Tag Archives: George

George is MIA

by . Posted on
01 Sep

It’s the end of an era at Avalon . . .

George has been missing in action for months, (ever since the wedding!) occasionally spotted with faithful horse and hounds, driving the cattle hither and yon, but no sign of him on his tractor, shaping the farm for the future.  Direct questions about the possibility of coming back to work have met with evasive answers and we have been bamboozled as to what happened to our man on the spot, Mr Foster!
Getting some of the most pressing chores completed has been a stressful exercise in constant nagging – something I have a degree in, but I like to save my efforts for my husband!!
And we have been worried about him – he hasn’t seemed the same, has been tired and depressed and whereas he always used to tell us his troubles so we could share the burden, he has been silent and morose.  Careful investigation has revealed that his son’s wife is now dying of the cancer she has been undergoing chemo for, and Marcia, George’s wife, has taken to her bed in the old people’s home in Wauchope and is going downhill fast . . . It seems that George has enough stress in his life without me on his back!  So we have agreed to go our separate ways and George has taken all his cattle off and paid us for the agistment he owed.  Now we can give the land a good rest ( we have been very overstocked and this dry winter has left us pretty bare and barren) before starting our own herd sometime in 2009.
We have been discussing other agistment options etc but the trouble is that no cattle owner will take good long-term care of your land – they want the short term gain of maximum dollar for their pound of beef, so we have decided to do our own thing – build a herd very slowly while we shape the land to suit it – clearing the weeds and seeding the pasture so the farm can carry its stock comfortably, whatever the weather throws at us.
We’ll have to get a tractor next year and then I can learn to drive it (only on the easy, flat bits)!  In another 12 or so years before Ben can pick up the mantle . . . .
Scottie and Ged had another day clearing Ged’s shed on Saturday so that is finally all over bar the shouting.  I have cleaned out the linen cupboard and we spent all day yesterday clearing our office out of the Baby’s room.  I am now esconced in the laundry above the washing machine and the nappy buckets and Ged is perched around the corner temporarily, so this week’s big job is preparing the baby’s room.  We have also been having a giant cookathon – filling the freezer with soups and bean stews so we can really relax and enjoy the new addition when he/she finally arrives.
So much for being feet up on the couch with a joey in my pouch . . . chance would be a fine thing!!

Tick, tick, tick . . .

by . Posted on
03 Mar

I left a message for George the other day since he’s been doing his Scarlet  Pimpernel trick and impersonating the invisible man.  It said: ‘tick, tick, tick, George.  That’s the sound of time ticking away in the lead up to 15th March.  WHERE ARE YOU?  Tick, tick, tick . . . ‘

