The Rain in Central Vic falls mainly on the Plain!

It feels like it hasn't stopped raining for weeks! This is how winter used to be! When friends shiver and grumble about how cold it is, I shrug my shoulders and say "It's winter! What did you expect". And they all work inside. I have so many layers on when I work outside I can barely bend over to pick up something! We had 70mm in June and then 40mm in July. Then the rain started in earnest and so far in August we've had nearly 100mm. The rain has obviously fallen statewide as the government has just announced the relaxing of water restrictions. We are now back to Stage 2 restrictions last seen in 2003. This means you can hand water your garden when you want and wash your car. You still can't water lawns; although a 28 day exemption allows you to establish a lawn of warm season grasses. This means couch, kikuyu or soft leaf buffalo. I am seriously thinking of poisoning my (mostly dead) lawn of cool season grasses and replacing it with a warm season lawn. This would also mean installing a barrier between the lawn and the garden beds as warm season grasses are all running grasses. Rats, more work.
Warm season grasses require less water to stay alive during summer although they turn brown in winter. I don't care - I'm not in my garden much during winter. We have the dam to supply water to the lawn during summer and I'm hopeful that a watering every 2-3 weeks might just suffice. Our lawn is on the north side of the house and as well as sequestering carbon it will keep down the dust and act as a firebreak in the event of a bushfire. I've got to try this as we are sick of the dusty expanse every summer. I have contemplated synthetic lawn but I think my horticultural colleagues would never talk to me again. If you want to read about the pros and cons of real lawn versus fake lawn read this http://www.sgaonline.org.au/?p=678