On The Farm

by Kay Heaton

When Tracey was 3 and Michael 2 we went to live on 7 acres. One boundary was a river. Another ran along gentle slopes which climbed to hills and belonged to a sheep farmer. Our water supply was a spring which ran clear, cold and pure from these hills and to which we owned access and water rights. And we had a stretch of road frontage.

Apart from the old 4 bedroomed house we lived in there was a cottage, the shell of the original house which was sound but had no amenities, and a very large shed with concrete floors and huge hardwood timber beams that had been built as a cheese factory in 1906. The soil was good; the weather was quite often atrocious. Our mortgage was $70 a month and our rates were $29 a year. Our aim was practical ‘self-sufficiency’ and although we did not achieve our goal completely, we didn’t do too badly and enjoyed five years of a great ‘learning experience’.

We moved in on a Saturday. A friend brought our furniture and appliances on a small truck. We came in a Bedford van with the children, two cats, a dog, a budgie and every available square inch utilised. We had prescriptions from the vet to keep the animals calm but the medication had a startling reaction on Rusty the ginger cat. He yowled, peed on Tracey and the budgie and staggered around cross eyed for the whole of the three hour trip. (Increased medication increased the effect). We also towed a heavily laden trailer. In retrospect we were quite irresponsible but at the time not worried. You didn’t even have to wear seat belts then.

When we arrived, there were about 300 people and a 100 vehicles on our property. This was unexpected. The previous owners were having an auction sale of all their goods, chattels and livestock. The latter was about 2000 chickens which were still in our shed. There was also at least 50 tonne of chicken manure. We were a bit stressed by this after the trip but the children enjoyed themselves, our pets were still doped and so we waited it out. We met all our neighbours in one hit and for weeks afterwards people came and collected this and that. And we ended up with 20 uncollected laying hens.

We started getting down to things straight away.

We were lucky that the previous owners had, at one time, free ranged pullets; the property was well fenced both on the perimeter and with some internal dividing fences, much of it in high chicken wire.

Our home was towards the back corner of the land and our first job was to fence off about half an acre around it to keep livestock from our intended flower and vegetable garden. Our neighbour Rod ploughed half of this area for us - it would have taken us days by hand - and we forked it over and fertilised it: we had plenty of great fertiliser. Rod, Nancy his wife, his parents and son were our only close neighbours and had introduced themselves on our arrival. They were a reserved family but approachable and were always willing to advise us.

In retrospect, they probably watched us closely those first few week wondering with some trepidation if we would be a problem. Straight from the city with dog, cats and children we could well have been disruptive. I don’t believe we caused him any alarm; in fact an incident occurred in those first few weeks where he should have listened to us.

Although their main source of income was sheep they also ran a small herd of breeding cows. When we moved in, there was a Hereford bull and a Polled Angus bull in the paddock immediately alongside our house. One morning we observed the two bulls sparring so we telephoned Rod and informed him. "No worries" he said, "They’ve always been together." About 30 minutes later the Hereford whammed into the Angus, knocking him down the hill. The fall killed him.

We planted out potatoes and well, every variety of vegetable you can think of, in our prepared plot. It was early Summer and a perfect time to plant. The Winters, we knew, were bleak and frosty, so our years supply had to be grown in Spring and Summer. In following years we planted in October, but had to keep all frost tender plants covered at night until Christmas; a tiresome and time consuming chore but necessary as there was an often an odd very late frost. We were sometimes over cautious, but when you could run out of time for a second planting it was always "better to be safe than sorry".

We bought a rotary hoe; a great asset if you could get it to start. As often, or maybe more often than not you couldn’t. So we decided we didn’t really need it anyway and put it in an auction sale some time after. It sold easily and we even made a few dollars profit. After the auction an occasional customer of David’s asked him to help lift some machinery he had bought onto his truck. Yes, it was the rotary hoe. Fortunately Tracey was otherwise occupied. With her innocence and incessant chatting he would have soon discovered from whence the hoe came. As he returned as a customer we presumed that he never found out or managed to make it run better; but we couldn’t ask.

We bought 10 ewes in lamb. This was very exciting. We took lots of photos of them. Rod gave us a ram whom we named ‘Ugly’ because he was - very.

