As winter starts to wane, none too slowly and regretfully for me, I feel the warmth of a rousing sun giant and listen to the hum of bees working Cootamundra wattle blossom for pollen essential for broodrearing. Today is the third last day of July, bright, warm and sunny, only August left of winter, yet it feels like spring already. Pine mushies yielded by good Earth have been plentiful; I've had some wonderful breakfasts; but they are scarce now. Birds reproductive instincts have kicked into gear; they are busier, noisier, hungrier, feistier.
I'm grateful that reasonable rain fell during June and July, and pray for the same for August. I've done most of my planting, intended to be finished by end of June, then revised to end of July. I'm sure, like me, millions are longing for good rain to finish the winter and carry into spring. The ground is moist, the longer it stays so, the deeper it goes, down to the roots of trees which link the subterrain to the sun as if by magic; leaves, solar receptors, suck moiture up through the tree and, after some evaporation, charge it with carbohydrates. Then it goes down again and allows the roots to grow and exploit new ground.
If you take the Hillside track in Gembrook Park, then turn left at the first junction on the Fern Gully track, about 5 minutes from the carpark and toilets you come across two fine tree specimens, north American sequoias, Sequoia sempervirens. These trees, also known as Californian redwoods, thrust skyward alongside mountain ash of about the same age I would guess.
There's dispute among local historians as to when these redwoods were planted. The notice board says that for some time it was thought they were planted in 1934 to mark the centenary celebrations of Victoria, but that local resident Bill Parker remembers seeing them there in the 1920's. Julian Dyer disputes this, saying the orinal theory of 1934 is correct. His mother, who moved to Bairnsdale some years ago and who died last year, had a photo of the trees with Harry Knight, who'd just planted them, to mark the centenary in 1934. Harry Knight owned the general store and was a shire councillor.
I know of two more sequoias at the bottom of Mary St. Emerald planted by my friend Doug Twaites in the early 1950's as seedlings. These also have reached very large size in a short time. I was watching TV recently, 'Getaway', I think, they were featuring Glenharrow Gardens at Belgrave, when a massive redwood, 28 feet around the base, was shown, and said to have been planted in the 1880's. There are three young redwoods in gardens on my walk up to the town and another couple in La Souef Rd. I hope they survive to 100 year plus maturity; they'll be a sight for those lucky enough to be around.
The Sequoia, the tallest tree species in the world, is my tree of the week.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Vale Hamish
The phone rang at 7.30 yesterday morning, just before I was about to set out on my walk, and shortly after running Robbie up to town to catch the 7.10 bus. It was my friend Pat, distressed and crying. She asked me would I be able to find some time to help her husband Mal dig a hole for Hamish, whom they had to have put down by the vet last night.
I told Pat I'd be there shortly. There'd been a couple of inches of rain overnight and it started raining again as I went outside to unload and unhitch the trailer which was full from a gardening job finished late the previous day. My plan had been to do my walk then get Lib breakfast. She had a doctor's appointment at 10.00 am and one with a specialist at 11.30, so I had a little reorganizing to do.
It was 8.30 by the time I drove into Pat and Mal's. It'd been raining for most of the last hour and I thought Mal would have waited for a break. Hamish, an Irish wolfhound, was a big dog and would need a big grave. I was thinking a couple of hours in it at least. Pat was on the front verandah with a neighbour I'd not met before and I could see down where Pat pointed to where Mal had been digging, another man, the neghbour's husband, driving a crow bar into the earth.
When I got to the site Mal was in the hole, now over four feet deep, cleaning out the dirt loosened by the crow bar. I offered to give Mal a rest. He was tiring, he said, and got out of the hole and I got in. He said he started at first light, about 7.00am and was surprised at how easy the digging was at their choice of site, a grassed area where Hamish loved to lie. He'd expected it to take half the day.
Mal is in his seventies, and depite the unexpected moist soft earth, it was no mean feat to have a hole dug in such quick time, the other neighbour arriving only shortly before me. Not that I would ever underestimate Mal. From a Scottish farming background, he joined the British army as a young man and served as a paratrooper in Malaya. He told me once - we were talking about a train incident in my youth when a friend's father, coming home from work, stepped out of a train which stopped short of the station in thick fog and plummeted head first straight to the bottom of a subway - of a soldier in his platoon at KL station who slipped off the platform and was caught by the arm under a train. Mal knocked out the delirious man with a punch to the jaw and extricated him by severing his arm with a knife. He retired to Gembrook after a career ex army as an civil engineer with a large international British construction firm. Called back to help out recently due to a shortage of engineers, he's currently involved in major repairs of the wharf in Darwin, which is threatening to drop into the ocean.
