Holes for the Poles

There’s fifteen millimetres of rain in the gauge tonight after twenty seven fell last night, most of it in a big electrical storm that boomed and lit up the sky. Somehow Emma managed to sleep right through it, waking later when the sky was clear but still being illuminated almost constantly by distant sheet lightning. Whenever it rains like that I imagine it coming down in the forest up the valley in the national parks, how the forest soaks it up, dark and wet, how the rainforest and rivers are replenished. And I contrast it with the paddocks that we humans have cleared and in which we live – wide expanses, little vegetation, mud.


I was supposed to head off at eight this morning to go and help some friends with a verandah but it was still raining so I got to laze around for a change, battling valiantly against gravity from the couch. The call did come through eventually so I headed off, excited to be exploring a part of the valley I haven’t seen before, Magic Mountain. I’m not sure what part is the magic part but for me it was the sheds - knocked together with recycled material, keeping big stacks of timber dry. Dirt floor and lots of building tools. Having spent so much of the last eighteen months building the Dairy I love checking out other people’s projects and how they go about it, the materials they use.

It was also nice to have a look around at their garden, seeing what is growing and the solutions they’ve come up with to the same problems we have – birds, grass, water. Their veggie garden is netted, something I think we’ll do at some stage, and I loved the use of bamboo poles for props – cheap, easy, available – challenging my kneejerk thoughts that instantly head toward big timbers.


Not long after I got home Jim turned up with the little excavator we are borrowing from a friend to dig holes for the poles for our new orchard. Very exciting.