ALL IN A WEEK
My post this week has been triggered by a comment from a reader who wrote, “You seem to live the life I would love to live.” Perhaps I do. I feel my life to be truly blessed, but maybe this is because my parents impressed on me at an early age that I must count my blessings – number them one by one etc. When I wrote Wildflowers, wilderness and wine my editor, Dr. John Cokley, told me that I must direct my writing at an imaginary woman who dreamed of sitting on a terrace, overlooking vineyards while sipping a glass of wine. Such a woman, he said, will not want to hear about two older people struggling with arthritic pain and the vicissitudes of life. Nor should I try to write a book about an older couple using humour to portray their difficulties, like ‘One foot in the Grave’ and ‘God’s Waiting Room’, two wonderful British TV sagas. He told me, “You have missed the boat. The era for those was 1992.”
When you subscribed to http://fayhelwig.com you were promised a newsletter, which is standard for most blogs, but as I’m not trying to sell you anything other than my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine, which most of you will have now read I’ve never felt the need to send out a sales pitch.
So, I’ve decided to write two December posts about the intricacies of balancing my personal needs with those of my loved ones. This first one will be about the nitty gritty detail of what I’ve been doing in the past week. Next week I will write a Christmas letter and give you the bigger picture of my life.
Firstly though, I must say that I am living the life I want to live. I had a wonderful Aunt who I admired greatly and to some degree I have emulated her way of life. Aunty Bel (short for Isobel) and Uncle Doug reared five children on a dairy farm, which is the way I began my first marriage of twenty-five years. As this Aunt and Uncle grew older they built a new house and gave up the dairying, drawing their income from raising beef cattle. Aunty Bel established a beautiful garden of flowers, vegetables and fruit trees. Each day she milked a Jersey cow, skimmed the cream and made butter. She stayed fit and healthy, often walking across her farm to keep an eye on the other cattle. Even after my Uncle’s death, Aunty Bel remained on her farm, assisted by sons until the age of ninety. She celebrated her birthday on the farm, surrounded by family and friends. She then sold her farm and retired into a nearby town house. Sadly, within a few months of selling her home she began to experience small strokes, which eventually led to her death. During this period of hospitalization she advised me, “Fay, don’t wait until you are ninety to retire. My doctor has told me that when I suddenly removed all stress from my body, it reacted by causing me physical stress – this stroke. You are so like me – a hard worker. You have two choices. Sell your farm now and find a less demanding way of life, or stay there and wind down your work load before you are ninety.”
We did try to sell our farm and B&B business a year ago, advertising it widely and holding an auction. This is a valuable property, which many people would like to possess, but due to a number of factors like the Global Financial Crunch and the depressed nature of fruit and vegetable growing on the Granite Belt, there were no bidders. So we decided to wind down our business throughout 2010. Next week I will tell you to what extent we have succeeded as I review the year in a Christmas letter.
The project of the moment is that we will be holding a huge garage sale on Saturday 18th December. Eberhard has not been well enough to use his work shed and tools for the past six years, so I had undertaken in the previous weeks to clean out his shed, with the assistance of Thomas and Esther, plus remove and sort all the timber stacked under our house. We also propose selling much of our furniture acquired for Bed &Breakfast use over the years. A shipping container with our new furniture will soon arrive from China. My son, Paul, who is based in Hong Kong, bought us a second hand container which will have future use as a storage shed on our land. In November Frank’s Bobcat constructed a container pad above the apartments.
Frank's bobcat at work
My weeks only have one thing in common, which is that I never have enough time to not only do the things I wish to do, but must also find the time to meet the needs of others.
Monday: Eberhard had an appointment with a cardiologist in Brisbane for a check-up. Twice this year we have availed ourselves of the services of Blue Care. For a fee they have provided a car and driver to take us to a major hospital in our capital city, which saves me the stress of driving that distance. Heavy summer rainfall has caused floods and land slips, so our trip was made longer because of the need to take a major detour. We spent 8 hours of driving for a 10 minute consultation. Even as a passenger I found the day tiring and was grateful that our two departing French WWOOFers, Thomas and Esther, had cooked a dinner for us. We invited our first four backpackers of the season to join us for dinner. As so often happens, I was the only Australian born person at our table. Eberhard is German born, there were the French couple and the four backpackers consisted of three young men from Korea, England and the USA, and a young woman from Italy. I placed two bottles of Thunderbolt Farm wine on the table. I have been swapping free range eggs with Claudia in return for wine. James, Alex and Alessandra had begun work thinning apples.
