WALLANGARRA MARKETS 1

During World War Two it is my understanding that most days 45 trains passed through the Railway Station at Wallangarra . What activity there must have been around the station those days as troop trains pulled in from New South Wales to disgorge soldiers who then to embarked on Queensland trains to head further north to Brisbane and Townsville before taking ships to join the fighting against the Japanese in New Guinea. There would have been numerous trains transporting munitions too as a military base remained in service at Wallangarran until recent years as munitions dump. When we arrived here at Glen Aplin in 1992 trains with diesel engines would pass by once a week to pick up containers of game meat (horse, goat, wild boar) destined for the tables of Europe. Finally it was decided to close the line for economic reasons. What a pity, for this railway line and the Wallangarra station has figured strongly in Australian history. I promise to write more about the history another day.

Presently this huge space provided by the platforms of the Wallangarra railway station and surrounding area is used once a month for a community market. I attended this market to purchase products and promote attendance at all  Granite Belt Markets. While all these markets have similarities, they have different criteria applying to the stall holders. The Wallangarra market was originally begun as a farmer’s market and I expect that when the summer and autumn seasons return there will be many locals selling their produce from the back of trucks or open trailers.

Wallangarra Railway Station

The first attraction to catch my eye was the small train providing rides for the children. This was the  “Dasher junior”.  The real Downs Dasher is a steam train restored by the Southern Downs Steam Railway, based in Warwick. The Downs Dasher regularly steams between Warwick and Wallangarra taking paying passengers on Sunday outings.  See www.southerndownssteamrailway.com.au Visitors to the region can board the Downs Dasher in Warwick for a nostalgic trip up through two tunnels and many deep cuttings onto the border highlands. As they proceed across bridges over rocky ravines they enjoy the spectacular scenery of true wilderness. Passing beside some of the Granite Belt vineyards wets their appetite to undertake wine tours and tastings of these high altitude wines. Read the rest of this entry »

GLEN APLIN MARKET 3

No report on a market would be complete without a mention of plants, herbs, dried fruit and jams, fresh fruit and vegetables sold at such venues. At the April Glen Aplin market I had purchased lettuce seedlings and a trombone gramma pumpkin. Grammas are a sweet pumpkin traditionally grown in Australia to use as a dessert. They are seldom for sale in fruit shops, although I have seen them on fruit and vegetable stands in the Lockyer Valley. I was happy to purchase this one at Glen Aplin knowing I could use the flesh for a pie and keep the seeds to plant in my garden next summer.

The lavender colours of the stall manned by Trish and Don Gaske selling Crystal Ridge Lavender products caught my eye.

Lavender products

Crystal Ridge Lavender sells

Soaps & Skincare
Massage Oils
Lavender Sachets
Lavender Essential Oil
Ageless Crafts
Lavender Gift Packs

Trish gathering lavender

Market raffle

The market raffle of the day featured products from the various stalls. These included several bottles of wine. It was there that I first noticed small packages of Saffron. Back in 1997 when Eberhard and I planned a visit to the Netherlands we were asked if we could locate and bring back some corms for the Saffron plant by a Glen Aplin resident. We were unable to meet this request, but as a gardener I was interested to read more about the product. Read the rest of this entry »

GLEN APLIN MARKET 2

Country markets like the one held quarterly at Glen Aplin provide an outlet for people to exhibit the products they grow or create. Once many of their creations would have been viewed as little more than a hobby and therefore the hours they spent on embroidery or wood-turning had little monetary value.  A potter could give bowls as gifts to friends and a gardener would gladly share seedlings and cuttings with other gardeners. Now the markets allow these people to plan the production of items for sale and thus get some valuation of their labour. Even so, when I looked at the items crafted for the Glen Aplin Community Market, I was aware of how little per hour each person was paid for their time. It is possible that people who have never sewn or knitted may have no idea of the real cost of producing such items.

Dresses for little girls

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GLEN APLIN COMMUNITY MARKET 1

My Gran, my Mother, Me and my two Daughters learned to knit, crochet, sew, embroider, grow vegetables and flowers, bake cakes and make jam at an early age. We exhibited our needlework or cooking in the country agricultural shows and always when a school, church or some other community organization was holding a fete we contributed our goods and sometimes manned the stalls.

If it wasn’t our church or school holding the fete we went along to purchase cakes and confectionary, but we never bought needlework. As my mother once said to me, “I can make any of these if I want them.”

