I had a cup of coffee with Grace yesterday, after picking bunches of bay foliage from a tree in her yard. I've picked there for 20 years, well before Grace moved into the house some years ago, when a son, concerned that she had too far to walk as she was by then in her mid 80's, bought a house in the main street close to the shops and bus stop.
Come Anzac Day next Friday, Grace will have lived in Gembrook for 66 years. She arrived on Anzac Day 1942, by train and bus from Melbourne. Her husband was in the army in the Middle East and Grace did not feel safe in Prahran where she rented a couple of rooms and lived with her three children aged 6, 4 and a half, and 18 months. The Japanese Imperial Forces were moving south, bombing their way through South East Asia, it was a time of great anxiety.
Grace asked the army where could she could go. Someone suggested Gembrook and she found accomodation sharing a house on Mt. Eirene Rd. She was to meet the people with whom she was to share the house at a specified time at the Gembrook terminal. There was a delay at Ferntree Gully station getting the pusher and luggage from the guard's van, causing her to miss the bus. She could have caught the narrow gauge steam train but opted to catch the bus as arranged, having already paid for the tickets. She waited three hours for the next bus. The kids were hungry, the shops were shut for the public holiday.
When she and the kids eventually climbed from the bus in Gembrook late in the day there was nobody to meet them. She asked directions and started walking, the oldest child taking the pusher while Grace carried the bags. It was a walk of perhaps four miles on rough gravel roads. Darkness enveloped them, there was no alternative but to keep walking toward the light in the distance which she hoped was 'her house'. She recalls the difficulty of this day every Anzac Day.
Grace settled well in Gembrook. She remembers in subsequent years taking the kids to school in a spring cart drawn by an old draught horse. She'd wait for the mail to be sorted then head back, often it being nearly midday by the time she reached the house, such was the slowness of the old horse.
In all the time he was in the army, Grace's husband sent not one letter, despite her writing regularly. He returned from the Middle east, and was posted to Queensland, but absconded regularly to come home, so there was little army pay. Grace says of him that he was a funny bloke, he became alcoholic an died reasonably young riddled with cancer. They had nine children in all, although one died within a month. Grace managed to find work in Gembrook and supported her own large family. She worked in the post office for a long time and was there when we moved here 28 years ago.
Grace never owned a car or home, paying rent for her lodging. In her retirement one of her sons who has done well in business has paid her rent, and now owns the house where she lives. Her children and grandchildren visit regularly and she talks of them constantly. As we drank coffee yesterday she spoke joyously of her most recent great grand child, a girl born at Easter two months prem. and weighing less than 1 kg. The dear little thing, not long ago on expressed mother's milk of 1 ml every hour, is doing well and should be leaving hospital soon.
Grace, who turns 93 this year, was shattered a couple of years ago when one of her sons died of bowel cancer. Nearly succumbing to the grief, she's slowly regained much of her spirit and I enjoy my talks with her, she being so willing to share her stories with honesty not commonly found.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
20/20 Summit
There was 'something in the air' this morning. Thunderclap Newman's hit record of the seventies would have been an appropriate anthem for the weekend talkfest. Let's hope something comes of it. I've heard nothing impressive so far, and nothing about rescuing the environment and teaching average Australians about their surrounding flora and fauna and living in harmony with it. If the mud splattered four wheel drive vehicle convoys and trailbikes around Gembrook at the weekend are an indication, there's a long way to go.
The air was cold and misty and perfectly still. To this walker, recovering from three days of gastric flu, it was like an injection of life straight into the vein. Smoke from the DSE/CFA controlled burns mingled with the freshness, bringing a little of the bush. I was breathing fine particles of incinerated understory and the charred bodies of thousands of lizards, echidnas, possums and birds and insects, sacrificed to improve the bush and make it firesafe.
I was so thankful that I felt well again. I worked through the acute stage of my flu on Friday, pumped full of painkillers. We had a busy day, due to Jewish passover I think. I had an order for 50 bunches of pin oak foliage as well as other extras above normal. I climbed a tree at the farm which showed good autumn colour and took off the entire top half to get the fifty bunches. Such exertion when you're crook knocks you about, I was in bed dosed up at 7.30pm without any dinner.