We bought a cow in calf and named her Deborah. The surviving Hereford bull "Rollo" broke down one of our fences once a year - depending on which paddock he was in - and visited Deborah. Her first calf was an Angus but the rest were all Herefords.

We bought two piglets and named them Victoria and Sarah. The idea was to bring them up as pets and to breed them too.

It didn’t work. Victoria was a bad tempered, mean and entirely unfriendly sow and so we ate her (the biggest pork chops you ever saw). Sarah on the other hand was a super pig. She loved us all to pieces. She frisked and frolicked and played with the children and grew quickly. We made her a pen by the old house and she had the verandah as her "house" But she wanted to be with us all the time. So she knocked the pen down and sat on our doorstep. If you scratched her belly she’d lie down and close her eyes in ecstasy and we could persuade her back to her pen.. We made the pen higher and stronger with corrugated iron. No trouble to Sarah when she grew a bit more. There she was on the doorstep again.. So we had a ring put in her nose to stop her demolishing fences and digging up the garden. This worked for a while. To lead her we held the ring and she walked backwards where we directed her. She grew into an immense pig, and became really too big to play with. And much too big for the front doorstep.

She was literally a huge problem. We were lucky. One of our neighbours was a pig farmer and he came and looked at Sarah. Fortunately for her she was an ideal breeding pig and he took her to join his pigs. It took a day or two for her to accept being a pig but she settled down. In return Vic gave us two piglets every six months for two years. These were locked in the lounge of the old house with verandah access. The verandah was sealed off. The piglets were not named. I really love pigs. They all have individual characters and really enjoy themselves. They are a little difficult to handle having no hair, wool or even necks for collars to grab. The secret is not to let them grow too big.

The first Summer was long and warm and our vegetable crop was abundant. I picked and froze 50 pounds of beans. We had planted peas over several weeks and so harvested them over several weeks and we all podded at night; even the children helped - and did very well too. These peas (eventually around 50 pounds) plus corn, rhubarb, cauliflower and broccoli were also frozen. Tomatoes were both frozen, bottled and combined with a variety of other ingredients in pickles. We bought a 25 cubic foot freezer - which ultimately filled. The shed had a large walk-in freezer and a small cold room left over from it’s cheese factory days. The shed freezer was used for something else which I will explain later. We used the cold room for the onions, potatoes and pumpkin. Carrots and parsnips we left in the ground; they kept very well there over Winter and Spring. After harvest, the chooks were free-ranged in the vegetable garden; great for them and they did a good clean-up job for us. As a treat for ‘the girls’ I sometimes broke open old decaying logs that were by the garden fence. They had a wonderful time devouring the ‘witchetty grubs’ On one occasion a gargantuan hairy spider leapt out from a crevice. The hens departed, airborne, white blurs in all directions leaving the spider looking at me straight in the eye. Apologising for disturbing him/her I retreated, at a sedate pace of course.

We never used, nor had need to use, any chemicals or artificial fertilisers (though Rod top dressed his pastures with, I think, lime once a year and we always got some drift). We had tonnes of natural fertiliser and compost on hand and healthy vigorous plants are not worried by the minor nibbles of insects; and we had cold Winters.

We also grew herbs in the flower garden. Some of these I dried but soft leaved ones like basil I picked at their best and froze in air tight plastic bags.

Once when picking basil, I noticed a black insect with red and iridescent purple markings was feeding on it’s flowers. Was it a beetle or a bee ? It looked like a beetle but hovered and "buzzed" like a bee. I watched to see if it would settle so that I could get a better look at it. It stopped - dead. A small, white spider camouflaged among the white petals had killed it - instantaneously. (Which goes to show; no matter who you are or how hard you work you can never tell what’s just round the corner.) And by the way, it was a beetle.

During the Winter, our 10 ewes delivered 11 lambs without any drama; (the following year all but one ewe had twins) there were seven males and four little ewes. We kept the ewes.. The very last lambing we experienced problems and I had to assist in the delivery of 4 lots of lambs, all at night in freezing driving rain; the first 3 OK though my knees literally knocked during the ordeals, the last, we had to call in help but even so mum and babe didn’t make it. Not my fault I was assured but I felt like it had been.

We bought an Elastrator to dock tails and fix the males. We were not very proficient at this first session. If lambs squealed like piglets we would have never got past the first male. The tails were no problem but the other was a trial. As much for them as us I confess. But we did it. If you don’t do it the meat has a distinct ‘gamey’ odour to it. We know; we missed one in that first lot.