Bless him, he’s kept it on his machine and says it gives him his daily laugh!
The message seems to have worked though because he’s fronted up finally (what’s he trying to do, give me a heart attack?) and has dismantled the cattle yards (at last, at last!) although the constant rain means he’s also created a mud bath on the river flat and down my drive, which after all my dedicated grass seeding over the last five months, has broken my little heart!  Oh well, I guess you pay a price for everything in life!
He’s been back in the big gully by the house snigging out the trees into a big pile for burning and he promises me, faithfully, that next week he and his brother, Rex, are going to be putting up my much maligned semi-circular fence from gate to gate to separate the house paddock from the farm.  This is the fence that I saw as clear as crystal in my mind’s eye from even before I took possession and everyone has told me can’t be done.  Now you know me, the best way to make me bull-headed is to use the word ‘can’t ‘ . . . . so I’ve been patient, persistent, petulant and precious by turns about it and George and I have had many a head to head over  it.  Finally he has capitulated (sometimes the easy way out is the best way forward!) and roped in his younger brother (who looks ten years older than George) to give him a helping hand.
I had to take my car in for a lengthy stay at the car doctor.  I don’t think I told you about my little prang.  The only way I can describe the weather we have had over the last three months is by saying it has been ‘typically English’ . . .  wet, wet, wet.  So when the plumber was her the other week weaving his magic over my new bathroom and getting ready for my new kitchen, he had to drive in with all his tools then drive out again straightaway as the river was rising over the bridge.  When he finished for the day I drove him and his tools back over to the other side of the river to reunite him with his car and was just about to drive down the dip when I thought ‘this looks a bit slippery, he’d better not drive down here’ and I engaged 4 wheel.  To no avail.  Instead of going forwards I slid sideways – straight into the bullbar on George’s truck!  Which, of course, did absolutely no damage to the bullbar, and wiped out my drivers wing!  I guess it never rains, but it pours!
We have been waiting and waiting for the weather to clear even for a day so we can have our farm road graded.  We’ve been waiting since Christmas.  Finally they came on Monday and Tuesday and did a relly great job turning our rutted old goat track into something resembling a road.  On Wednesday we had 4 and a half inches of rain in under 3 hours.  Even the stalwart, resilient, and endlessly optimistic Ged just sat on the verandah and cried.  One step forward, ten steps back, are we ever going to get there . . . are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there yet  . . . ?
You know when I get a bee in my bonnet about something I just go out there and will the universe to please me (!)  Well, last week I got fed up of worrying and waiting about our new kitchen benchtop which with Scott’s heavy work schedule seemed like an impossible dream, and he was having problems with the tallowood etc so I just said ‘Leave it to me!’  I got out the yellow pages, let my fingers do the walking, and my sweet voice do the talking and found a mob in Wauchope prepared to bend over backwards to give me what I wanted.  You’ve never seen anyone get washed, dressed, and in the car so fast – I was like Penelope Pitstop on speed!!
We picked it up on Monday and it looks fantastic.  How far we have come, how long we have journeyed, how much we appreciate this moment in time . . . .

Ring on my finger at last!

by . Posted on
17 Dec
I have a ring!  It’s very hard to take a photo of but you get the general gist – platinum rails with pink diamonds in between (channel set for the initiated) so it is pretty and practical for my life on the farm.  It has taken a bit of getting used to as I have never had a ring on that finger before, plus it is a very big step so all my commitment phobia has been playing havoc with my brain.  That and my hormones which are on a roller coaster, and creating a hair raising ride for all aboard.  Poor Ged!  He really is a saint . . .
George has gone AWOL.  Partly the fact that the slasher is still broken and sitting on the flat (I think I didn’t tell you that the blade sheared apart one day and speared one of the tyres.  George said it was ‘over use’ and I said it was ‘antiquity’!) and all this rain has kept him from us for weeks.  He couldn’t get the tractor in, he couldn’t slash, he couldn’t fence, he couldn’t clear with the root raker . . .  So we have been George-less which is always quieter, duller and less to report . . . .
I finally saw the platypus the other day.  It was midday and the first sunny day after what seems like months of rain, the river was a mud slick and I was taking advantage of the sunshine getting the washing done.  I saw movement in the river out of the corner of my eye and went to investigate.  I couldn’t believe it was him at first.  It was so out of character to be fishing in the middle of the day but there he was – ducking and diving, rolling and revelling in the day.  Presumably he, like us, had been housebound during the downpours and was catching up on his chores!  He was bigger than the only other one I’ve ever seen – about 18 inches to 2 foot long.  Amazing to have a creature that we studied in school as a rare miracle of nature living just below the house . . .
Which reminds me, we found a yabbie (crayfish to the poms!) in Angle Creek the other day so that should keep the kids occupied in March  . . .
Ged has replaced the platform for the Flying Fox so it is much safer and he and George were chopping down trees on the other side so it is now easier to get on and off at the other side.  We still need to put a new ‘floor’ in the fox itself and build a platform on the other side and then really it will be perfect!  We had the most torrential downpour on Sunday afternoon.  Incredible lightening directly overhead and we had a race against nature to get both the cars out and on the other side of the river, by the flying fox, pump some water before another mud slick came down the river (SOMEONE keeps leaving the hose on and using all the water – I can’t imagine who could be SO stupid!!) and finish the mowing which I was in the midst of.  It was a terrifying and amazing experience to be in the eye of the storm, soothing the horses under the giraffe shed.  Ged had got soaked playing with the pump and when I handed him his raincoat he just stripped off and got naked under it (we do embrace our nudity on the farm!!)
We were cooking supper when the phone rang.  One of the Comboyne dairies had sparks and smoke coming out of their sockets, so the sparky had to go out into the wilds and winch himself across the river and go to the rescue.  At 11pm I got a phone call from a woeful fiance ‘I won’t be coming home tonight’ (quite early days for THAT sort of behaviour!!) but he couldn’t get across Tom’s Creek which apparently was a raging torrent, at least a couple of feet  over the bridge and with big logs bobbing in the white water so the poor love had to go back to his old home (which I have denuded of any semblance of comfort – I made him burn it all, remember?) and sleep on the floor.  So one of the jobs over the holidays is to kit out that abode so if we get stuck again, we have somewhere to get warm, dry and rested!
We may be landlocked but we are river and creek bound!

