Awhi farm : Rain

Awhi farm is built on a Reconditioned industrial site so the whole area is very level, hard packed dirt, with a stony layer lying centimetres below much of the surface.

Despite the small river and the odd lengths of drainage channel that run through it, lots of water pools about when it rains.

After three days my hiking boots were sodden and my feet were wet pretty much all of the time.

I found some gumboots up at the neighbouring squash club. That is where we go for showers, or to participate in the Perma-culture coarse that the trustees have offered to us 'long termers'.

We were sitting around at breakfast discussing the change in the weather. The German girl said that it was a result of ua 'not finishing our meal the night before'.

What was funny, was that no one at the table knew what she was talking about, and no one said anything. We had finished our meals the night before, and gone back for seconds, so what the hell was she talking about?

And it struck me that everyone sitting at the table was just blindly accepting her statement without understanding it, She could have announced that she was going to whip out a blade and carve her initials into each chest around the table, and would have got the same response of total benign acceptance.

So I asked her 'what the heck' she was talking about?

All attention was focused on the girl, who explained that one of her grandmothers 'sayings' was that the rain was brought on by a child not having finished their meal. Probably as a way of getting children to clean their plates.

Her reaction was hilarious when she realised that her comment had rolled over us with total acceptance, and that we hadn't understood what she was talking about.