Rain!

It is 5.30 pm and it has just stopped raining. It has pretty much rained all day from 9.00 am, steady rain. The rain gauge shows there has been 18 mm. If only we had some tanks to collect the rainwater off the roof. We would have filled them today. I kept going to see if the dam was slowly filling up. I had stuck a stick in the mud at the waters edge this morning but it does not look as if it has risen at all.It was awful to see so much precious water going to waste. Because the wall at the front of the house had sunk the angle of the corrugated iron roof was more shallow and the run off was curling under the edge of the corrugated iron, dripping and missing the gutter completely. Quite a pool of water was gathering under the verandah at the front. I discovered that if I laid small sticks in the valleys of the corrugated iron over the gutter it stopped the water from curling under and missing the gutter altogether. The pool dried up and the water ran along the gutter and into the pit at the end which drains into the dam. But still the dam did not seem to rise.When we had initially seen how cloudy it was we had decided that today we would clear the rest of the cassinia from the 'chook' pens but with the rain we decided to stay in. There was only one big job left to do in the house...'The Pit of Despair!'Will made a start on it.  There was not much I could do as it was up to him to decide what to keep and what to throw away. I would have whizzed the lot! I removed all the cd's, books and magazines from one cupboard, wiped it down and then we moved it into another corner and I put most of it back, leaving a pile of stuff for Will to sort through. I sorted the magazines before putting them back. There were gardening magazines, poultry magazines (!), permaculture magazines and  some called Grass Roots with interesting titles like "Making Money from Muesli". They all looked very old.On one of may wanders out to check the dam I spotted a white necked heron flying up away from the waters edge.

There was no sign of the snake today....perhaps the heron ate it.

(It was strangely quiet in the night...we did not hear any frogs...I hope the heron and the snake have not eaten them all...I could not see any of the turtles today either.)

Back in the house Will was sorting all the clothes hung up under the loft bed. It was a slow process as he kept on modelling some of the more wacky ones...things people had left after dress up parties at the house in the past. He cried out at one point as a mouse scuttled out from somewhere giving him a shock. We know a song about that....

"I saw a mouse, where?

'The pit of despair'

Where in 'despair?'

Right there!

A little mouse with togs on,

Well, I declare

Going scuttling off in the pit of despair

Oh yeah."

While sorting through all the stuff Will found this lovely picture of his Mum and Dad...

It was all cleared and swept out by about 6.00 pm.

The plan is to lower the loft bed to a more normal level. There is no way that I can sleep up there as it is just a few inches below the ceiling!

Into The Pit of Despair.