Green Beech and Grass Hay

We've had only have one wholesaler operating since Christmas but he's kept me running, ordering lots of beech which he doesn't usually buy from us. His other suppliers, obviously, are taking a good break at this time of year.
I picked 50 tall bunches for him at the farm last Thursday which more or less was the finish of it there for this season. He wanted another forty yesterday so I visited a tree in La Souef Rd. that I didn't cut last year, after having done so for several years prior to that. Two years ago the owner of the property, Anne, sold it and moved to go and live with her daughter at Boweya, a small rural locality on the edge of the box/ironbark of the Killawarra Forest outside Wangaratta. Over the years I had come to know Anne quite well. She'd had serious health problems and lost her husband John to cancer. It was John who'd originally OK'd me to prune the beech tree which was growing close to the electricity wires, and if not cut regularly would have ended up a poor shape as the contractors for the electricity company cut the top of one side of it each year.
Anne had told me a lady called Allison had bought her house. Last year she was not home each time I called to ask her if I could continue cutting the tree. She was home yesterday. When I explained myself she said that Anne had told her about me and yes, I could cut the tree, she didn't want it growing as big as 'Ben Hur'.
Allison then asked me did I know what happened to Anne. "No", I didn't. Then she laid it on me.
It was a bit of a shock when she said that not long after Anne got to Boweya her daughter suicided, and shortly after, Anne followed suit. She died the day before the settlement on Anne's Gembrook house was to take place and it spooked Allison so much that she nearly didn't go ahead with the purchase.
I was pleased to be able to prune the beech tree and Allison told me to come any time I liked and take whatever I might need. I gave her some honey in exchange. She said she didn't eat honey herself but her son was staying with her temporarily and he'd use it. I told her that next time I'd bring something else, say some hand soap from Elvie's little shop at the farm, but she said she was just happy to have some pruning done.
We went into her backyard, she wanting to show me the work she'd done.
The vista from there is into my favourite scene on my morning walk, the valley at the head of which the Shepherd's Creek West Branch begins, but of course from a different side. Before Christmas the big paddock on the hill beyond the two one acre paddocks where I watch the galahs and cockies feeding, was cut for grass hay. From this viewpoint, looking across to the paddock, I guess about 20 acres in size, the big round bales are visible, 51 of them. Each is worth over $200 because of the drought. A bountiful harvest.
We've been much better off here in the Dandenong's than most of the state. When Molly got home to Wangaratta after Christmas she rang to say that not one drop of rain had fallen there, compared to the 50ml we'd had in Gembrook. And a friend rang from Wang. on New Year's eve to wish me all the best. He heard the rain on the roof and I walked outside to read the gauge, telling him we'd had another 10ml. They had zip.