Bloody Rain!

Bloody hot weather - what he wouldn’t give for a few days of steady rain!

He removed his battered old hat and mopped his sweaty forehead, glancing hopefully up at the pristine blue sky for perhaps the hundredth time that day. The big, water-laden clouds with their flat black bellies were a distant memory. Each day was a day closer to rain though, so he dragged a few more logs from the dried, cracked remnants of his “drought proof” dam and turned the tractor off. There were more logs and fallen trees yet, so he started the tractor again and drove back out onto the hard mud-pan, hitched up another big tree-butt only to have the tractor motor die as it ran out of fuel.

Bloody tractor!

He’d been going to fix the hole in the fuel tank for ages but there were always other things that needed doing first. He should refuel and finish the job, but the heat sapped his strength and he was exhausted. There was always tomorrow. He’d finish clearing the logs and burn them tomorrow. At least there wouldn’t be any bushfires – bit hard with no grass left to burn. Even the dried up stalks were gone, scattered by the dust-devils that danced mockingly in the hot breezes.

He knew outback life was hard, but this was ridiculous. How could any man choose to live in a land that even God had abandoned?

Maybe tomorrow it might rain!

Not today though! Not today – again!

Sometime during the night a gentle pitter-patter started on the tin roof. Because the possums used the roof as a nightly battle ground, he wore ear-plugs to sleep and so he slumbered on as the rain grew steadily heavier, only waking with a startled shout when his excited dog landed on his stomach.

The noise on the roof was deafening. He pushed the dog onto the floor and ran outside – bad idea! The fine dust on the verandah had turned to silty sludge and his bare feet had no purchase so when Blue ran through his legs, his feet went from under him, depositing him over the edge into a wet muddy pool that had once been the vegetable garden. His excited dog leaped ecstatically on him expecting their usual wrestling games. The combination of cold, muddy dog on his bare chest and warm, wet, slobbery tongue slurping up his cheek drove the last remnants of lethargy from his body.

Bloody Dog – should have trained the mongrel when he first got him!

His thoughts suddenly flew to his tractor, in particular, where he had left it parked – out of petrol on the baked-mud bottom of his dam. He scrambled into jeans and boots and ran for his old ute to go rescue the tractor, only to find said tractor already axle deep in rapidly rising water. He quickly poured in some petrol and started the motor only to have the wheels spin helplessly in the thick cloying mud – going nowhere. He waded back to the ute and watched in frustration as the water rose steadily up the wheels until the engine choked and died. He’d get his neighbour to bring over his big John Deere later to tow it out.

Useless bloody tractor – should have fixed the tank when he first found the hole!

Other thoughts intruded. He needed to get his irrigation pump off the creek bank to higher ground; something he’d been planning to do for months. He needed to fix the clutch and brakes on the ute too, but that would have to wait. There were more pressing things to do right now. The irrigation pump was fairly new and, while it was protected from above by a small shed, it was too close to the edge of the creek for his liking. The old ute slipped and bounced over the muddy ground to the creek. He could hear the roar of the water but the shed was still there although taking a battering from the fiercely rushing water. As he watched in the half-light of the new day, a tree trunk caromed into the side of the shed, ripping it apart.

Bloody shed – now he’d have to build another one!

Quickly he spun the ute around and backed up closer to the bank to secure the pump and drag it further away from the water. He felt the bald old tyres start to slide so hit the brakes but too late to do any good. The ute slid slowly backwards in the mud towards the edge of the water. He tried desperately to accelerate forwards, but the bald tyres had no traction on the slick wet ground and the ute slid inexorably towards the water, halted only when it nudged up against the pump where it balanced precariously as the water surged against the back wheels.

He climbed carefully out and scrambled up the bank only to see his pump almost submerged and the repair bill climbing.

Bloody ute – should have fixed it when he first bought the parts!

With nothing he could do to alleviate the situation, he and Blue walked home through the pounding rain, chilled to the bone and cursing the blisters forming on his bare feet inside his mud-caked boots. Inside, he warmed up his exhausted body with a hot shower and decided to finish out his night’s sleep, only to find that the loose tin he’d been meaning to fix on the roof had let in the rain and a steady trickle had completely soaked the middle of his mattress.

Bloody rain - what he wouldn’t give for a day of warm sparkling sunshine!