good day of hard work

We decided to go and pick up the enormous olive tree trunks that had been cut down earlier this year, in our neighbour's abandoned farm.  The neighbour had told us we could take them.  But boy were they heavy!  And down a steep slope covered in long silky grass with purlple seed heads.  So R brought the chainsaw to trim them and then we lugged them up to the car and let them hang out the back.  I sat on the biggest one as ballast, to stop it tipping out the back.  Phew!  They were almost too heavy, but we did it.  They will be wonderful as beams and other things.  Olive wood is lovely to carve.
After that I felt a little drained of energy so I went down to the vege garden and dribbled water out of 5 l water bottles onto some thirsty brocoli plants.  This dry winter and spring is hard on the plants, and hard on a gardener.  I hate to watch the plants and know that they could be so much better... if we had water.  Still, we will be getting mains water soon, not that I plan on using a lot of it for watering.  We are going to wait for next November's rain, and meanwhile build swales and water collection tanks.
Later, I levelled off the ground under a huge old fig tree that had been completely covered in brambles, but now is bare.  I hardly had the strength, but I really wanted to pitch my tent in the dappled shade of the old elephant branches, which have baby fig leaves tufting out the branch tips.  And then I crawled in and slept to the sound of the huge eucalyptus trees roaring in the breeze.  Sounds like the ocean.

Finally, after sharing a thermos of tea, we worked together, R brushcutting and me raking on the steep slope in the evening light.  Swallows swooping, lambs calling, lizards flitting.  A good day.