We went inside for coffee and Pat and Mal told stories of Hamish whom they had both loved during his six years with them from puppyhood. A huge dog, he was a gentle natured, playful, and affectionate. Pat in particular, doted on him like a child, her companion when Mal was away in Sydney, Queensland, or Darwin every other week. I did a couple of hours work for Pat last Thursday. Hamish was wheezing, Pat cancelled her yoga class to stay with him, the vet having said he had one of the 52 types of kennel cough which antibiotics should fix. He seemed happy and active walking around the garden, but Pat was anxious. It was all down hill from there. It turned out he had a congenital heart problem missed by the vets in check ups, an oversized artery, and his heart was unable to pump strongly enough to remove the fluid that was building in his lungs. They discovered by going into his family history that all his siblings, and his mother, had died of the same condition some years earlier.
Hamish fought hard to stay. He was the happiest of dogs. Pat is devastated.
I told Pat I'd be there shortly. There'd been a couple of inches of rain overnight and it started raining again as I went outside to unload and unhitch the trailer which was full from a gardening job finished late the previous day. My plan had been to do my walk then get Lib breakfast. She had a doctor's appointment at 10.00 am and one with a specialist at 11.30, so I had a little reorganizing to do.
It was 8.30 by the time I drove into Pat and Mal's. It'd been raining for most of the last hour and I thought Mal would have waited for a break. Hamish, an Irish wolfhound, was a big dog and would need a big grave. I was thinking a couple of hours in it at least. Pat was on the front verandah with a neighbour I'd not met before and I could see down where Pat pointed to where Mal had been digging, another man, the neghbour's husband, driving a crow bar into the earth.
When I got to the site Mal was in the hole, now over four feet deep, cleaning out the dirt loosened by the crow bar. I offered to give Mal a rest. He was tiring, he said, and got out of the hole and I got in. He said he started at first light, about 7.00am and was surprised at how easy the digging was at their choice of site, a grassed area where Hamish loved to lie. He'd expected it to take half the day.
Mal is in his seventies, and depite the unexpected moist soft earth, it was no mean feat to have a hole dug in such quick time, the other neighbour arriving only shortly before me. Not that I would ever underestimate Mal. From a Scottish farming background, he joined the British army as a young man and served as a paratrooper in Malaya. He told me once - we were talking about a train incident in my youth when a friend's father, coming home from work, stepped out of a train which stopped short of the station in thick fog and plummeted head first straight to the bottom of a subway - of a soldier in his platoon at KL station who slipped off the platform and was caught by the arm under a train. Mal knocked out the delirious man with a punch to the jaw and extricated him by severing his arm with a knife. He retired to Gembrook after a career ex army as an civil engineer with a large international British construction firm. Called back to help out recently due to a shortage of engineers, he's currently involved in major repairs of the wharf in Darwin, which is threatening to drop into the ocean.
We went inside for coffee and Pat and Mal told stories of Hamish whom they had both loved during his six years with them from puppyhood. A huge dog, he was a gentle natured, playful, and affectionate. Pat in particular, doted on him like a child, her companion when Mal was away in Sydney, Queensland, or Darwin every other week. I did a couple of hours work for Pat last Thursday. Hamish was wheezing, Pat cancelled her yoga class to stay with him, the vet having said he had one of the 52 types of kennel cough which antibiotics should fix. He seemed happy and active walking around the garden, but Pat was anxious. It was all down hill from there. It turned out he had a congenital heart problem missed by the vets in check ups, an oversized artery, and his heart was unable to pump strongly enough to remove the fluid that was building in his lungs. They discovered by going into his family history that all his siblings, and his mother, had died of the same condition some years earlier.
Hamish fought hard to stay. He was the happiest of dogs. Pat is devastated.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Julian's Honeymoon
A voice called my name as I walked to my van and trailer. I'd stopped on my way home to buy a bottle of mint sauce, in case the one in the pantry at home was low, to go with the Sunday dinner roast leg of lamb I was much looking forward to. Daylight was fading, I was hungry, and I wanted unload the trailer of the prunings from Pat Atzmuller's garden before dark.
Turning to the voice I saw Julian getting out of his car. We met halfway between the vehicles and began conversation, starting with the weather. Julian, who is always well up to date with weather forecasts, said there was supposed to be about 50ml of rain over the next few days. He wanted it to hold off for a bit till they had some more spuds out.
Julian likes a yarn usually, other times he'll grunt a greeting. He may have spent a pleasant hour or two in the pub that afternoon, his eyes were wide and he smiled freely. With the story of Joe's father's windfall of 1956 fresh in my mind, I asked Julian why the price of potatos was so high that year.
"Floods, floods everywhere, they couldn't get spuds dug anywhere else. Fortune smiled on this area. There's been other times when the price was high. In October 1965 the phone rang at 4.00am on a Friday morning. I was living at Dad's. I got up and went to the phone on the wall in the hall, that's where the phone always was then, wondering who the hell was ringing."
"It was Nick San Delucia, the big potato merchant in Melbourne." He said, 'Have you dug those #*#*#*# spuds yet?' I told him they were still in the ground. They were Exton, a variety with long dormancy and slow to shoot, they would be OK for weeks. He asked how many did I think there was. I told him about 16 tons, it was a paddock of one and three quarter acres. He said, If you dig 'em this weekend I'll send two trucks to pick 'em up 3.00 Sunday arvo, and I'll pay you 10 quid a bag, cash.' This was before decimal currency."