So eventually seven lambs went into the freezer and seven lambskins were cured. All the relatives got lambskin moccasins the first year. The second year they got rugs. After that we got credit for the skins when we sent them away. After nearly 20 years there are still 3 lambskins in use.

When we first arrived David had got a job in the nearest town some 32 kilometres away. We saved hard; he bought a welder and a gas set, a drill press and a grinder, a chain block and a pipe bender and set up a workshop in the shed. Then I worked in a factory in the town, wiring car electricals and lights (Mazdas) for 4 months until he was ‘established’. It was a grim job. The only way of getting to and from work was by accepting a lift. The driver was a maniac; the car was a Mustang. But I’m here to tell the tale.

The shed had three phase power, water and a phone extension. It was ideal.

There were two local carrying companies which he did maintenance work for plus the local farmers came to us for gates, pens, bridges and repairs. We didn’t earn a fortune but we didn’t need very much.

In our spare time from engineering, gardening and animal care, we worked around the house. One job was painting the large kitchen. There was a plenitude of fitted cupboards and drawers; every one painted a different colour including yellow, purples, reds, orange, puce, several shades of green and one grey. The walls were rose pink. One corner was boxed off as a step-up walk-in larder. As it wasn’t necessary and without it we would be able to fit in the large deep freeze we decided to demolish the larder before painting. The first inside wall we removed revealed a shower head. The next wall revealed taps. And Tracey got a dousing of cold water for being the most inquisitive. A fairly simple job turned out to be quite a task and included sledge hammering out a large slab of concrete to below floor line and replacing floorboards; planing down wall timber as the wall behind the shower was further forward than the rest of the kitchen (not detectable prior to demolishing) sealing pipes and replacing wall boards. The painting was easy by comparison and a delight as all those dreadful colours disappeared under ‘stone’ white walls and ‘acorn’ trim.

Another painting job was the shed roof. It was very steep and David, who has no head for heights bravely climbed armed with a large bucket of mist green and a very large paint brush. I watched with great trepidation through the kitchen window. When almost at the apex he dropped the bucket. As if in slow motion I watched the bucket hit the roof, the paint erupted like a geyser and fell down over his head and shoulders. Without even a jerk he retrieved the bucket and slowly made his way backwards down the roof and down the ladder. We laughed a lot though it was an awful job cleaning him up and it was a while before all the green between his eyelashes disappeared.

The walk in freezer in the shed earned us a little money. Behind the hills, behind our hills were forests where wild pig and deer roamed. Our place was the local pick up spot for a "game" company. Hunters brought us their kill. We inspected it for cleanliness and freshness and hung the carcass in the shed freezer. Once a week a refrigerated truck would come and collect. The hunters would get a cheque and we’d get some commission. It was not very much but every bit helped.

In later years they changed the rules. We had to pay the hunters and then we were paid. The profit was greater but there were risks. A carcass might be rejected. We managed for a month or so but then the prices soared. We were expected to pay $200 a kilo for antler for example. So we stopped. A few mutterings from hunters as the next pick up spot was about 40 kilometres away.

We sold the freezer unit and were able for the first time to have some cash reserve for a ‘rainy day’

Other income was from our sheep’s wool. This more than covered the cost of food for the pigs and chickens so we really did have free meat. That is if you don’t count labour.

And there’s a lot of labour involved caring for pigs, chooks, sheep, cows, cats and dogs. Later 2 ponies (real luxury items for self-sufficiency intensions !), guinea pigs, two pet lambs, finches, budgerigars and a sparrow were added to the menagerie.

The pet lambs were twins, the first offspring of the biggest of our first ewe lambs. They were totally rejected by her and as all but one of our ewes had twins that second year and the children were old enough to look after them, they became pets.

They were named Robert and Susan.

Susan was a great success. She also loved us to pieces. We didn’t have a sheepdog but if we organised Susan well, we could get the other sheep to follow. For example Rod dipped and sheared all our sheep every year. To get them to his place was a work of art. They took no notice of his dogs. We had to run them about half a mile down a main but not very busy road. So Susan and I got the sheep by the gate. David went most of the way down the road. The farmer stood by his gate and stopped the traffic his end. David called Susan and she dashed for him at full speed and bleat, with the rest on her heels. I didn’t have to stop traffic at my end. No need, sheep in full dash are fast. We reversed the process for the return.