Clearing, Chainsawing and Croc infested waters

by . Posted on
Clearing at Angle Creek
15 Oct


Ged has gone away so last week was mainly directed at him getting him all packed with everything he needed for a three week adventure in the far Northern Territory (sounds like hell to me – sand flies, sweat, mosquitoes and crocodiles!) and him trying to get lots done in the yard and house before he left so I wouldn’t throw too many tantrums about the lack of progress while he was getting eaten alive in the Gulf of Carpentaria.  The logical question at this juncture is WHY would anyone want to drive for twelve hours a day over three and half days in order to go somewhere hot, bug-ridden and crocodile infested?  It’s beyond me, but before I came along and he had a life (!) he used to go on these crazy camping adventures.  This one is supposed to be a fishing trip but since fishing bores him rigid, I can’t quite see the point and neither can he, but plans long since made must be honoured so I am all on my tod again (already!)

I have been logically working my way through a long list of jobs and enjoying the silence and the solitude.  Phee has been revelling in being the sole focus of my  intention and getting under the duvet privileges again.  I steered clear of the chainsaw until Sunday and then had to swallow the fear in order to try and tame the orange tree trim into something I could burn.  By Monday at 7.30am I was wielding it like a pro and had significantly diminished the boughs into ash.  Go, girl!  I forgot how independent and invincible I am!

Even George has abandoned me as he has reached his monthly ‘cap’.  He has done some amazing clearing work again.  He takes that tractor where no sane person would go – he goes up and down vertical cliffs and while it often seems like we work for George, not the other way round, when I throw a mini hissy fit about some part of the farm that is driving me crazy (normally lantana related!) he gets to work to make me happy.  The whole of the ridge coming up from Angle Creek was overgrown with 6 foot of lantana and now it’s all gone – thank you, George.  He has also been clearing the big gully on the bend coming down to the house and I have grand plans that I haven’t shared with him yet for a waterfall and a dam there.  I cornered him the other day before he disappeared for the month and asked him for a map of how he would want the cattle yards planned out as I was coming round to his way of thinking, that they could be relocated to the flat by Angle Creek (it is a natural mustering triangle – see picture below).  So he showed me the clearing work he has already done so he can build a fence from the creek up the far ridge – cheeky bugger!  He knows that if I so much as even sway from my stated position, he will get his own way in the end!!

Good thing I had my clothes on when he and Marcia turned up on Sunday lunchtime with a young bull and left him in the yards to wean from his Mum.  Poor boy he lay in the very little shade all Sunday afternoon with tears streaming down his face.  But he runs away from both Phee and me so we can’t soothe him.  He has been very quiet and sad, with just some early morning roaring to remind us he is there.  I think Tinkerbell is befriending him and if we can only explain to him that he is not in hell as he thinks, but in heaven . . . there are over a hundred heifers on the other side of the property – actually maybe that is hell . . . one poor lone stud and a hundred strong harem – no wonder he’s crying!!

Dressed to impress

by . Posted on
03 Sep

Well, even the best laid plans . . .

I don’t know quite what happened with Ged’s week off. I know one day I spent being Trinny and Tranny in Port Macquarie, upgrading and updating his wardrobe (which has improved his sartorial elegance but has done sweet FA for the house!) And we ordered lots of things to help the house on its way and I know that the new washing machine is now installed in the laundry and today the taps have been relocated by the plumber and the gorgeous tallowood work surfaces have been ‘dressed’ (Trinny and Tranny all round!) And . . . the falling down awning to the side of the garage has been removed (finally!) and George has been behind the shed with the tractor and made a lovely space for my one day chook run. And the orange tree has had a very dramatic haircut so Tinkerbell and Baby have been having a feast . . . but there’s no one thing finished in the house for me to tick the box and say ‘done’.

