Falling for green

In almost the blink of an eyelid green is returning to the farm. After what seemed like almost endless days and nights of hot weather, the last couple of weeks have seen us waking up every day to the mountain shrouded in fog. Dew falls lightly from the branches of the pine trees, sprinkling my shoulders as I duck under them to take Indy out into the paddocks.

And then one Wednesday night, it arrived. Rain. Not just a light shower, but proper, tumbling down rain. Rain that you could hear tapping on the laserlight of the verandah and which pooled in hollows in the driveway. I woke up that Thursday morning and sat at the kitchen table, clutching a mug of steaming tea and gazed out at the endless grey, as the rain continued to fall. I don't think I can recall a time I've felt so happy to see the grey. Normally I complain about it and long for patches of blue sky, but I think there's been too much blue sky this summer and so it was wonderful to see some rain.

Within days, it seemed as if the farm was swooning, head over heels in love with the rain, the dew, the colder nighttime temperatures that allowed droplets of water to rest and soak into the ground. Between the olives where only weeks ago it was dry, cracked and brown; patches of green are emerging. In the orchard, fruit trees that were tired, lifeless and wilting under the heat, begin to come back to life, their leaves swollen and on the citrus trees, tiny buds appear. In these moments I begin to see the rhythm of life on the farm. The Indian summer which has stretched out and dried everything begins to fade away and the land breathes a sigh of relief as moisture starts to creep back in.

We grow accustomed to waking up with the trees and mountain shrouded in fog. Already it doesn't lift until after 10 some mornings and we begin to get a sense of what winter will be like - I'm beginning to think that by the middle of winter I'll be yearning for sun - but not yet. Out in the paddocks after the rain, I use my gumboots to dig under the surface and the ground is morphing, becoming a rich, velvety chocolate rather than a dry, dusty brown.

I begin to dream of woollen blankets, coats, scarves, gloves. On top of the fire in the kitchen lie a pair of fingerless gloves, with interchangeable mitten tops that I bought at a market. I bought them on a day when it was nearly 30, when the idea of wearing mittens seemed laughable. Now, I look at them and know it won't be long till I'll be dragging them on before I head out for my morning walk in the grove.

With the arrival of cooler weather and the return of green, comes a new list of work to be done. The mower which has lay idle since the great mowing incident (hmmm I don't think I ever wrote about that on here did I? I'll get to it one day), will need to be dragged out again and once again my weekends will consist of the meditative pleasure of mowing up and down the rows in the grove, backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards. As the trees spring back into life I need to give them some care and attention and to the side of the house a whole mini vineyard has emerged - tiny grape plants pop up out of the soil in neat, symmetrical rows suggesting that at some point they were organised, and tended to with love and care. We begin planning for their growth, the emergence of another secret from Innisfree, and a new lot of learning to be done.

In the meantime, we like the farm, are falling in love with this new season that is upon us. I stare out the windows watching the parakeets and rosellas picking at seed on the makeshift bird feeder and smile as I look beyond them to the rows of green.