Born the first of 5 children to a farming family in rural eastern Australia in the 1960s, I learnt the basics of independent thought from my father. His adages were words such as, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” , “if you can’t fix it with fencing wire, (or hay band (baling twine)) it’s probably not worth fixing.”
Mum was mum, and she taught me everything she knew about cooking and food, both growing and preservation. She taught me how to crochet, and to sew…both with a needle and thread and a machine, ..I can follow a pattern or make it from my head. She would let us cook with her, get us to help with the preparation and preservation and the cleaning and the general household duties. We had many household chores, along with general farm chores, and I could ride a horse, drive a car, a truck and a tractor long before I was out of primary scool. All of this had to be acomplished between school and homework, and before anything like out of school sports or socialising, or even just riding out on our beautiful horse. Consquently, I am self discliplined, and well educated, and I know how to work.
In those days, nothing was wasted, and I still hear my Nans’ words, (mums’ mum), “waste not, want not, and “count your blessings” … All of the above spoken wisdoms have long since become my own adages, and of course have served me well…and never been truer than in the situation we now live.
I know how to preserve food, how to cook from scratch, how to grow our food, no matter where we are…This farming way of life also equipped me to be resourseful, how to make anything from nothing, how to create, and the older I get the more grateful I am to have had this experience.
It was hard, farming is a tough choice for any man, and we experienced many droughts and many floods. The floods used to come almost every year, and I remember being in a tiny dinghy with dad. We were rescuing sheep from the rising flood waters..much of our land is in “flood country” and it comprises hillocks and flood channels, and the water flowed rapidly through them…it had quite a current, and could be very dangerous. Dad would row across to each hillock where the sheep were huddled together, then we had to catch each terrified sheep, tie its’ legs together, heave it into the boat, and row them across to safety. From memory, we could only fit about 3or 4 sheep in on each trip..we had a flock of at least a hundred in this paddock, and so it was a very long day.
Early last year, I returned to Australia, and took my daughter and granddaughter to visit mum and my brother who now runs the farm. I told this story, and my brother said “you know Pop (mums’ dad) built that boat…it’s still here, by the dam” , and he took us to see it. Oh my gosh, it was quite literally a tin floor and 2 sheets of corrugated iron…God alone knows how we managed to survive that day. On another occasion, our sheep dog was lost to the raging waters…swept away after working all day…Dad returned on his horse without him, calling and calling… I was maybe 5 and I remember calling for days too. To this day I still feel the pain of Smokys’ loss.
There was almost never any money for luxuries, and I only remember one holiday by the sea . However, there was always enough to go around, and my siblings and I never wanted for anything…there was money for school excursions, out of school sports on weekends, we were fed well, and with hind sight, perhaps we did grow up in a golden, utopian era… we knew how good we had it really, even then and we wanted it to last for ever, and to be for everyone. I was so grateful to take a ride out. To be on horse back as I rode through a mob of resting kangaroos who would barely raise their heads on the long hot days of school summer holidays. As we swam in the house dam, or picked buckets of mushrooms from the paddocks or Yabbies and Redfin fish from the creeks to take home and feast upon.
I still hear the squawking galahs and cockatoos as they greeted the sun or settled in for the night. I still smell the ozone as the rains beat down upon the hard soils and the smell of the dust and the redgums in the summer haze. Life was simple then.
From Australia to off-grid living, Arizona, the things I think about. 