Either someone up there is trying to teach me patience, or sorely trying my patience!!

George pushed all the pebbles back up to the bridge on Sunday so I was at last free to leave. When I did finally go off the property it was a strange experience – liberating, exhilarating and kind of scary! Fascinating to see the havoc the water had wrought with all the crossings and bridges and see just how many people, like me, were river or creek bound for the duration. The best thing is that the solar system held up through all that drear, grey week of rain with not even a murmur which was brilliant, even if the sun wasn’t!

Having escaped the truly horrible (and sometimes fatal) flu that had been doing the rounds and that Ged was bed-bound for a week with, I was headachey and nauseous all week but I put it down to sunstroke, PMT or dehydration and soldiered on until mid-week when I spent the night wedded to the WC as my father so eloquently puts it ‘s****ing through the eye of a needle!’ I had a raging temperature and spent the whole of the following day (which was boiling hot) shivering under the doona while all sorts of workmen hammered and tractored and sawed outside. Or maybe that was just what it felt like in my head . . . .

Actually I was dragged out of bed by George early in the day to go over to his place and meet the Fire Brigade to get my Fire Permit now that the ban has been brought in early. I can’t say I was looking my best for such an occasion, and luckily while I looked like death, they were no pin-up boys either, so I didn’t miss a perfect opportunity there . . .

I was all better by the next day and had to go forth and forage for food in the shops to fill the void and found some gorgeous local natural yoghurt – there are some really amazing locally grown and made natural products up here which inspire me to cook for my workers. I have also just discovered Kipfler (??) little sort of long potato things – divine. Highly recommend my sweet potato curry . . . .!

On Saturday we headed down to the Central Coast to go to my old hairdresser’s 40th which was a big Yugoslav family affair in truly the naffest house you could even begin to imagine – huge mock tudor baronial/aussie macmansion. It was ‘gangsters and molls’ so I wore a great beaded dress which Mel sent over (and will unlikely be getting back!) and slicked my hair back with kiss curls on my cheeks. It was all a mad rush, especially since I was determined to trim the horse’s feet before we left. So we raced into Port to get shoes for my outfit, socks for Ged’s, present for the birthday boy etc., and then I was sewing buttons and headbands in the car on the way! But it was fun to see them and some people I hadn’t seen for ten years and to have a good boogie. On Sunday we went to meet some of his oldest friends and had a look at where he had grown up – lovely acreage at Terrigal where his big family roamed the countryside on horseback and listened to the bell birds in the bush. It was nice to get out on the water in the speed boat but I wasn’t game to ski – too bloody cold for me!!

Then home and the warm glow of a good day’s burning – George has been a busy boy and done a great job. and he tells me that his daughter gave him a huge amount of home cooked food when she saw him at Church on Saturday – so she was obviously guilt ridden into action after he told her I was cooking for him – great! I can rest in peace then . . .


