The view from the dining area

If I lift my gaze above the computer screen, past the large window frame, through the glass and fly screen I can see the lower limbs of the massive gum trees whose tops cannot be seen except for the ones on the far edge of the neighbor's top paddock. Tiny clusters of yellowish gum nuts and the remnants of the drying flowers are what attracts the myriads of parrots at this time of year.

Hardly a leaf moves. It's very warm and dry. We didn't get the deluge or the hailstones which devastated much of the northern areas of Victoria last week with some regions getting 130 mm in one day. Our rain gague sipped only 35 mm over a 3 day period. No more, no less. Oh, that was enough to dust off the leaves and break up the soil a bit so we could do some gardening. But otherwise, the dam is "damn-low". The two 5,000 gallon tanks which supply water to our house were overflowing when it rained, but that's because we have a large roof line.

I really needed that luxury time in the bath tub after planting three young clivias on the south side of the house, then digging a 10 meter edging strip between the grass and ground cover and extending the footpath under the deck stairs by 2 precast concrete squares. My mind still thinks I'm 35 when I'm really .... oh you didn't think I'd be that silly? Every muscle ached. Then I recall my friend's favorite expression: "If you wake up in the morning, and nothing hurts..... you're dead."

Ninety degrees to my right are the three "almost" floor to ceiling windows which make up the 6 meters of the west wall of the dining area. Past the deck and glass balustrad, one story off the ground, stretches the garden surrounding our dam and below that the lower paddock where Omar grazes blissfully. It took me 6 hours on my ride on mower to cut the grass the other day. Sort of like a meditative motion up and down the slope or across the less steep areas, smelling the freshness of a bit of new grass and sneezing now and then on the dry seeds and dust.

On the farthest horizon, past the southwest edge of the Mornington Peninsula, past Bass Straight, slightly obscured by sea haze and white clouds is the length of "The Great Ocean Road" all the way to the tip of Cape Ottway.

How a Manhattan girl and a boy from Germany ever ended up on this bit of paradise is a whole other story.