Saturday I'd set to work through the bees to prepare them for winter, the weather forecast being for a fine warm day. I took off five boxes sort of half full of honey and pollen and pinched the head of the failing queen of the poorest hive and united it with the hive which was the swarm I caught in the cemetery in December, leaving me four doubles of reasonable strength going in to winter. By days end I'd extracted the honey, about 40/45 kg.
Lib worked yesterday, so after she left at 6.30am I worked on the vegies for our roast chicken dinner and chopped up swede, carrot, onion, celery, parsnip, garlic and herbs for a spag sauce. I walked for an hour, then browned one kg of mince, sealed the vegies with a minute or two in a hot frypan, and put it all in the crockpot with tomatoe paste, a tin of tomatoes and three chopped home grown to cook on low for 10 hours. I make a helluva good spag sauce.
The boys and I left in Gord's car for the footy before midday to catch the start of the Melb/Carlton match at 1.10pm (oddly). It was a spirited contest when Melbourne hit the front early in the second term. At that point I had to find a toilet and when I returned ten minutes later Carlton was six goals in front. We left at three quarter time, eight goals down.
The smoke seems to have cleared a bit now now, as I look out the window at the currawongs having their annual feast in the fig tree. A few months ago I talked to one of the full time CFA blokes who does much of the burning about here in the autumn. I asked him what was the status of sweet pittosporum in terms of fire hazard, when I was researching a response to the council's war on this tree. He wasn't sure which it was at first but when I described it and explained its commonality he said "Oh yeah, that's really hard to burn, its full of moisture and very little grows under it to provide heat in a burn to get it going."
"Why burn it then. Why not cut it out with a chainsaw and paint the stump with roundup."
"No, that'd be too hard in the bush, easier to get a really hot fire going and get rid of it."
He continued to explain the merit of regularly burning the under growth to generate vigourous new green growth of indigenous flora, to the benefit of wildlife species in the surrounding areas which have new unoccupied habitat to move into. I could see his point, but asked him doesn't the fire also cause the sweet pittopurum to vigourously regenerate, it being a native although not indigenous to this area.
"Yes it does, but we send DSE teams in to spray the regrowth with weedicide so we select what comes back."
I'm not convinced that the management pracices in all this are ideal. It's too hard to root out sweet pittosporums manually in the 21st century with the aid off chainsaws, power winches and weedicide but our predecessors cleared vast areas of native forest with axes, crosscut saws and bullocks in a short space of time. The only sure thing at the moment is that every autumn there's a pall of smoke hanging for up to weeks on end, and a lot preserved DSE/CFA salaries paid on this dog chasing it's tail management. Maybe we should be looking to fire resistant species like sweet pittosporum to grow as protective belts for towns and houses and farm buildings.
I can only hope that something comes of the 20/20 summit.
The air was cold and misty and perfectly still. To this walker, recovering from three days of gastric flu, it was like an injection of life straight into the vein. Smoke from the DSE/CFA controlled burns mingled with the freshness, bringing a little of the bush. I was breathing fine particles of incinerated understory and the charred bodies of thousands of lizards, echidnas, possums and birds and insects, sacrificed to improve the bush and make it firesafe.
I was so thankful that I felt well again. I worked through the acute stage of my flu on Friday, pumped full of painkillers. We had a busy day, due to Jewish passover I think. I had an order for 50 bunches of pin oak foliage as well as other extras above normal. I climbed a tree at the farm which showed good autumn colour and took off the entire top half to get the fifty bunches. Such exertion when you're crook knocks you about, I was in bed dosed up at 7.30pm without any dinner.
Saturday I'd set to work through the bees to prepare them for winter, the weather forecast being for a fine warm day. I took off five boxes sort of half full of honey and pollen and pinched the head of the failing queen of the poorest hive and united it with the hive which was the swarm I caught in the cemetery in December, leaving me four doubles of reasonable strength going in to winter. By days end I'd extracted the honey, about 40/45 kg.
Lib worked yesterday, so after she left at 6.30am I worked on the vegies for our roast chicken dinner and chopped up swede, carrot, onion, celery, parsnip, garlic and herbs for a spag sauce. I walked for an hour, then browned one kg of mince, sealed the vegies with a minute or two in a hot frypan, and put it all in the crockpot with tomatoe paste, a tin of tomatoes and three chopped home grown to cook on low for 10 hours. I make a helluva good spag sauce.