Even though this undertaking never failed it was always very tense. Sheep are not very bright and motorists can be impatient.

Robert was a lovely lamb. Michael won a pet competition with him. But he grew into a ram and you had to tether him or else he would butt you. Without hesitation or prejudice any one who came into butting distance was butted. Judging the exact length of his rope was not always successful.

So we had a problem.

The solution was brilliant. One of the local carrying companies had a large paddock divided into two yards, office and work sheds. He became their guard ram. During the day, when they were there, he was penned into the back paddock, at night he had the whole place to himself. If they had to nip out in the day they tethered him by the office. He was happy and accurate in his work. He was quiet, 100% vigilant, needed no special care and cost absolutely nothing to run. Perfect.

Susan occasionally caused problems. One cold rainy night when we were out she managed to break into the house garden followed by the flock, which at that time was about 35 sheep and lambs. They took shelter under the carport, on the front step and under the porch. Now sheep manure is a very movable manure when in it’s original pellet form but when it has been stomped on for hours by many cloven hooves it is harder to remove from concrete than sump oil.

There’s always lots of manure when you have animals. Lots and lots of it.

Another venture to earn some extra cash was growing meat chickens. Apart from the lounge and verandah of the old house there were two empty rooms that had closeable doors leading into a central hallway.. (There was also a room that ran along the back with an outside door which was our storeroom, and off the back porch a laundry which we made into an aviary and the bathroom which we had made into the chookhouse.) An abattoir said they would take any chooks we grew.

So we covered the two spare room floors deep in untreated sawdust, built two circular corrals about 400mm high, bought the chick pellets and ordered 400 day old chicks. (We received 410) They were just beautiful. The children loved them. To grow quickly, chicks require warmth and continual light so they will eat all the time. Also if in complete dark when they are tiny they "clump" down and some can suffocate. As it was early Winter we bought infra-red lamps, which gave off heat and a low light - they were excellent. HOWEVER - the second day the power company started rolling strikes; 4 hours on and four hours off. And we had to take shifts with torches and lamps, keeping them warm and moving. The strike lasted a week. We only lost 4 chicks (two of which were a bit odd to start with) so felt very triumphant.

Being amateurs and let’s face it rather stupid, there was something we hadn’t thought of. After a week we had to expand the size of the corrals. After two weeks they were removed. After three weeks we opened the doors and let them use the hall too. After four we moved the stores out into the big shed and let them have the back room. 400 rapidly growing chooks not only take up a lot of room but they also throw out a lot of heat. All the wallpaper fell of the walls (we discovered scrim-covered wide timber plank walls underneath which we later used for some lovely fencing), water rolled down the windows (which had to stay shut, of course). We could have hired the place out as a sauna. Floors, window sills, ledges, fireplaces, chockablocka chooks. But they survived.

They were ready at 7 weeks, only a couple at minimum size, and most over medium with a few giants. The abattoir owner picked them up and was very pleased with them. He reckoned he’s never seen such well accommodated hens. We were flattered, though in retrospect he was probably being facetious and/or thought we were daft. We made about $150 which was really not a lot for the work involved and the outlay risked but we were, I remember very happy about it.

We did it one more time, 200 (206) this instance. This was OK but not as successful. Winter had set in. It took a little longer (more food) to grow the birds to weight (but no losses then). Because there were "only" 200, the abattoir wouldn’t pick up, but loaned us crates to "bring them in ourselves" It took some time, a lot of ingenuity and constraint of temperament to pack them into our Bedford van. Off we went. It was a 20 mile trip. About 5 miles down the road we had to go over a hill. Up the top and round a corner - incredibly there was snow !! . We proceeded, a mistake. The snow got deeper and we stalled and couldn’t restart. Trudge to the nearest farm, tow from his tractor (wonder what he thought !) back home, unload them all, 3 bodies, 2 damaged, much stress and distress. Two days later a successful trip but the last straw, I saw what happened to them at the abattoir. So, chalk up another "learning experience" on the board and think of something else.

