Oh boy! It’s dry.

We are getting a bit desperate for rain here. It is so dry. I don’t know when we last had a good day of rain, certainly some months ago. About 60% of Queensland is drought declared. Winter time here is the dry season, but I think this has been worse than usual. The grass is getting very brown, and the front lawn is looking quite sad, but with an acre of land here, we can’t water the grass, especially with water rates being so expensive.

There is a poem by Dorothea Mackellar. It is called ‘My Country’, and she describes Australia very well, especially the highs and lows of nature, the drought and flooding rains. And it is so true, this is a country of constant extremes, and Queensland sure gets its share of extremes, in drought as now, and maybe in a few months when the wet comes, more flooding.

http://www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/archive/mycountry.htm

The love of field and coppice,

Of green and shaded lanes.

Of ordered woods and gardens

Is running in your veins,

Strong love of grey-blue distance

Brown streams and soft dim skies

I know but cannot share it,

My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror -

The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest

All tragic to the moon,

The sapphire-misted mountains,

The hot gold hush of noon.

Green tangle of the brushes,

Where lithe lianas coil,

And orchids deck the tree-tops

And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!

Her pitiless blue sky,

When sick at heart, around us,

We see the cattle die -

But then the grey clouds gather,

And we can bless again

The drumming of an army,

The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!

Land of the Rainbow Gold,

For flood and fire and famine,

She pays us back threefold -

Over the thirsty paddocks,

Watch, after many days,

The filmy veil of greenness

That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,

A wilful, lavish land -

All you who have not loved her,

You will not understand -

Though earth holds many splendours,

Wherever I may die,

I know to what brown country

My homing thoughts will fly.

Dorothea Mackellar

 

Down the road I saw this pot of lilies. I can’t remember  their name, but they are so beautiful. This pot was put at the gateway of this home so all passers-by could enjoy them. They are just beautiful.