Time to bring out the tractor

How awesome is it that we have had as much rain as we have so far this summer.  We certainly waited long enough after having two particularly hot and dry summers before this one, and now comes the part where both the grass and the weeds are in constant need of attention.  Johan doesn't know which way to turn at the moment, without noticing how much work needs to be done.

Today he borrowed the community tractor to mow down our driveway and under the fruit trees...it almost reminds me of living in KZN where it is so wet that as Johan has often joked, if you plant a broomstick it will shoot and grow.  This can be a really pretty time of year with all the bushes flowering and adding colour to the garden...and we don't have many flowering plants because we are usually so dry and having a shallow borehole we don't want to waste water.

When we first moved here we had no idea that we needed to be so careful with our water as we did not have access to municipal water and were entirely reliant upon our borehole.  Imagine my dismay when one Sunday morning in early September 2005, I turned on the tap in the kitchen and no water ran out...our borehole had dried up and we didn't know.  We had to cart water in 25 litre drums for 5 months before the rains came and our borehole was filled again.  Thank goodness one of our neighbours who has a much deeper borehole than us, and my brother who lived in the city, were willing to share their water with us.  Every weekend we would go to one or other of them and fill 10 drums with water which we used through the week.  It was for dishes and laundry, bathing and cooking.  I remember we bathed in the absolute minimum bit of water which was awful considering that I love to wallow...lol  Ever since then we have been very frugal with our water usage because that first year here is never far from the back of our minds.

So for now we enjoy every droplet of rain and relish in the dampness of the ground and as much as it may pain us to have extra work to do, we feel blessed and happy to be in the situation that we are right now...