Hot, hot, so very hot. On days like this I spend a lot of time trudging through paddocks, bare feet burning in my rubber boots, checking on water bowls and troughs and plants and animals. By the time I have finished my rounds, it is almost time to start the next.
I criss cross the whole back of the farm, opening gates into every paddock to give the cows and sheep lots of options when it comes to breezes, shade and water. They will make good use of this freedom – just as they will wear a path along the easiest and most direct route around a hill, they will reliably gravitate to the cooler spots, and shift with the sun and the wind as the day unfolds.
The pigs are buried to their ears in mud, and I doubt they will surface until the evening. But the chooks and the turkeys are suffering – it’s hot under those feathers, and I let them out of their yard so they can scratch themselves a cool dustbath under the oak tree. Later, I’ll dunk the older girls in buckets of water, and hose the rest, to drop their core temperatures a little before they huddle together at roosting time, the most dangerous time for poultry during these heat waves.
I stop, catching a glint in the sun. A tiger snake glides across the track just ahead, on his way somewhere, the dam probably, not in the slightest bit interested in me and my hot feet, endured on his account. They are everywhere this year; I’ve seen twice as many than ever before. Bumping into people at the shops or the pool, everyone has a snake story they are busting to tell.
By the end of the week the green tinge in the grass will have faded, the hay will be in, marking the shift in the season, and the road to autumn begins.