It's raining cats and wasp nests?

We had a rather violent storm (or rather convergence of four storms) here on Monday afternoon that dumped a good amount of much needed rain.  The bottom floor of the hospital where I work flooded, we nearly lost power to the building and a couple of people in the community were even struck by lightning.  

Working late, it was night time when I was finally able to drive home but fortunately well and truly after the storm had passed.  It wasn't until the next morning that I could survey the damage.  Surprisingly there were only a couple of branches down around the place at home.  We'd had a few storms the week before that must have cleaned off the dead ones from the gumtrees already.  

There was; however, a strange grey hump shape sitting on the lawn.  It wasn't moving so it was either dead or inanimate.  Inching closer I could finally tell it was the nest that had been suspended from the underside of a gumtree branch.  I had hoped it was wild bees but looking at this it's more like a huge wasp nest.  The ants have been having fun exploring it since it made its landing.

The mothership has crashlanded

Close up of the comb

Someone's secret stash of pancakes - saving them for a rainy day

Bearing the brunt

What felt like a single hours long storm was actually a few storms that had coalesced into one massive 500km long front that battered the east coast of Australia.  I've had the computer unplugged for quite a while these last couple of days as we seem to be having one storm after another following like a multi-course meal only without knowing how many courses are left after you're starting to feel a liiiitle bit full.  

After raining for a good part of the night, the storms continued rolling through this morning and again this afternoon.  There were reports of large (golf ball to tennis ball sized) hailstones around the city; however, we somehow managed to escape the full brunt of the storm, instead simply receiving heavy rain at home.  Our house must be situated in a protected hollow on the sheltered side of the ridge as we have managed to avoid all the severe weather events like today's and the floods last year.  We can easily see the storm fronts coming from the west but at the last minute they turn and dart north leaving us with just rain.

Apologies for the absence of photographs in this post, I hope my descriptions suffice.  My camera simply couldn't capture the brooding storm clouds as they lumbered north.  In particular I wanted to capture the dark rumbling clouds with the faint arch of a rainbow daring to venture out in the foreground but dimmed every few seconds by flashes of lightning.  It was as if the storm had turned its face over its shoulder to smile at me while at the same time continuing to smite the poor residents of the CBD.

On a brighter note, the moist soil made for some easy weeding this afternoon in the lull before the last storm hit and meant that I felt a rather urgent urge to clean up the yard and dispose of some things that really should have been gone a long time ago.  The rainwater tank is now more than half full (up from barely a quarter) and the garden certainly won't need watering again for a little while meaning more time for planting and more weeding.  The wet weather also means I've spent more time indoors poring over books by the likes of Edna Walling and Monty Don and absorbing their inspirations and lessons on garden design and plant selection.  I can only dream that one day the garden will be a productive, beautiful and restful place like those described in their writing.