During that Winter we reorganised some of the rooms in the house. The lounge had previously been two rooms and part of a passage from the bedroom area into the lounge. There was an exposed ceiling beam where the division had been. It was large and hard to keep warm as it was. We changed it back to two rooms, a lounge and a bedroom but included the old passage part in the new bedroom which would have been rather small otherwise. This meant that to get to the rest of the house there had to be an opening made from the kitchen into another bedroom which we made into the dining room. So David got out a saw and cut a doorsize hole in the wall. There was a kewpie doll on one of the struts - very odd. With the minimal banging he moved a couple of internal timbers over and it was a simple matter to trim it.

We pulled up the lounge carpet, maroon round the edges and threadbare brown over most of the rest of it. This carpet had had a hard life even before our arrival and with small children there had been many small "Mind the Axminster" disasters adding to its discomfiture. We were disappointed there were no ancient newspapers underneath it but the Axminster label was in perfect condition !

Then we just put up the dividing wall between the new lounge and new bedroom. The bedroom became Michael’s and we bought some very expensive Mutley wallpaper for the new wall. It was $25 a roll and a huge amount in those days. The hanging of this wallpaper was more difficult than any other part of the renovations. It was pre-glued and when wet turned into an extremely mobile and stretching mass. Worse to handle than keeping Gladwrap smooth in a cyclone. But we did it and Michael loved and still remembers it.

We grew a trial crop of mushrooms in a side room of the shed. They were excellent, though rather un-uniform in shape due to the top straw not being chopped up well enough and packed too tightly. Also we underestimated the virility of the spore and in consequence had many square mushrooms and unseparatable clumps. Nothing that couldn’t be corrected and a viable prospect

But another "HOWEVER" - to do it on a money making scale involved too much expenditure; growing medium, hygiene control, machinery, packaging and marketing. We couldn’t afford it. The same applied to grapes and other fruit. But never mind: we always earned "enough" and always had a big variety and plenty of home-grown (free) meat and vegetables and always had "something different going on" .

And we enjoyed all our adventures.

One of our ponies, a beautiful little Shetland stallion earned us a few dollars now and then. Other horse owners brought their mares around. The first visitor was 14 hands to Kindy’s 8 and, on arrival hated his immediate attention. She reared, bucked and lashed out with hooves to our GREAT alarm, anxiety, worry, consternation and panic. There followed several days of keeping them two paddocks apart; she totally unconcerned; he fretting (chomping at the bit !). Then she nickered to him and it was all on. David had previously worked out ‘what to do about the height difference’. The driveway split at one place; one section going up, the other down and a very solid bank in between. So David led the mare down the lower driveway and backed her up to the bank (about half way) then I let Kindy go (and stood well back). He appraised the situation on the dash and went straight to the top bank in full gallop. His strength and enthusiasm overcame David’s and the mare’s combined strength of ‘keeping her back to the wall’ a couple of times during this operation and Kindy sailed over the bank airborne each time. No harm done and no loss of composure; just a speedy gallop back to where he left off.

This first experience was easily the most difficult. Further visitors were, without exception placid (and much shorter)

We had been warned that keeping a stallion could be a problem but we were lucky I guess. Or maybe Kindy was kept in order by his beautiful mate Rebecca, a gentle and quiet Dartmoor mare. Rebecca presented him with a filly the year we moved.

There were yet more ways we earned extra income.

The first two years we made hay from the river paddock. The first time, I, who had never driven before, man-handled an ancient Bedford flat-decked truck around the paddock while the men loaded the bales. They (the men) had decided that the job of driving would be easier for me than lifting hay bales. As I had to brace myself by pulling back against the steering wheel every time I used the accelerator or clutch (the unmovable seat was too far back for my short legs) and the complete operation was a ‘fraught with nervous tension’ I’m not sure they were right. The top of the paddock was reasonably flat but the rest sloped at about 30° . Later our increased stock precluded hay-making.

We scrounged furniture for the cottage and rented it out as a farm holiday place. We had to buy 2 sets of bunk beds and blankets but were able to acquire them at good sale prices. One advert was sufficient to get bookings for all the school Summer holidays. It rained for five of the weeks. It was awful, more for us though, than the visitors (who thought it just their bad luck) They were well entertained with visits to local farms, the bush and a nearby bird sanctuary. (where they were attempting to breed an endangered species; the first chick hatching was to be recorded and much delicate equipment set up. What they actually got on the tape was a farmer 3 paddocks away vociferously and at great length, telling his dog what he thought of him followed by the dog’s reply which roughly translated was "Yee-ipe, yee-ipe, yee-ipe, yee-ipe"! )

Apart from the weather, we had found it uncomfortable worrying over the visitors being there (leaving gates open, small children unintentionally upsetting the livestock and putting themselves in danger) So we didn’t advertise again. The venture paid for our investment and as much again so it was well worth it.

