5 minutes of heavy rain.

today, after a hot and humid morning, koel birds were calling their plaintiff sounds, king parrots were confronting intruders, a frog croaked, I thought ,

in desperation.

Then a thunderstorm dumped 5 minutes of heavy rain. Early afternoon.

I sat on the verandah, thought of the haiku, each rain drop equals a grain of rice, these rain drops equal a corn cob, they were so large.

I went out, cleared my gutters and then came back to watch the spiral of steam to my north as smoldering areas were being doused. steam which yesterday was smoke.

4 weeks of being alert………one big mistake I made was when the spot fires crept closer to the hen house, I topped what I thought was the water tank on the fire pump. Instead I topped the fuel tank up with water. Admittedly it was one in the morning and I hadn’t slept.

Good lesson though. I studied the pumps manual, drained the fuel tank out and learnt what was what on the pump. The man I talked to from where the pump was purchased told me it often happens with novices.