The boys and I left in Gord's car for the footy before midday to catch the start of the Melb/Carlton match at 1.10pm (oddly). It was a spirited contest when Melbourne hit the front early in the second term. At that point I had to find a toilet and when I returned ten minutes later Carlton was six goals in front. We left at three quarter time, eight goals down.
The smoke seems to have cleared a bit now now, as I look out the window at the currawongs having their annual feast in the fig tree. A few months ago I talked to one of the full time CFA blokes who does much of the burning about here in the autumn. I asked him what was the status of sweet pittosporum in terms of fire hazard, when I was researching a response to the council's war on this tree. He wasn't sure which it was at first but when I described it and explained its commonality he said "Oh yeah, that's really hard to burn, its full of moisture and very little grows under it to provide heat in a burn to get it going."
"Why burn it then. Why not cut it out with a chainsaw and paint the stump with roundup."
"No, that'd be too hard in the bush, easier to get a really hot fire going and get rid of it."
He continued to explain the merit of regularly burning the under growth to generate vigourous new green growth of indigenous flora, to the benefit of wildlife species in the surrounding areas which have new unoccupied habitat to move into. I could see his point, but asked him doesn't the fire also cause the sweet pittopurum to vigourously regenerate, it being a native although not indigenous to this area.
"Yes it does, but we send DSE teams in to spray the regrowth with weedicide so we select what comes back."
I'm not convinced that the management pracices in all this are ideal. It's too hard to root out sweet pittosporums manually in the 21st century with the aid off chainsaws, power winches and weedicide but our predecessors cleared vast areas of native forest with axes, crosscut saws and bullocks in a short space of time. The only sure thing at the moment is that every autumn there's a pall of smoke hanging for up to weeks on end, and a lot preserved DSE/CFA salaries paid on this dog chasing it's tail management. Maybe we should be looking to fire resistant species like sweet pittosporum to grow as protective belts for towns and houses and farm buildings.
I can only hope that something comes of the 20/20 summit.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The Monterey Pine
I stand open to correction, but as far as I know the common old pine tree around Gembrook is Pinus radiata or the Monterey pine, indigenous to Nth America. There are Bhutan pines at the railway station and the odd baltic pine and Mexican pines in gardens but the common old pine tree is pinus radiata.
I counted them on my walk the other day. The driveway to the first house on the low side of Quinn Rd. has a row of 8 mature trees. I counted 18 young saplings along the roadside here, babies of that row. A little further on, on Launching Pl.Rd. there's a row of 18 along the front of a house where a front fence would normally be. Another hundred metres or so and there are 4 seriously large specimens in each corner of the block where the 'phsyco' house* stands, in the middle of these four dark giants. Then there's another couple on the other side of the road near the JW's. There's 8 or 9 big ones visible in the station woodland, one of which came down in the storm.
That's a lot of pine trees, just on my walking route, and they'll reward me shortly with pine mushrooms at their base. There's another four around the Catholic church in the main street. They remind me that a large specimen some years ago crashed down on the Uniting church in Ure Rd., totally destroying the building. Fortunately there was no congregation in the church at the time, the sinners spared. I'm trying to think of a God/Proddy joke but it would be in poor taste.
To me as a beekeeper, pine trees seemed a waste of space, having no value to foraging honeybees. Recently, I had a bee box, in the flat, posted to me by the equipment supplier. As I nailed the four sides together I noted that it was of course pine wood, being light, soft and easily nailed, resisting splitting.
On Easter Monday on my walk when I reached 'the gouge', a pair of plumbers were preparing to get to work so I went in to have a chat. They were suspicious of my cordiality at first, as if saying to themselves, "What's this dickhead want," but loosened up to answer my questions.
"The walls and roof trusses are pine. The decking joists are treated pine. It's all plantation grown timber. 90 percent of new houses are the same. We're putting batons up today, it's easy to screw into the pine."
'The International Book of Trees' says of the Monterey pine--
"The Monterey pine is perhaps the lushest and most lordly of the whole tribe. Nature had restricted this incredibly vigourous, but rather tender, plant to a few square miles around Monterey in southern California. Man has changed all that: it's now the chief forestry plant of the southern hemisphere. Results in New Zealand are sensational. In its 5th year there one tree put on 20 feet. Where it's happy the Monterey pine grows vast branches and keeps them densely clad in bright bottle green needles. Even in southern England it grows four feet a year, not even making a resting bud in winter but charging right on, only pausing in cold weather."