One family however, did come back at Easter - even though they were the ones that helped us uncover about 80 metres of sewerage pipe when it blocked up on their second day. The line had no intermediate inspection points between the cottage and the septic tank; a HUGE one that serviced all the buildings we discovered at that time. I think the scene of David hitting the pipe with a sledge hammer, (an aberration grounded on exhaustion, frustration and extreme embarrassment) and resulting in immediate and spectacular release of pressurised effluence absolutely delighted them. If only they had had their camera with them. It would have made a unique holiday snap.

Not long after, we heard of the new primary school teacher needing a place to rent - and we had a place all ready. Pam moved in. Later Felicity, another teacher joined her. When they left we rented to Charlene (and we left her as a sitting tenant). They were all lovely young women and excellent tenants. Being teachers and also ‘outsiders’ they were very compatible. The minimal rent we charged included free eggs and vegetables so they did very well; and the regular income great for us.

We spent two weeks a year working in a Rod’s shearing sheds. David worked at keeping-the-sheep-coming to the shearers and I was the-sweeper-up-of-dags (unusable trimmings - mostly dirt and you know what) This was very hard, dirty, smelly work, especially the year when the shearing gangs were practicing for the World Championships the following week. This job gave us some satisfaction; not only because it was well paid; because we ‘did the job well’ by keeping up with them and thus ‘keeping our end up’. Although we lived there 5 years, we were always ‘newcomers, outsiders’ and never were fully accepted (and never would have been)

David’s engineering was the bread and butter of our income and supported us on its own. All these extra ventures were bonuses. None were failures. We did do our homework before putting each project into action (to our credit I must say, which may sound as if I’m boasting but its not. It is important)

Some worked out better than others and could have made good money IF we had been able to finance them on a commercial scale. But it was never our intention to stay there forever so the risks of borrowing were never really worthwhile. We really enjoyed these adventures. We were not farmers but we did work with the land and had not as some ‘townies’ do, sad to say; started off with unrealistic conceptions and expectations. We understood what was involved and were prepared to work. We were a close family unit naturally and of necessity. Family and friends visited and holidayed with us all the time, but most of the locals were only politely amenable. The children made friends when they started school but, sadly there were often teased and treated as ‘outsiders’. Sadly, this common resentment is ingrained in many small country areas. It is something you have to live with and really, after all, you are different. You must accept and respect that they are true farmers and you are not.

An interval here to relate odds and ends not necessarily relevant to where we were but that happened during that time.

One day Tracey and Michael decided to go for a hike round the perimeter. Off they went with knapsacks on their backs. Like all good country children, they had been taught to close gates and doors after them: and Michael being last out followed the rule and slammed the front door. Tracey yelled "Now look what you’ve done, you’ve chopped my bloody finger off" and so he had. When I opened the door, the end of her little finger dropped to the ground. The dog nearly beat me to it. We put it in a bag and resting it on a bag of frozen peas, off we went to the hospital (that 32 kilometre trip). On arrival, the nurse said "That’s no good" and threw the morsel into the nearest bin but when the doctor finally arrived - 30 agitated minutes later - he retrieved it, washed it, removed the nail and stuck it back on, securing it with little strips of sticky tape (no stitches), put the finger in a splint and sent us home. The finger did re-attach and even the nail grew back. All Tracey has to show for it is a small ridge. Amazing !

We didn’t have garbage collection but didn’t really need it as we bought very little food and paper went into the compost Occasionally we burned unusable rubbish. David was at this task one day when Tracey started screaming "Dad, Dad, Dad", and looking his way. I thought, knowing of his usual way of encouraging a fire to burn that he was engulfed in flames but I couldn’t see from where I was. Rushing past Tracey I saw he was fine. Tracey, unmoved, on the other hand was not. She had been thrusting the garden fork into the ground (like dad did) and had, with great strength, misdirected it, piercing the top of her gum boot through her middle toe, through the sole and impaling herself to the ground. She couldn’t move. Another ride to the hospital; this time just some deep cleansing followed by tetanus and antibiotic shots - knowing what that fork had been pushed into at times.

