Please sir, can we have some more?
Feb 04
No, its not food that I’m after (a la Oliver Twist).
Its rain.
Had enough.
Need some more.
Since moving to the country almost 7 years ago, one of the things that I have loved the most is that we (and our children) are so aware of the seasons around us.
The Little Misses being snow bunnies
We feel it when it is cold – we have frost, we have ice and there is snow on a mountain only 45 minutes away (and sometimes even closer).
When it is wet we have slushy muddy grounds, overflowing dams and the “always there” possibility of flooding.
When the day is hot – it’s hot. The air feels as though it is burning. We are on fire watch. It doesn’t let up. In a recent run of hot weather where other parts of the state were complaining about one day that hit 41 degrees, we had a run of five days over 40 degrees, with one day reaching 44.8 C.
I love it. Truly I do. I love being connected to the seasons and experiencing the reality of what is happening with the earth.
The one bit that I am not enjoying at the moment though is the lack of rain. We bought our land towards the “end” of the drought. The earth was dry and parched. Dust everywhere. Dry grass – what there was of it. Empty dams. Certainly no puddles. That was just the way that it was.
What our dam has looked like in the past
We then lived through about 16 months of rain. A deluge. Minor flooding. Our dam filled up. The water tanks were constantly full. The grass was green. The ground was squishy underfoot. It was almost too wet.
An overflowing dam
Things have gone a little too far in the full circle direction at the moment for my liking. The water level in the dam is dropping. My veggie garden is a dust bowl. And we really have to take notice of the water levels in the tanks.
We are not “on town water”. What that means is that the two water tanks (about 54 000 litres) outside is all that we have. For washing – us, clothes, dishes. For looking after our garden. For looking after our chooks.
That’s it.
If it runs out, we have to get a truck with a tank on the back to come up with a load of water (that we pay for) and part fill the tanks. We have done that once – when we first moved in – and haven’t done it since. Fingers crossed there is some rain on the horizon and we don’t have to do it again.
So again – please sir, can we have some more?
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I am so aware of needing water. It feels like a long wet/dry cycle at the moment. I hope that you get more rain to fill up those tanks.
Thankyou Eleise. Out fingers are crossed and we just have to wait……
Doing a rain dance for you right now! Emily
Hopefully it works! Local newspaper report just out yesterday tells me that there was NO rain recorded for the whole of January
I’m hanging for some rain too. Not because we are running short, but because it has been a very dry, hot ‘wet’ season and we need a break.
But you sound like you need it more, so I’ll send it down to you instead xx
Please do! Accepted gratefully. And we don’t even have large numbers of stock or crops that are suffering……
As a city slicker it’s hard to imagine being so dependent on weather. I don’t know how I’d survive that extreme heat- phew! Wishing you more rain- has the family danced yet? You never know… #teamIBOT
Our thinking about rain / dry only changed once we moved out of the city and had to take notice of what was happening around us. Realising that every time we turn on a tap uses our precious resource has certainly changed our daily habits. Perhaps everyone needs to “have a turn” at it some time in their lives……
We need some water too, even just to fill our teeny little city tank. But also to give us back an hour each night that we spend hand watering the garden.
Claireyhewitt recently posted..Out on the town
Isn’t it funny how the lack of rain / water affects everyone – regardless of where they live or what they do. Let’s all do our rain dances and get something happening…..