My city, Brisbane is going through some of the worst flooding in 40 years. The news spread all over the world. Firstly, I want to thank those who contacted me to make sure that I’m OK. I am indeed super fine. My family, house, pets, garden, relatives, everything is doing ok. No flood damage around me. I’m one of the fortunate.
People in Brisbane received lots of warnings before the flood. Unlike our neighboring city, Toowoomba, we were able to prepare for what might happen. Media continued to report the damages and government’s move. I don’t usually watch TV much but my husband left TV on to keep himself updated on what’s going on. It was stressful every time new damage was reported. As soon as I heard the TV saying “SES (state emergency services) would come to knock on your door if you need to evacuate”, I turned off the TV and did something else to take my mind off from the flood.
My house is located at the edge of Brisbane. We had continuous heavy rain but I didn’t see the huge risk of flooding around my area. If the risk rises, SES would come to let me know, so I thought there was no point in keep watching the news and stressing out myself. I have garden and hens to supply food for a few days even if I’m forced to stay home so I wasn’t worry too much about the situation.
Many people stayed by the TV and kept watching the damage updates. They focused on the damages and stressed out themselves. As a result, people went in a mild panicking mode and started stocking up on food. Supermarkets had empty shelves everywhere. I’ve never seen supermarkets so full of empty shelves!!
As the situation calms down, I feel the importance of having peace of mind in a stressful situation like this. Sure, it was scary time. Everyone was scared. But making yourself stressed out more than needed does nothing good. Stressed out people make people around them stressed out too. Especially if you are a parent, you want to stay calm and strong so that your children don’t have to feel the worry through you.
I think I handled OK in this situation this time. Having hens in the backyard gave me huge relief. I’m raising them up with a concept of permaculture in mind. This means I’m trying to give them their wild environment as much as possible. Hopefully in a long run, I can give them a forest to wander and find their own food themselves so that they don’t have to rely on the commercial hen food that I feed in the future. I started feeding them new food this week. The new hen food is from only natural ingredients. So it’s more like their natural food as wild birds. Previous hen food was layer mash. I’m assuming that includes non-natural ingredients based on what the shop staff told me. I bought the mash only because that was what the shop was feeding my hens when I bought them. I didn’t want to introduce too much change to the hens at the start.
So far, my hens don’t like the all-natural food very much. (ha ha) I guess they are too used to previous food (I now call it junk food) and the natural food is too ‘good’ for them. A bit like a dietary change from meat eater to vegetarian? Never the less, I trust that they are not stupid enough to starve themselves so I just wait and see for a couple of days. Egg production rate might drop for a while if they are not eating enough but that’s ok. It should soon resolve. I choose to keep my peace of mind all the time.
... I appreciate your support.