Pine needles make good smoker fuel too. Dense cool smoke, and they are convenient to bag. Against the morning or evening sky, pines have a strong, dark presence and their own stately beauty. My tree of the week.
* That house reminds me of the one in which Norman Bates lived in the move 'Phsyco'.
I counted them on my walk the other day. The driveway to the first house on the low side of Quinn Rd. has a row of 8 mature trees. I counted 18 young saplings along the roadside here, babies of that row. A little further on, on Launching Pl.Rd. there's a row of 18 along the front of a house where a front fence would normally be. Another hundred metres or so and there are 4 seriously large specimens in each corner of the block where the 'phsyco' house* stands, in the middle of these four dark giants. Then there's another couple on the other side of the road near the JW's. There's 8 or 9 big ones visible in the station woodland, one of which came down in the storm.
That's a lot of pine trees, just on my walking route, and they'll reward me shortly with pine mushrooms at their base. There's another four around the Catholic church in the main street. They remind me that a large specimen some years ago crashed down on the Uniting church in Ure Rd., totally destroying the building. Fortunately there was no congregation in the church at the time, the sinners spared. I'm trying to think of a God/Proddy joke but it would be in poor taste.
To me as a beekeeper, pine trees seemed a waste of space, having no value to foraging honeybees. Recently, I had a bee box, in the flat, posted to me by the equipment supplier. As I nailed the four sides together I noted that it was of course pine wood, being light, soft and easily nailed, resisting splitting.
On Easter Monday on my walk when I reached 'the gouge', a pair of plumbers were preparing to get to work so I went in to have a chat. They were suspicious of my cordiality at first, as if saying to themselves, "What's this dickhead want," but loosened up to answer my questions.
"The walls and roof trusses are pine. The decking joists are treated pine. It's all plantation grown timber. 90 percent of new houses are the same. We're putting batons up today, it's easy to screw into the pine."
'The International Book of Trees' says of the Monterey pine--
"The Monterey pine is perhaps the lushest and most lordly of the whole tribe. Nature had restricted this incredibly vigourous, but rather tender, plant to a few square miles around Monterey in southern California. Man has changed all that: it's now the chief forestry plant of the southern hemisphere. Results in New Zealand are sensational. In its 5th year there one tree put on 20 feet. Where it's happy the Monterey pine grows vast branches and keeps them densely clad in bright bottle green needles. Even in southern England it grows four feet a year, not even making a resting bud in winter but charging right on, only pausing in cold weather."
Pine needles make good smoker fuel too. Dense cool smoke, and they are convenient to bag. Against the morning or evening sky, pines have a strong, dark presence and their own stately beauty. My tree of the week.
* That house reminds me of the one in which Norman Bates lived in the move 'Phsyco'.
Monday, April 07, 2008
The Outrageous Storm
The day after my last post, when I described seeing 17 black cockies flying in a group, an outrageous storm thrashed the Gembrook landscape and indeed all of the Dandenongs and the southern half of of Victoria.
Black cockies are reputed to be a sign of rain within a few days and I've always felt them to be an accurate indicator, although it may be light rain or showers of not much consequence. I will be interested to note if next time I see a large number in a group there's a storm the next day.
We were without electricity for 32 hours. On the other side of town some people, including Huite and the Smiths had no power for 72 hours. Huite rang me on the Saturday to say his electricity was not yet reconnected and that he and Wilma had spent a lot of time in bed as there was nothing else to do. It was so cold they had get close and personal, refreshing his memory of an earlier time in life when he and Wilma spent a lot of time in bed because there was nothing else they'd rather do. I was amused and encouraged to think of Huite still after it at age 72, even if a blackout was the catalyst.
There was not a lot of rain with the storm. It raged for several hours starting early on the Wednesday. I had to do a road trip with the trailer to Keysborough in Melbourne, taking our mulcher to the manufacturer for an overhaul. It was difficult to keep the carryvan on the road such was the force of the gale, debris flying across the road to make for a scary trip.
