"Ccccrrrrraaaaaak!"
The magnified rumbling made the Man of the House slop the two teas he was carefully carrying outside, where we like to sit and enjoy our lunch at Rocky Hall.
It could have been one of the elderly, leaning eucalyptus Viminalis giving up the unequal struggle against gravity; it could have been a rock leaving the face of Big Jack, in whose benevolent shelter we have built our home.
It could have been an earthquake; I can't recall any at Rocky Hall, but it was the sort of ominous noise that begins deep in a subterranean chasm.
We looked at each other anxiously; the dogs, too, seemed uneasy. The grumbling came again, growing in intensity.
I got up of the settee, and peered inside one of the many pipes that the Moth has put up to guide rainwater into the tin pool.
A tiny golden frog, about the size of my thumb nail, sat inside its echo chamber. It blinked at me, and then cleared its throat, as if embarrassed at having been revealed to be such a little creature making such a big noise.
You could imagine all the female frogs for miles around swooning at the strength of the mighty croaks coming from the direction of the pool.
And the little frog, swelling his chest to convince them he really was as macho as he sounded, despite his small size.
He sang to us for the rest of the afternoon until the sticky heat induced me to hop into the pool and complete 20 rapid laps, which takes about five minutes.
I created quite a wash, and after one anguished and magnified "quark!" the frog retreated. Even frogs can't withstand the equivalent of a tidal wave.
The Moth waited until I got out and then cooled off too - there's only room for one of us at a time flailing around in there.
He then lit a fire in the stove so that I could cook and sank down on the settee to enjoy a glass of red wine and a pre-dinner nibble.
"Is that fire roaring up the chimney?" I asked, detecting another magnified rumble.
The Moth stopped chewing crackers so that he could listen properly. "I can't hear anything," he said, resuming chomping.
Again I heard what I thought to be flames igniting in the stove pipe. Despite recent rain, we didn't want a chimney fire, and this sounded as though flames were erupting somewhere up there. Either that or the Moth was having a bad bout of tummy rumbles.
"I've just shut it down," he said, as I continued to look on edge. "There might be a bit of soot burning, but it'll soon go out."
The distant rumbling came again. The dogs, who had been outside, came in and tried to sit on our laps, a sure sign of anxiety in them.
"Oh, all right," said the Moth. "I give up. Never mind that I've only just sat down, I'll go and climb on the roof and check the chimney just so you lot can relax."
The sound of his clumping feet on the roofing iron indicated he was doing just that, when a loud crack sounded. There is no mistaking the source of that noise; a sudden and violent thunderstorm rolling around between Big Jack and the Tantawanglo Mountain, its black clouds catching on the peaks of both.
The Moth reappeared in the doorway, looking self-righteous, and reached for his wine. "I told you it wasn't my fire," he said. "I thought I heard thunder when I was in the pool."
"Well, while you're on your feet you can start the generator," I said. "I want to watch the news."
A few spots of rain banged on the roof - the sort that you can quite easily walk between without getting wet. The Moth wandered off down to the generator, enjoying the spectacle of the majestic clouds and the play of late evening light on the mountain.
I think it was only 5mm of rain that fell in that storm - just enough for a good garden watering. But they all fell in the minute it took the Moth to reach the generator, pull the cord and race back up to the house. He came in gasping, drenched, as though he too had battled a tidal wave.
The din it made on the roof was as loud as anything we had heard thus far and while watching the news was possible hearing it was out of the question.
We watched the storm instead until it rolled around and away over the mountains, hopefully to drop its load on other homesteads too.
Water was once again pouring into the pool, a very satisfying sort of rumble; a veritable cascade for the poor little frog, wherever it was.
As I climbed between the sheets I hoped it hadn't been washed away completely. With its ego and ingenuity, it deserved its night on the town.
I needn't have worried. As I began to drift into sleep, I was snapped awake by a shattering "Cccccccraaaaak!" from the water pipe.
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