Finaly the rain

A good morning is when I rise early and spend some time outside sweating toiling with a hoe in my hand or peddling my bicycle. After yet another very late night I didn't rise early, but, I did make it across to one of the local schools in time to chip in for a working bee. The school principal with support from the community has decided to open the, recently erected, gates and invite members of the local community to join them in creating a food garden! 

I may have got there late but I soon got into the action and yes I raised a sweat. (Not hard to do in the Darwin buildup, especially when your working with a body whose primary tasks have been striking a key board and lifting several coffee cups to the lips per day. 

I got home sweaty and covered in hay, happy!

Back at home the neighbors get kind of fussy about our messy garden and I can see their point but the back lawn is so much more interesting now than it used to be. I still mow it a couple of times during the wet season but I've really enjoyed watching it evolve naturally. Once it was a monoculture of cooch grass but now there's a variety of grasses and sedges popping up and seeding. The kids and I also threw a handful of rosella seeds around which are sprouting in odd spots through the lawn and will hopefully give us some fruit for jam when the dry season comes around. If the neighbors want someone to blame for our lawn they can look to Masanobu Fukuoka!

Oh yeah... the rain. It's been hot and muggy but there's been no rain for such a long time all the buildup greenery has wilted and shriveled. But tonight the waiting was over. Just as I arrived at a meeting a couple of suburbs away, a great wind came roaring through the verandah where we were sitting. Leaves came swarming into our sheltered gathering place with the ferocity of a tornado! Leaves and dust and scraps of paper were swirling around us in forceful willie willies that were blown horizontal by those huge gusts that always precede the first tropical storms of the season. Awesome! Pretty soon the rain was pelting down hard! After just an hour it slackened off to an even drizel and it's still going now 4 hours later. And the garden cries 'Finally The Rain!'