THE MAGICAL ANGLE CREEK

The Rich Tapestry of Rural Life

by . Posted on
20 Aug
I have had this horrible cold which seems to be doing the rounds. I put mine down to the draughty floor and those freezing days and nights and the lack of insulation in the roof, rather than catching it, but I have been pretty miz (aka The Widow Cranky!) this week and had a couple of ‘home’ days. Monday I was burning up with fever and the urge for a big cleanup, so had a bonfire and set fire to my hair! Lordy, my eyelashes and fringe have only just recovered from when the gas hot water system exploded, and I had to go and singe away my crowning glory once more! I also got myself in a complete tangle trying to do everything myself, and being impatient and had to holler for help! I was moving a big pile of rusty old metal down to the tin skip (I was on a mission!) and managed a lot in the trailer but then had to do the bigger items one by one with the car and my trusty old tow rope (thank you Chichester Chandlery). I did the big iron bath ok but didn’t really think through the old farm thing with wheels (whoops!) Oh well, Ged to the rescue and no real harm done but I have to learn that there are some things I CAN’T do on my own and wait for someone to assist me!
I was also pulling up fireweed and pulling down a fence – it was a gorgeous day to be out and about and getting some annoying little tasks out of the way. Tuesday I was in the office all day and ploughing through work but after another night tossing and turning and having horrible nightmares I decided I was well and truly exhausted and needed a day in bed to try and shake this fluey cold thing off. There’s no rest for the wicked, though, and George turned up just after midday. Apparently one of the cows is dead in the river from ‘black leg’ and so he had to muster the herd into the yards and immunise them. He unloaded his patient grey mare from the back of the truck and rode down into the river bed to flush them out onto the flat. My two were more of a hindrance than a help, galloping around aimlessly and Tinkerbell bucking at all the excitement. I was driving the car to prevent the cows bolting up the gully so I didn’t get you a picture of George on his trusty steed, surrounded by his pack of proper working dogs, driving the mob towards me, but I did grab a quick pic after the work was done so you can see ‘the man from Ellenborough river’! for yourselves.

Man, cows are stupid creatures! My first experience of ‘cow work’ and we put them in the chute and crush ten at a time for George to stab them with the needle gun and they were jumping on top of each other and trying to turn around in the crush and I was sure one of them was going to break its neck! But they all survived and hopefully we won’t lose any more . . .

George will move the dead cow out of the river and take it up onto the high country and trap it for dingoes and I must get my tie rail in this week so I can start riding at last . . . I had the most alarming conversation with George the other day. Because he is a Seventh Day Adventist we have our vegetarianism in common so I said a while ago that I would cook up some extra for him and Marcia. Of course he protested but it’s no skin off my nose – I cook enough for the army anyway! So I gave him some of my famous chilli beans the other day and when he asked me what to do with them I said ‘add some water and simmer . . ‘ and he said ‘what’s simmer?’ so I explained . . . and when I gave him veggie curry this week he asked what to do with it, so I said the same and then suggested some rice to go with it . . . ‘I can only cook eggs and boil water’ he told me. My God, what have those two been surviving on for the four years since Marcia became ill?
My thermals have finally arrived from M&S just as spring awakens but I have to say I am loving being so snug and warm in my long johns and long sleeved vests – what is the slit at the front for???
Something strange is stirring in the heavens above and I can hear the patter of rain on the tin roof . . . thanks for your encouraging responses to ‘Mad Cow’ and it’s good to have this opportunity to log my misadventures and endeavours as well as the myriad people co-creating my dream. Last week my lovely Jehovah’s Witness neighbour, Chris Latimore, who has recently retired from running the sawmill on his property, delivered the wood he had kindly agreed to cut for my house. Beautiful Tallowood for the big upright beams and benchtops throughout, as well as hardwood beams and posts for the building work. Another neighbour who had heard me describe my dream and ‘got the picture’ and given me EXACTLY what I wanted and all done with true zen. He and his wife, Ruth, are very lovely gentle folk and it was a pleasure to do business with them and now to have the means to make my house dream come true (now for the builder to fall out of the sky . . . !)

GEORGE

Slash and Burn

by . Posted on
06 Aug

Well, I fired the builder.  Had to be done, really!  The previous week his children had been sick and then he had caught the bug so I didn’t see hide nor hair of him.  Monday he turned up looking for a cheque and on Tuesday he presented some very flimsy invoices to support his request for ‘more’.  I gave him a cheque but when he hadn’t turned up by lunchtime the following day with no call to explain why, I cancelled it.  And reconciled myself to the fact that he would have to go.

He was very sweet, and reasonable eye candy but I can watch Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise for my jollies, and at least I KNOW he’s not going to renovate my house!!    Oh well, my intuition was way out on that one!  Or maybe I was right, and he would have done it, but it would have been like Waiting for Godot and we all know that I haven’t a patient bone in my body . . . .

Ged to the rescue again!  He used to be a builder so he is going to put his hands to good use and last weekend we got more done in two days than the builder had done in a month so things could be looking up!  OK it might only happen at weekends but at least I know that it will happen.

My life is beginning to feel like one of those commercials ‘it may not happen overnight, but it will happen’!