We suffered no serious damage. Half an old forked peppermint came down to block our drive and several trees came down along my walk. A large blackwood in the yard of the house below us, two large peppermints along Launching Place rd., a huge pine in the woodland behind the station and the spotted gum opposite the CFA in Innes Rd brought the power lines down. There were many other trees and power lines down around the town. It was a miracle there wasn't more damage to life and property.
Black cockies are reputed to be a sign of rain within a few days and I've always felt them to be an accurate indicator, although it may be light rain or showers of not much consequence. I will be interested to note if next time I see a large number in a group there's a storm the next day.
We were without electricity for 32 hours. On the other side of town some people, including Huite and the Smiths had no power for 72 hours. Huite rang me on the Saturday to say his electricity was not yet reconnected and that he and Wilma had spent a lot of time in bed as there was nothing else to do. It was so cold they had get close and personal, refreshing his memory of an earlier time in life when he and Wilma spent a lot of time in bed because there was nothing else they'd rather do. I was amused and encouraged to think of Huite still after it at age 72, even if a blackout was the catalyst.
There was not a lot of rain with the storm. It raged for several hours starting early on the Wednesday. I had to do a road trip with the trailer to Keysborough in Melbourne, taking our mulcher to the manufacturer for an overhaul. It was difficult to keep the carryvan on the road such was the force of the gale, debris flying across the road to make for a scary trip.
We suffered no serious damage. Half an old forked peppermint came down to block our drive and several trees came down along my walk. A large blackwood in the yard of the house below us, two large peppermints along Launching Place rd., a huge pine in the woodland behind the station and the spotted gum opposite the CFA in Innes Rd brought the power lines down. There were many other trees and power lines down around the town. It was a miracle there wasn't more damage to life and property.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Breathe Deeply The Joy of Life
My mother Elvie went through a box of my father's personal papers, writings, and photos at the weekend. Twelve months have passed since he died last March.
Meredith and Elvie were looking at some of the photos at the farm late yesterday while I had a cup of tea after a busy day. As they passed them on to me to see, a strange feeling came over me.
The photos were a snap of about 80 years of family history. They included Lyle as a baby with his mother, aunts who died nearly 50 years ago, football teams, his family home, his young wife, and more recently his children and grandchildren, his cats, the farm, and himself in his later years, looking frail.
Oddly, I felt quite unconnected. Like it all happenned in a dream or in another lifetime separate to mine. I've felt this way before when going back in time, say to visit the old neighbourhood of our childhood, the old school, or catching up with an old girlfriend. Did it really happen? Did little wooden sailing ships cross the oceans to get here, not so long ago? Did nations spend 6 years trying to bomb each other into oblivion, not so long ago? It all seems unbelievable.
When walking this morning it came to me that every day is new, and different. Today the rose of dawn crept over the hill and shone through white mist, sillhouetting pine trunks and limbs like giant dark statues in the light. Sweet water dripped gently to earth. Seventeen black cockies in flock flopped across the sky east to west, unhurried, laconic. Never seen that many together before.
Tomorrow? Breathe deeply the cold morning air, the joy of life.
Meredith and Elvie were looking at some of the photos at the farm late yesterday while I had a cup of tea after a busy day. As they passed them on to me to see, a strange feeling came over me.
The photos were a snap of about 80 years of family history. They included Lyle as a baby with his mother, aunts who died nearly 50 years ago, football teams, his family home, his young wife, and more recently his children and grandchildren, his cats, the farm, and himself in his later years, looking frail.
Oddly, I felt quite unconnected. Like it all happenned in a dream or in another lifetime separate to mine. I've felt this way before when going back in time, say to visit the old neighbourhood of our childhood, the old school, or catching up with an old girlfriend. Did it really happen? Did little wooden sailing ships cross the oceans to get here, not so long ago? Did nations spend 6 years trying to bomb each other into oblivion, not so long ago? It all seems unbelievable.
When walking this morning it came to me that every day is new, and different. Today the rose of dawn crept over the hill and shone through white mist, sillhouetting pine trunks and limbs like giant dark statues in the light. Sweet water dripped gently to earth. Seventeen black cockies in flock flopped across the sky east to west, unhurried, laconic. Never seen that many together before.
Tomorrow? Breathe deeply the cold morning air, the joy of life.
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