Episode 14 - Is This The End?

 Petra Pea was very distressed as I met her on my way to Chelsea's paddock. She's the reporter that lives on the farm next door.

"It's been terrible over there Billie" she said. "We reporters have to get used to horrors I know, but this disaster's just too much. That storm has completely flattened Larry and his fellow lupins. They were looking so lovely with their white flowers waving in the breeze, and now not a single one is left standing. You know, that's the end of the lupin crop this year for our farm family. Please tell me things aren't as bad over here - my readers will need a bit of good news."

"The hail flattened Larry Lupin's paddock and I'm just on my way to see if Chelsea survived," I replied. We walked quietly to Chelsea's paddock, both sad with the news Petra had brought.

At first sight Chelsea's paddock looked in disarray. Plants were lying flat to the ground with their delicate flowers strewn across the soil, but as Petra and I came closer we saw a sight that cheered our hearts. Chelsea was standing tall, calling out to her flattened friends.

"Come on gang, we're chickpeas. A storm like that's not the end of us! Put your energy into growing new shoots and flowers. We can do it! We'll be O.K. Remember there's the next generation of chickpeas to make - everyone's counting on us!"

With Chelsea's constant encouragement, the chickpea gang began pushing new shoots out from their damaged joints. Even those with tops completely snapped off pushed fresh shoots out from their underground growing points. Petra wrote every detail of their regrowth down carefully. "A good news angle at last," she sighed happily.

I wonder if she's completely right though. The chickpeas have lost a lot of shoots, and with them a lot of the food they need to form lovely plump seeds. Will the new shoots make enough food for the next chickpea generation before the soil dries out? Now that's another story...