Tuesday: Most days I try to take an invigorating 2 km walk, leaving home about 6.00am, if the recent inclement weather allows me to do so. After the previous day in the car I was glad of the exercise. Ever since I was a young child riding my horse 6 miles to and from school each day I have been a keen observer of nature, so a brown clump in a bush beside the road caught my eye as being unusual. Closer examination revealed a swarm of bees that had been obliged to cling there overnight.
A swarm of bees
Due to the rainy weather the Korean backpacker, Ikmo Kim, had no paid farm work that day picking zucchinis and as he also has WWOOF membership he asked if he could assist me. In my post of last week, I wrote about some of the work we did in the vegetable garden that day. Amongst other things I did that day was collect a dozen new ‘point of lay’ pullets. My previous dozen have laid well during the past year, but will soon be coming into their summer moulting period and will cease laying eggs. Already the daily egg production has halved. It is my practice to buy new pullets before the older hens take a holiday.
Wednesday: The highlight of this day was the arrival from Hong Kong of my son Paul, his wife Sherina, and their three little girls, Rachael, Elizabeth and Sarah. They are here to stay with us over the summer holidays and festival season. In addition to considerable housework necessary that day in anticipation of their arrival I had picked and made jam with strawberries and boysenberries from my garden.
Thursday: I welcomed three more Korean backpackers. They have now begun cutting broccoli with a promise of work after Christmas picking capsicums and aubergines.
Friday: The rain started. Baby Sarah was born here at Stanthorpe two years ago on this date, but it was decided that we would have a party for her on Saturday night. My eldest daughter, Carol, and her youngest daughter, 14 year old Monique, arrived to spend the weekend with us. That night I broke out a bottle of Vasse Felix wine, a September Margaret River purchase, for our dinner.
Saturday: The rain poured down and none of the backpackers were working. Alex and Ikmo assisted me as furniture removalists carrying tables, chairs, a lounge suite and smaller pieces to the ‘under-roof’ area – the car park of our guest apartment wing. This is the region where we will be holding the garage sale next Saturday. They were hindered by Rachael and Elizabeth offering to help, or trailing along behind them.
Two girls
I baked bread and kept the meals coming while Carol produced a remarkable fairy birthday cake for baby Sarah.
Fairy cake
A year ago Eberhard taught Carol how to bake his famous Black Forest Cake. This visit she requested of him that he instruct her in the art of creating his equally famous version of a Gingerbread House.
Baking Gingerbread
Note the stickers on Eberhard’s shirt. They were applied by Elizabeth. He is a much loved Opa.
During the afternoon I packed my car ready to attend the Sunday market.
Sunday: The rain had eased and the river was in flood. I took a brisk walk to the river to check the situation before driving into Stanthorpe.
Severn River in flood
The previous day when assessing what flowers in my garden that I could cut for display on my stall, I had found that only the snapdragons and hydrangeas had withstood the ravages of the heavy rain.
Although this was my fifth appearance at the Market in the Mountains I am still considered a ‘casual’ and have not yet acquired a permanent stall position. Every market day I have had to contend with the new difficulties of setting up my table in a different location which also means I have to understand the customer flow of that site. This day I was delegated to a pleasant spot with large glass doors behind me which opened onto a courtyard garden.
By the time I arrived home Carol and Eberhard had completed assembling the Hansel and Gretel gingerbread house. To prevent temptation a platter of gingerbread cookies were placed on the luncheon table.
Hansel & Gretel Gingerbread House
On Monday I lost my internet connection when an electrical storm damaged the wireless tower providing my service. Two days later the connection has been restored.
Wildflowers, wilderness and wine
If you haven’t already purchased a copy of Wildflowers, wilderness and wine you may do so on http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary or www.australia-book.com.au
Providing my internet service stays up, I’ll also be publishing tomorrow more about Eberhard’s youth in Germany in the years 1926-1950 on http://fayhelwigauthor.com