George is my saving grace!  He has burnt a break across the other side of the property so ‘on the next good hot day ‘ he can ‘set a match to it and get rid of all the bladey grass’.  Australian farmers make sense of the phrase ‘slash and burn’.  But George doesn’t know that my Natural Farming book says that burning destroys more nutrients than it puts back so while I agree that the years of neglect need to be burnt off, this may be the last year he gets to indulge his pyromania!

He has also been up on the ridge cutting down the wattles and lantana – silhouetted against a pristine sky – an Australian icon.  I am so privileged to have him to learn from and also to witness that rugged pioneering spirit.  His father was a pom so when we agree we have anything in common he says it’s the pom in us!  He is a master of bush craft and I am a willing disciple.  He makes me laugh but his story is a sad one.  His gorgeous wife who is a real looker with the kindest deep blue eyes, has Alzheimers and he will not give her up to care.  His work is his sanity and she is his one true love so it’s a hard row he hoes and he often needs just a little sympathetic hearing from an unconditional heart.

Now we are calling in George’s younger brother to do my post and rail fencing – just a bit at a time when I’m feeling flush!  I have been the painting queen all weekend, coat after coat over the vile lime green walls inside and pressure washing the outside and making a start on that.  I cleaned out the cattle yards, pulling up all the fireweed and mowing seven years of weeds.  George got me in the river to put a couple of wires across to stop the cattle – the river was the same temperature as the sea at West Wittering on Christmas Day in the UK.  I did two walks across (belly button high) and strung two wires and plunged straight into a boiling hot bath!  Freezing!  George and Marcia thought it was hilarious!  And now my water wading skills have been requested again for early Thursday morning for a repeat performance at the other end of the property.  I think I’ll go buy a boat!

The Man from Ellenborough River

by . Posted on
22 Jul
There is light at the end of the tunnel!  Team solar turned up on Monday with the new hot water system. They dashed my hopes about hot water on Monday when they didn’t get the install finished but by Tuesday night I was luxuriating in a deep, hot bath (still green!).  Oh well, since the latest beauty fad for fashionistas in London is Nightingale poo face packs, I am sure that my green river water bath is actually very youthifying – although maybe not judging by the wrinkles my skin had acquired by the time I finally left my warm, wet paradise.

I still seem to be either shopping for renovation essentials or back in the Telstra vortex as I return their little wireless widget and while away the hours as they try and dream up new solutions for me.  Got a new lawnmower that is green, sturdy, fearless and invincible.  It’s true blue, dinky di – it’s a Victa and I have a feeling we are going to get along!

Went to see one of my neighbours who has a sawmill.  He has recently retired but agreed to cut the timber for the big beams and kitchen, laundry and bathroom surfaces for me.  He seems nice but boasts about how much water he uses to clean his teeth!  It is a sad fact that rural Australians who live on water and have unlimited access to it, waste it more than most!   They don’t have rainwater tanks, they don’t keep it, cherish it, store it, they just use it in the same way that city folk do . . . bizarre!

And the farm has come into its own this week with the arrival of 75 calfs to grow fat on the land.  Which brings me to George.  What a character!  George is 70 odd, he was ‘rared’ here (as the locals say).  He owned all this land – thousands of acres and George has sold it off bit by bit.  He’s a wiry, strong, lined and thin lipped Man from Snowy River type.  His Akubra is ancient, his RM’s battered and bruised and his horse’s bridle is more baling twine than leather.  He wields a chainsaw like a virtuoso violinist makes music with his bow.  His blue eyes can be steely or twinkle with humour.  He tells me he got in deep trouble with the drink and that’s when he found God and began to make sense of it all with the bible.  He’s a Seventh Day Adventist so he doesn’t drink or smoke or sin and he’s a vegetarian so we have something in common!  I tell him all my dreams for the place and he think them through.  He has his own clear picture in his head of what the land should be like and though he wouldnt even begin to know what I mean, his work is done with perfect zen.  The cattle are his and the deal is that he swaps the farm work for the agistment.  He’s a crafty old bugger – we always talked about 40 head and he turns up with 75 and a good story about how he always meant 40 mothers and calfs, so 75 little heifers is the same thing in principle . . . !!