where we are living now.

In fact, over winter, it rained almost every day.  It was amazing.  With each drop I smiled for us, but in the back of my mind was knowing that thousands of farmers were still looking, waiting and praying for rain.

I know in some areas the season started out great, those opening rains falling, giving the earth back the much needed moisture.  Blokes out there, happily going round and round for hours on end.  I know my husband was feeling the pull, missing that solitude, that endless driving, the love of open space.  He didn’t say much, but I know.

He misses having all that land to call his own, what we have now is ‘just a pocket full’.  Those thousands  of sheep, the dust, the constant work.  No weekends, no holidays – just work…and yes he misses it.  He misses being his own boss, the feeling of satisfaction when completing a job, finishing the shearing, the end of seeding.

The tractors, his ‘toys’, we still have the two not sold at the clearing sale.  They sit and wait for a new owner.  The calls don’t come though, Australia is scared, farmers are scared.  Why buy machinery when the rain might not come back?

It may have rained where we are now, but the rest of the country still suffers.  Those crops, sown with the opening rains got some good follow up rain, but then it stopped.  Now the weather is too warm in some parts for this time of the year.  The crops are thirsty, the hotter weather knocks them around, they suffer…and so do the farmers.