Today it seems to me the district markets now held in most towns and cities have taken over this niche market. No longer are goods donated to a worthy cause. Instead people man their own stall to sell their produce and pocket the profit. Organizations have realized that they can hold regular markets and make an income  by renting space to the stall holders.

My district of Glen Aplin on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland needed to raise money to renovate the Glen Aplin Community Hall, so now about four times a year a market is held in and around this hall on a Saturday morning. Today, 31st July 2010, I attended this market and took the following photos to share with you.

It rained overnight and has continued to shower today, so there weren’t many outdoor stalls. The first to catch my eye was providing a substance for organic gardeners.

Bags of manure

• Sheep manure @ $7.00 a bag
• Chook manure  @ $10.00 a bag
• Cow manure @ $5.00 a bag
• Barley straw @ $7.00 a bale.

These quantities and these prices are clearly intended for the small garden. When I buy Lucerne hay, containing many more valuable nutrients than barley straw for the purpose of mulching my garden, I need to buy 100 bales  @ $7.00 each, delivered to my garden. Read the rest of this entry »

GOOD TREES – BAD TREES 4

I learned to iron clothes with flatirons heated on the top of a wood burning stove.  These stoves had metal plates  over the fire which could be lifted off to provide instant flames to boil a kettle quickly, although usually kettles, frying pans and cooking pots received sufficient heat through the heavy metal. Every day the top of the stove was shined with a combination of mutton fat and black shoe polish. Cakes and biscuits were baked in an oven heated by the wood burning in the firebox at the side. Every cook quickly learned to regulate the heat by the size of the wood selected to use that day and the type of wood available. Every baker learned to gauge the temperature of an oven by placing their hand in the oven to feel the heat prior to putting the tin or dish on a higher or lower shelf.

Ironbark, a form of hard Eucalyptus, was the favoured wood of most cooks. It burned slowly, giving off a steady heat. Importantly it burned away, leaving very little ash or coals to be cleaned from the firebox. There were times when my mother only had Brigalow wood, but this was also considered a good wood, although it burned more quickly and hotly. The cooks of those days adapted their cooking styles to the type of wood available. It was often a matter for scolding when the cook discovered her wood box empty and no man available to split more wood for the stove. As a joke men would say they were giving “The Missus” a new axe as a Christmas present.

Nowadays, I only use wood for heating purposes. Here on the Granite Belt we have cold winters with most nights in June, July and August dropping well below zero Celsius. The weekend clientele of guests visiting the district during the winter months demand cottages with a wood fire.  It is a novelty they enjoy. We have two big combustion stoves in our main house and individual stoves in the four self-contained apartments. In years gone by we purchased Ironbark wood, already split, from one of the many suppliers in this district. There are several old trees, many of them already fallen, throughout the open pastoral country. Wood cutters pay the land owner to go on to his property, cut these trees into sizable portions with chainsaws and then deliver it to the purchaser. It is a seasonal industry.

When we decided to remove so many trees from our garden in August 2008, I wondered if we could utilize the wood, rather than create a bonfire.

Storm damage

These trees along our entrance road are an ornamental Ironbark from Western Australia, mostly grown for their beautiful silver foliage and pink blossom.

Ironbark blossoms

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WILDFLOWERS OR WEEDS

Extract from my book WILDFLOWERS, WILDERNESS AND WINE.

In 1993 I had asked Eberhard to plough the field in front of our house to allow me to establish a wildflower meadow like I had seen in Europe during our holiday there in 1990. I had realised that in the cool mountain climate of the Granite Belt I would be able to grow many of the Northern Hemisphere flowers I had so greatly admired in Europe.

Amongst the flowers I sowed in the field were the red Flanders Poppies. My powers of observation came into play and I noted that it took sixteen weeks from when the poppy seed was sown for the plant to reach flowering. I recognised that it would be possible to germinate the poppy seedlings to time the flowering to begin mid October and continue on to the end of November.

Flanders poppies

This was an important discovery, for it led me to the startling conclusion that no where else in the Southern Hemisphere was there such a grouping of Flanders battlefield place names as the Granite Belt possessed and a cool mountain climate that would allow the poppies to bloom for 11^th November, Armistice Day.

In a report I wrote for the Southern Down Tourist Association I proposed the creation of a memorial drive where  people along the route could grow poppies in their gardens or fields to create a tourist attraction. This route already existed as a road linking the soldier settlements of Amiens, Messines, Bapaume, Passchendaele, Bullecourt, Pozieres and Fleurbaix. I envisaged motorists and school groups touring the area each November.