We only had one trip to the hospital with Michael. His accident an argument with a piece of barbed wire which was quite nasty but he made no fuss; until the doctor came with the needle to sew him up that is; after a great commotion and high drama they sent me out of the room. Silence fell almost immediately and he emerged with a thunderous glare a short while later, stitching and tetanus shot completed. I never did discover how they managed to quieten him.

He had a few close calls. There are two that immediately come to mind. The first when David was working on a tractor in the shed and had to answer the phone. In the time between the tractor starting up and David reaching it, Michael, aged 4 had demounted and exited the shed. Fortunately the tractor was not in gear. The second memory, when Michael, in a few unwatched moments, climbed to the top of a cattle crate parked in the driveway and fell through to hang suspended by his head. Fortunately I was close by and he didn’t struggle. I was able to climb up to the second storey of the crate and push him up far enough to turn his head and lower him down. They were very fraught moments though.

Another time, after he had built them a magnificent Pedal Cart, David had a mental lapse of normal parental intelligent forethought (to say the least). He supplied the children with brushes and turquoise enamel paint so they could have some input into the project. Inside we suddenly were aware of "silence" - a bad omen to any parent.

Rushing outside we beheld two turquoise children, each determined to have the last brush swipe. Even though a very cold day, it was a case of vast quantities of turpentine administrations on the driveway, followed by several hot and soapy baths and shampoos. All this done, a little less than perfectly gently and with much under-the breath mutterings about the ineptitude of some fathers. !

Tracey wanted guinea pigs for her birthday one year. We bought a pair - a huge albino female and a piebald mate. The next week Snowflake had 6 babies and Patches had 5 ! Now guinea pig babies are beautiful right from birth, fully developed, they are up and running (and eating) within moments but 13 of them is a bit much. Luckily there were no other guinea pig pets amongst school friends; we were able to ‘generously give 10 away but kept a beautiful shiny, jet black male (we had learnt the ‘sexing of guinea pigs by then !) and built him a separate cage. But he was smart; he escaped one night and, yes, both females became pregnant. As they were still in their cage which was a sturdy construction of hardwood and fine bird wire, there must have been some very precise co-operation !!

On April 1st Tracey came rushing in giggling " Snow’s having her babies" Off we trotted, not followed by Tracey. But it was true. We managed to convince Tracey that it really was happening in time for her to see the last born. If you want to introduce children to childbirth I recommend guinea pig deliveries. The process in our experience was speedy, clean and simple and the offspring strong, lively and attractive within moments. When we gave these babies away (only 5 in total this time) Dad went too.

Tatty-tail the sparrow became our responsibility after a storm that destroyed her nest. Our attention was directed to her by the raucous screeching she emitted. There amongst the debris and bodies of her siblings was this mouth with a little bag of skin and bone attached. We made a nest for her on the bottom of a budgie cage and force fed wet chook food down her throat with the end of a tail comb. She feathered up quickly and we started catching her bugs and things, teasing her with them until she had to grab them. We let her out in the house as soon as she was grown. One day she flew outside. There was a great to-do with all the sparrows of the neighbourhood converging on to her. But she was feisty and survived. At dusk though, a plaintive peeping at the back door and she came in. She seldom needed to ‘come in’ after that but as often as not flew on to your head when you went outside or helped with the gardening. That is, as you planted seedlings, she dug them up and brought them back to you.

When I threw bread out for the sparrows, the rest had to wait until she had her fill. If any bold bird tried to precede her, she’d have them on their back and by the throat in two seconds.

The following year she got a mate and he was the perfect example of ‘hen-pecked !’ When she started nest building she tried to make her nest in the spot she had fallen from but it was already occupied - by her parents probably. We solved the problem by nailing a breeding box immediately underneath it. Being smarter than the average sparrow she immediately took possession. Then she started landing on my head and pulling my hair out. I presented her with a variety of building materials and she understood and desisted her scalping.

We saw a lot less of her as time went by and then, one Winter, she disappeared. We hoped we would see her when Spring came again, but we never did.

