The Clean Up Begins

The cleanup has started in Queensland from the floods as the waters continue to recede.  I just went to my local supermarket and this is what I saw.

 

 

There were no fruit and vegetables!  Nothing!  There were some nuts and coconuts, heaps of garlic and a few unripe avocados.  They were bringing out the odd thing here and there and everybody would pounce on them.  But there weren't any potatoes, pumpkins, broccoli, peas, beans, corn, carrots, oranges, apples, you name it, the shelves were bare!  And this was a massive Coles supermarket.  We do not even live in a flood affected area, but this is something that is going to affect our entire state and the whole country for some time due to over 50% of our nations fruit and vegetable crops being completely wiped out during the floods.  Our fruit and vegetable shelves are almost bare. When I was there, they came in with about 6 lettuce to add to the virtually empty shelves in the produce department.  I grabbed one of those lettuce and I have to say that it was about the size of a large grapefruit and this is what it looked like.  This is sitting on a side plate, not a dinner plate.

Now I am not complaining about the quality or the size, this poor little lettuce was probably just one of the few surviving from a flood affected area and I was happy to snap it up, but it is just so very sad, very sad for the livelihood of all of those farmers who have lost all the crops for months to come, it is a massive blow to them and their families.

I have just been sitting watching the news and seeing those now moving back to their homes to see the devastation, their family photos destroyed, all of their belongs destroyed, everything in their fridge now filled with mud and sewerage and destroyed, their fridges, ovens, furniture, kids toys, everything destroyed, homes full of mud and sewage up to the roof, everything brown and covered in mud .  It is just heart breaking to see and I just feel helpless and wish I could be there to help them.