So the summer is over and I am pleased to say that the tasks that I set myself for the New Year are underway or have been done.  Much crafting has taken place, but more on that later.

More important has been the gardening that I started in January.  Up and out each morning for a couple of hours’ work, mostly weeding and mulching, before the temperature started to soar.  By mid morning it was just too hot to keep going.  Temperatures in the mid to high 30’s have been pretty constant, with some days topping 40 degrees Celsius.  Not much fun when the pool is too hot to swim in and it takes several minutes before the water coming out of the hose is cool enough not to burn.

I have gone from gardening for pleasure to gardening for survival – survival of the plants.  One of our two water tanks is empty which we use for watering the gardens.  Lucky we have town water and not reliant on them for supplying water to the house but it has made it difficult to keep the water up to the trees and shrubs.

We’ve hardly had any rain this year and each day we have our hopes up, only to be disappointed when we see another cloudless sky.

This is one of our poor, sad looking orange trees.  I am watering them when I can but unfortunately citrus like lots. The rest look about the same with their leaves curled up.  Citrus is not a good choice for this region, but as they were already here when we moved in I have been trying to look after them as best I can.  Our grass (I could not even loosely describe it as lawn) is so dry it crunches underfoot.  However the frangipanis, petunias and most of the other plants are surviving.

We are supposed to get rain today and it is looking very overcast  Is that thunder I hear in the distance?  I hope so.