Life on Mars

In The Thorn Birds, there's a scene where Father Ralph arrives for a visit at the Clearys' and finds Fee vigorously shaking the dust from a rug. He wryly tells her, "You're fighting a losing battle. There are three things you can't defeat in the outback: The dust, the heat, and the flies."

From my time spent in Australia, I can tell you that this is one of the truest things I've ever heard about outback living. Since we've moved back to civilization though, it hasn't been so bad - the heat isn't as intense, the flies are less invasive, and the dust is nonexistant...or at least it was until earlier this month when a massive dust storm swept across the continent from South Australia all the way to the west coast.

The morning after it hit, I blearily woke up, stumbled to the window to open the blinds, and then froze in amazement.
"Ben."
Grunt.
"Ben."
"Mmmph."
"Ben, get up. Get up and come here."
"Ugmph. Whyyyyyy?"
"Because it's all...red."

This is what a good part of the eastern half of the country looked like that morning:

[image source]

I didn't get any good photos of the actual dust storm, since it passed through overnight here, but check out the aftermath on the deck in our backyard:

Yes, that is dust on our table. And no, I didn't pay Ben to write that. Or do it myself. I swear.

Everything - everything - was covered with a thick layer of dust. It was like we'd suddenly been transported to Mars. I thought my bathroom had escaped unscathed (the window was cracked to let in a breeze) until I turned on the shower and suddenly the tub turned bright red - all of the dust was caught and concentrated in the streams of water. The cars parked on the street were all the same dusty shade of orange. The roads were red. It was amazing.

And yes, we're still cleaning. I guess that's the downside to living on Mars.