I spent most of the day in the main homestead garden yesterday fertilising the lawn and watching the spray planes spray our surrounding wheat and barley for rust. It’s a nasty fungus caused by wet weather and low temperatures and literally coats the leaves in flecks of red dust eventually stopping the leaves from coverting sunlight to food. Rust damaged leaves cause the grain heads to stop filling which results in a reduced yeild. I love watching the pilots do their tight turns. The silver wings dipping into the setting sun-the station office manager in me complains about the cost of course! My parents large garden suffered substantially during the drought. About 14 established trees died so a couple of years ago we bull dozed them and bought the back fence in about 25 metres. The rear of the garden hasn’t been the same since. It takes many years for trees to be come established especially in marginal areas. Still the lawn looks wonderfully green, the new Kelpie Tess is rolling happily in the wet grass and the birds are twittering.