The river and all her moods was always a great source of pleasure to me. More of a large stream than a river, it meandered along our longest boundary. The northern end was quick running shallows between fairly steep banks, then a wide curve with deep pools and overhanging rocky ledges; finally a reasonably straight stretch of steadily flowing water between grassy banks. Willow trees lined each end but native trees and shrubs grew from the steep and rocky central slopes. There was hidden access to a precarious path leading down to where a massive boulder overhung a deep shaded pool. On quiet balmy days, one could stretch out and suspended in time watch trout floating in the still waters below. It was captivating and so peaceful. After heavy rains, the river thundered with furious force sweeping all before. It was awesome to watch. The waters subsided as quickly as they arrived, the only evidence of their fury, wads of grass caught up high in the willow’s branches. The rest of the property was very basic and practical, apart from planted macrocarpas along two and a half boundaries, the house garden of shrubs and flowers and the vegetable garden it was all grass, grass, grass. This secluded spot on the river was a private haven, a little place to dream a while.

Occasionally we would climb up to the summit of the hills behind us. From there our place was a tiny insignificant oases of dark greens among the bareness of surrounding farms. Once we all went up to fly a magnificent glider that Michael and Grandad had spent all the previous day perfecting. And it was perfect. On the first launch it soared up and away, and away and away, until it was a tiny speck and then invisible to the naked eye. Though we traipsed miles across neighbours fields we never found it.

The time came for us to move on.. The difference between our children and those of friends and relatives became noticeable. They were ‘different’ in the city AND in the country

They lacked sophistication and social experience and we wanted to give them the opportunities that were just not available in that area. There was no work there unless you were part of a farming family and even then, most of their children moved on.

Also, David and I needed to move on. We were not enthusiastic enough about possible projects to risk borrowing and a large commercial venture was never in our original plan of ‘being self-sufficient’ anyway.

We missed family and sunshine.

So we put the place on the market. It took a while to sell, but we weren’t desperate and didn’t have to ‘give it away for a song’. Eventually we found buyers, two brothers who had a married sister living not too far away.

Our very last project was building a methane digester. We found a plan for it in an alternative lifestyle book from the library. Unfortunately we didn’t take a photo of this contraption and I can’t remember exactly how it went together (though David might). I do remember it consisted of 44 gallon drums, pipes and valves and connections. It worked on the principle of effluent and manures making collectable gas which it did. We were able to get a flame. Whether it would have been successful in gathering useable amounts of gas I don’t know as we didn’t pack it.

We went out with a blast. A violent storm the day before take over blew in two windows of the cottage and felled a gum tree across the house flower garden (I didn’t mention this earlier but every spring, one lawn literally burst forth with hundreds and hundreds of bulbs; - daffodils, narcissi, snowdrops, tulips, anemones, hyacinths in glorious profusion - the delight in these flowers never waned). So along with last minute packing, the final hours were spent working harder than we hard probably ever worked before: - nailing, screwing, banging, cleaning in the cottage and chopping, chipping, dragging and spreading out the gum tree. When they arrived, they didn’t even notice the disappearance of the tree (which was really still there in another form and other places). They brought with them a young deer. Which to our stupefaction they penned in the vegetable garden. The garden was close to harvest and we witnessed an abundance of perfect produce going under hoof.

On our return to Brisbane we had to re-learn a lot of things. Having to think about neighbours was one. No bellowing out for the children to come in. No traipsing around in Nightie and Gum Boots, in fact I had to tidy up before emerging outside at all. We had to relearn restraint and decorum.

And hardest of all and it took some time to getting used to was the BUYING of meat and vegetables.

Should any reader decide they would like to attempt "going bush" for a while, while I would recommend the experience as a good one, there’s a lot to take in to consideration. We had a lot of luck. The property we bought had an endless supply of excellent pure water. We had lots of very sturdy, already well-equipped buildings and very good fences. David had a useful trade. We were on a good road. The soil was good. The rainfall was good (too good sometimes). Although we took the water supply and buildings into account when we purchased the place, we didn’t really appreciate how VERY important they and the other considerations were for success and for making things a lot easier.. It would certainly have been a far harder task without them. We were young, fit, keen, optimistic and not afraid of hard work or getting our hands dirty and we already knew a lot about growing vegetables. These last ‘assets’ are really essential especially to ‘learners’ who are inclined to find things out the hard way as often or not. We managed to get through without any major disasters, which can easily happen often enough, to experienced folk too, when your life style depends on weather and living things. So for us, it worked out well.