This time last year...

So it turns out that this time last year we had just put the offer in on the farm, and to our surprise it was accepted. 'And so began two months of hell', Rohan commented, and sure the legal negotiations in buying this place almost made me lose the will to live, but sitting out the back as Rohan bbq's dinner and the birds flitter through the trees, the legal wrangling is a distant memory. They say time flies when you're having fun, and so it is, as I can't believe that it's a year since we decided to throw caution to the wind and buy. Looking about the farm now it seems so different than when we first looked through it. With the boxed in back verandah, carport and shedding gone, everything is so much lighter and open. The trees in the orchard are lush with foliage, the compost and water we've been feeding them soaked up by the roots. Our garden veggie boxes are blooming and every night I pick fresh lettuce and radishes for our salad. 

This week though I've been thinking, not of the past, but of the future. Rohan's herniated two discs in his back, an injury that has left him barely able to stand and walk at times. With the number one farm hand out of action, I've had to take over all the upkeep on the farm, and that's got me to thinking - if it turned out that I had to take over number one farm hand job from now on would I be able to? 

I'd read an article in the age that morning where a well known comedian celebrated the fact that as an older woman (although I'm not convinced she's 40 yet, but she was badging herself as older), she no longer worries about her body. This week I've been worrying about mine, not if it's skinny or fat, but if I've got the muscles I need to hoist a sheep over my shoulder (sure it's not highly likely that I'm going to need to do that any time soon but one never knows). I'm pocket sized in height and I'm really not sporting the kind of muscles Linda Hamilton was rocking in Terminator. 

So this weekend as spring continued to make everything bloom and grow, I was determined that I was going to be able to do all the weekend farm jobs solo, just to prove to myself that I could. And I did. I moved some fence panels, I did my usual 4 hours on the mower getting the grove into its park like condition, I spent another 3.5 hours slashing the grass and edges with the line trimmer, I dug a hole to plant a Logan berry, I moved the worm farm and did some other stuff. Sure, most of what I did this weekend was like your average back yard garden work but on steroids, but it was good to kick start me into my summer farm fit mode. We'd been talking about how winter on the farm lulls you and your body into a relaxed ease, with the rain and days of grey cloud there is little growth and the ongoing maintenance of the property drops away somewhat. Muscles slacken and you spend more time inside in front of the fire. With the advent of warmer weather and the springing to life of everything, the farm demands new attention and your body has to respond. Arm and back muscles ache at the end of the day as the muscles that were slacken begin to work again. It's a great feeling, and I'm confident that soon I'll be out in the paddock hoisting sheep just for the hell of it. 

And who would have imagined I'd be saying that this time last year?

Grouping our history together.

After a couple of days in Melbourne for work I headed home so that I could attend the local community history group with Rohan and Dave on Wednesday night. We’d  received a handwritten flyer in our mailbox telling us about the group and this was followed up by a phone from one of our neighbours. With my interest in local history, there was no way I was missing this meeting!  As we drove to the hall, I muttered 'shit. I don't have a plate'. Surely in the style of all country events, we (ie. women) will be meant to take a plate for supper. Looks like I'll be taking an inadvertent stand against country gender roles tonight. So without a plate I walk in with only my work business cards to offer. They seem excited about those though, with someone exclaiming 'oh you're an expert' when they see I'm a dr. This is the grand misconception. Really, the more 'educated' I become the more I realise that the knowledge I have would fill about one grain of sand in the universe of all that is known and unknown. Still my lack of a plate doesn't seem too obvious as there is food galore on the table, although who knows? Maybe they’re talking about me and my lack of a plate in hushed tones somewhere.

There's something about the laconic Australian humour that I love. I think it's the self-deprecating (not to be confused with self-defecating) element, the willingness to take the mickey out of yourself, and then of others. At its extreme it can be misogynistic, jingoistic, homophobic and racist, but in a kinder, gentler form it enables the breaking down of barriers rather than the creation of them. It's this kind of humour that is on display when the group is talking about its catering adventures to raise money. This is no taco truck parked on the streets of Fitzroy we're talking about here, but a country style BBQ. You might think they'd grab snags anywhere for catering but they buy them at a local butcher whose meat is so well regarded it would make a latte sipping, beard wearing inner city hipster weep with delight upon hearing of the meat’s provenance. If the history group's catering was in Melbourne they'd have the butchers name scrawled on a chalkboard, people would be sitting eating on artfully arranged milk crates, hay bales or pallets and drinking milk 'fresh from the source' out of repurposed jam jars. Damn you Melbourne, you superficial hipster minx.

The group talks about the places they have already gone to seek funding and wanting to contribute I volunteer to make contact with another organisation when they ask for someone to do it. If this is my community I may as well throw myself right in. People talk of moving into country towns as a long period of always being the newcomer. While we might be regarded as the newcomers, our willingness to turn up to the history night means that we feel welcomed and drawn into the community. People seem thrilled when we say how much we are loving life on the farm, and our neighbours offer tips and helpful advice. Perhaps our willingness to admit that we know nothing also helps! As we went around talking to people I was reminded of the way history flows into the present in the way people talk about the local area. No-one lives in a specific house or road number, they live on the ‘old …..(insert family name from generations ago) farm’ or like us, they live ‘down the lane’. There is a shared past among people where they can make these connections and they know which farm this is in reference too and which lane it is. 

The meeting is a rambly, ramshackle affair, interspersed with laughter and finished with cups of tea and Rohan and Dave munching on the treats from the table. There are times it reminds me of the little community meetings in the Vicar of Dibley and in each of the people there I’m sure there lies a novel! It seems everyone round here lives to a ripe old age, with some having parents who are still alive at the age of 102! It must be all this fresh air and clean water. I bet they’ve never eaten kale and don’t follow the paleo diet either. Take that hipsters. (Look I’m really not anti-hipster, I’ve just got a bee in my bonnet about it having had coffee in Melbourne while sitting on a pile of phone books in a place that looked like it was straight out of a Portlandia skit). The next night we get a phone call to let us know that one of the first funding applications has come through – the avenue of honour is going to be well underway with that cash!

So now, having made some connections we are beginning to feel like we have a place in which we will be drawn into the web of country life. You know what? It’s a lovely feeling – like coming home.