A meeting of tourist operators and business people from the northern – soldier settlement end of the district met to discuss the proposal and the Stanthorpe Border Post carried the story as a front-page feature. The enthusiasm was contagious. The RSL suggested placing seven memorial crosses on the drive to mark each district, with each cross to carry a plaque detailing the history of that particular battle. Furthermore it was suggested that the school children at Amiens and Pozieres might undertake the planting and management of poppies growing in garden beds under the crosses. The President of the Lion’s Club announced that the club would consider beautifying a public picnic ground with the poppies. Tony Evans, of Evan’s Seedlings at Amiens offered to purchase bulk poppy seed for distribution and to plant an acre of ground at the front of their business with the poppies. His father had served in France and been one of the original diggers to receive land at Amiens. I was photographed for the newspaper story standing with Mr. and Mrs. Evans. I came home from that meeting on a high!

Then the protesters, like storm clouds, gathered! Read the rest of this entry »

TREASURES

There is something in my psyche that makes me enjoy the life of  hunting and foraging, not only for food but for items that I can reuse. As a child on farms our family never had access to garbage disposal services so we had to compost, burn or bury our rubbish. Today I still live on a farm and I don’t have the luxury of wheeling a garbage bin out to the kerbside for collection. Instead as part of the service we pay for via council taxes, our Shire Council provides bins on a site near Glen Aplin where we are allowed to dump household refuse. There is no recycling service for paper, aluminium cans or bottles. Further away near Stanthorpe there is a dump where people can dispose of old household furniture, white goods, car tyres, rusty wire etc. But, to travel that far is seen as a nuisance, so instead of taking these items to the official spot people not only fill the bins but leave any item that they can not fit into the bins lying on the ground nearby. Eberhard says Australian’s are a rebellious lot and won’t heed the voice of authority. I say that the Shire Councillors should consider solving the problem rather than complaining about the untidiness of rate payers. After all – they are elected  to meet the needs of shire residents.

This is a rural area into which many ‘tree change’ people have moved in recent years. During their former urban life they have never had difficulty disposing of their rubbish so they expect the Council to service their needs. Thus instead of shredding and composting garden rubbish, or even burning such piles, loads of shrubbery and even tree branches are thrown into the bins. Everything from kitchen utensils to paint buckets are cluttered beside mattresses and TV consoles until the Council eventually sends out a truck and a team of men to clear the area.

I am a law abiding soul who only deposits what garbage I can not recycle on my own property, but each trip I make to the refuse dump reminds me of the saying, “One man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure.” There are times when I will bring home a greater load than I have taken away. Not for personal use, but to recycle in the garden.

Such treasures include geranium cuttings, insect screen doors and a baby’s bath tub.

Water is a valuable garden resource. These two recycled former 44 gallon fuel drums now stand below the roof of a shed where the runoff rain water can drip down into the first drum. Warning – if you store water in such open containers be aware of the dangers. I check my drums regularly to look for wrigglers – mosquito larvae. A thin film of kerosene applied to the surface of the water will quickly suffocate them. Also, once the level has dropped, birds who have been coming to bath in this water may not be able to fly out. I insert a stick into these drums to allow birds to stand on it while they shake their feathers dry and thus prevent them drowning. Of course, if I was a rich woman I could have another covered rainwater tank placed on this site, but I have grown up ‘making do’ with what was available for me to use. I find these drums exceedingly useful when filling buckets of water to carry to my poultry each evening. Again if I was a rich woman I would have pipes reticulating water to the poultry pens. In this instance I could easily fill one drum, but had no way of flowing excess water to the second drum until I saw the baby’s bath tub thrown away at the refuse dump. Now once one drum has filled, I can place the tub slanted across the top to flow water to the second drum.

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AN ABUNDANCE OF MUSHROOMS

March has brought a pleasant start to the autumn months. Small falls of rain dampened the ground followed by days of cool, misty weather providing the ideal temperature for field mushrooms to grow naturally on our farm land.

My earliest memories of gathering field mushrooms began when as a young child I accompanied my grandmother across the grass flats beside the Myall Creek flowing down from the Bunya Moutains. It was Gran who taught me how to gather the mushrooms and tell the difference between them and other forms of fungi. Then with our 2 gallon stainless steel milking bucket filled with mushrooms we would proudly carry them home. A few of the large flat mushrooms would be sprinkled with salt and placed on the hot iron top of the wood fired kitchen stove  where they would sizzle and turn black before we popped this treat into our mouths. That night the family enjoyed a thick mushroom soup for dinner.

Those were the days when factory farmed mushrooms were not available in our shops and tinned mushrooms were tasteless small champignons.

