shelter and were fine. The goats were a bit unnerved, but a bit of molasses on their hay and they were very happy. JoJo my mother goat and my yearling goat Camilla are due to kid very soon but they have not had any ill effects. The Donkey is fine. The Cow and her two calves was in the paddock where the tree fell down and they were having a lovely time munching on the tree foliage and the cows milk give was up on normal.

Our poor neighbours did not fare as well. The Elley's across the road have a fabulous garden which, only last week, had two busloads of garden tours, and it has been very hard hit. The Tetenbergs lost 8 trees including their mature walnut tree which was completely uprooted. Others up our street have their large oaks and maples shattered and lying across their driveways. Telephone lines were taken down by flying branches and all sorts of hutches and lean-to's ended up in funny places.

So just on Christmas we all hope that the storm thing is over and that we don't have to put up with any more drama on that front.

So that was my week. Hardly any dog training, lots of rain and I lost some of my precious babies. To put my life in perspective, the Phillipines were hit with a Tornedo on the same day and many thousands of people are lost and homeless, my heart goes out to them as the ongoing lives of those left behind will reflect the damage done on that single day, for ever. In New Zealand, further North three people lost their lives on a building site when the huge concrete slabs they were working adjacent to, were blown over onto them and many have lost their homes to the Tornedo there as well.

Can the world have just a little peace to reflect on the values of Christmas - please. S