Walking out one morning this week I spotted wild field mushrooms growing in the grass beside our home Das Helwig Haus B&B.

Wild mushrooms

In this post I will tell you how to gather such mushrooms, explain the differences between them an other poisonous varieties of fungi and then how to prepare wild field mushrooms for meals. Read the rest of this entry »

AN ABUNDANCE OF APPLES

All my readers who have down loaded the free E-book The Summer of the Morning Star will know that I turn my home Das Helwig Haus B&B into a ‘home away from home’ for Korean backpackers in the summer and autumn months. 2010 is the fifth year that I have done so. As these young people are all on Work/Travel visas and are allowed to work for two years in Australia some return to my home for a second year. Usually they are university graduates aged between 25 and 30 years who have had difficulty getting a job in South Korea. Not only do they earn and save money while in Australia they also study to improve their spoken English.  Some believe the added maturity, proven work ability and additional language skills will enable them to find a job when they return to South Korea.  Others plan to return to Australia for a third year on an educational visa with their saved money to undertake training within Australia to fill gaps amongst our skilled workers.

Korean Backpackers

The above photo shows a group of Koreans enjoying a barbecue meal in out gazebo in 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

PICKING FRUIT WITH THE BRUDERHOF

After camping overnight in their swags on the bank of our Severn River the ten youngsters and their two teachers were awakened by a chorus of kookaburras – sometimes called the laughing jackass. The adventurous boys gathered fresh water mussels and boiled them in a billy over the coals of a fire, determined to try real bush tucker.

“What did they taste like?” I asked.

“River water,” was the consensus.

Meanwhile, Tabatha and the girls were busy preparing a stack of breakfast pancakes in our kitchen. Nancy on accordion and Joe on guitar led a round of singing to keep us entertained and everyone occupied.

Joe plays guitar

After breakfast as Nancy stripped her bed and cleaned house for me, while Tabatha packed Bruderhof belongings into the back of their bus, two girls reminded me that I had promised they could pick our elderberries. In past years I’ve made elderberry jelly but these girls said they wanted to dip the whole spray of berries into batter and fry as a sweet pancake. I’ve also heard that the white flowers can be used this way, or placed in custard to give a vanilla flavour.

Ripe elderberries

Bruderhof girls pick elderberries

These berries then had to be found a space in the bus, beside the grapes that other youngsters were busily picking from our Isabella grape vines covering the terrace over the guest parking.

Tabatha loads the bus

Picking the grapes

The previous night I had phoned David Dunn whose family has grown stone fruit near the top of the ridge of hills on the western side of the Glen Aplin valley since the 1920s. He had agreed to welcome this Bruderhof group as a school excursion to the family orchard. The Bruderhof said their goodbyes to Eberhard and I accompanied them on the bus to their destination.

What a welcome they received! Brendon Dunn loaded the youngsters, all sitting down and under the supervision of Mike, into the tray of the farm utility. Tabatha rode up front with Brendon until they reached the plum orchard.

Farm utility

Ripe plums

Nancy, Joe and I travelled in comfort in a 4WD car with David and John Dunn. Nancy was delighted as the smell and taste of the ripe plums brought back to her memories of picking fruit in the orchards of Ontario, Canada where she had grown up in a Mennonite community.

Nancy tries a plum

The children were overjoyed at the thrill of picking an abundance of fresh fruit straight from the trees.

Girls gather plums

From the plum orchard we crossed a track and entered a peach orchard.

Peach orchard

Nancy kept remarking how different these Australian orchards were in comparison to the ones she had known in her youth. As David Dunn explained, his family had cleared pockets of fertile land amongst the granite boulders to establish their fruit trees. The eucalyptus forest growing in the rocky terrain around these pockets provided protection from winds, but not hail.  Much of this fruit was blemished due to hail damage and would be sold as second grade fruit.

Mike watches John Dunn pick peaches

Brendon phoned a neighbour over the hill, who said he was about to throw out fruit he had graded as unsuitable for sale. He drove off with Mike. They returned with Golden Queen peaches (the best type for bottling) and nectarines. After the Bruderhof group returned to Danthonia these could be made into jams or preserves.

Peaches and nectarines

A blue sky day

Back we drove to the packing shed where Brendon brought out boxes of second grade plums from the cold-room, which he gifted to the Bruderhof.

This is the district, the Granite Belt of southern Queensland where Eberhard and I have lived for more than seventeen years. It is the district I describe in my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine.

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine send an email to helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/