"A mill worker or farm labourer at the time earned 7 quid a week, maybe a public servant got ten. We got into the digging. I finished up with 17 tons, at 15 bags to the ton that was 255 bags. At ten quid a bag I had 2,550 quid cash in my pocket at the end of the weekend. Marg and I were engaged at the time. The very next day I went round to an old bloke's 2 bedroom cottage in Williamson's Rd., I'd heard he'd wanted to sell. He said he wanted 1800 pounds, I pulled the money out of my back pocket, counted out 1800 and gave it to him. Marg and I spent two weeks on Hayman Island on our honeymoon and still had money left over.
"Bill Parker asked me the other day what a ton of spuds was bringing and I told him $400. He said, 'Gee, that's good.' I said, 'you're a **#*#** Bill, you used to sell a bag of certified seed potatoes for 50 quid a bag in the 1960's.' People have selective memory."
"I'd better go Julian, I've got roast lamb for dinner."
"Hang on a minute," he said, "I haven't told you what I wanted to yet. Years ago, I can't remember what year, my great aunt, Lorna Smith, died in her 100th year. Frank Heritage of Heritage Funerals in Healesville did the service and after most people had left the cemetery there was Frank and me and Bill Parker and his mother still at the the graveside. Old Mrs.Parker, also in her 100th year, walked around, grabbed a handful of earth and threw it down onto the coffin. Frank Heritage said to her, 'And how old are you dear?' She looked at him carefully and replied slowly, 'In nine months, I'll be a hundred years old.' Frank looked greatly impressed and said, 'Goodness me, it's hardly worth you going home.'
As we parted laughing, Julian said Mrs. Parker also died the same year, shortly before her 100th birthday.
Turning to the voice I saw Julian getting out of his car. We met halfway between the vehicles and began conversation, starting with the weather. Julian, who is always well up to date with weather forecasts, said there was supposed to be about 50ml of rain over the next few days. He wanted it to hold off for a bit till they had some more spuds out.
Julian likes a yarn usually, other times he'll grunt a greeting. He may have spent a pleasant hour or two in the pub that afternoon, his eyes were wide and he smiled freely. With the story of Joe's father's windfall of 1956 fresh in my mind, I asked Julian why the price of potatos was so high that year.
"Floods, floods everywhere, they couldn't get spuds dug anywhere else. Fortune smiled on this area. There's been other times when the price was high. In October 1965 the phone rang at 4.00am on a Friday morning. I was living at Dad's. I got up and went to the phone on the wall in the hall, that's where the phone always was then, wondering who the hell was ringing."
"It was Nick San Delucia, the big potato merchant in Melbourne." He said, 'Have you dug those #*#*#*# spuds yet?' I told him they were still in the ground. They were Exton, a variety with long dormancy and slow to shoot, they would be OK for weeks. He asked how many did I think there was. I told him about 16 tons, it was a paddock of one and three quarter acres. He said, If you dig 'em this weekend I'll send two trucks to pick 'em up 3.00 Sunday arvo, and I'll pay you 10 quid a bag, cash.' This was before decimal currency."
"A mill worker or farm labourer at the time earned 7 quid a week, maybe a public servant got ten. We got into the digging. I finished up with 17 tons, at 15 bags to the ton that was 255 bags. At ten quid a bag I had 2,550 quid cash in my pocket at the end of the weekend. Marg and I were engaged at the time. The very next day I went round to an old bloke's 2 bedroom cottage in Williamson's Rd., I'd heard he'd wanted to sell. He said he wanted 1800 pounds, I pulled the money out of my back pocket, counted out 1800 and gave it to him. Marg and I spent two weeks on Hayman Island on our honeymoon and still had money left over.
"Bill Parker asked me the other day what a ton of spuds was bringing and I told him $400. He said, 'Gee, that's good.' I said, 'you're a **#*#** Bill, you used to sell a bag of certified seed potatoes for 50 quid a bag in the 1960's.' People have selective memory."
"I'd better go Julian, I've got roast lamb for dinner."
"Hang on a minute," he said, "I haven't told you what I wanted to yet. Years ago, I can't remember what year, my great aunt, Lorna Smith, died in her 100th year. Frank Heritage of Heritage Funerals in Healesville did the service and after most people had left the cemetery there was Frank and me and Bill Parker and his mother still at the the graveside. Old Mrs.Parker, also in her 100th year, walked around, grabbed a handful of earth and threw it down onto the coffin. Frank Heritage said to her, 'And how old are you dear?' She looked at him carefully and replied slowly, 'In nine months, I'll be a hundred years old.' Frank looked greatly impressed and said, 'Goodness me, it's hardly worth you going home.'
As we parted laughing, Julian said Mrs. Parker also died the same year, shortly before her 100th birthday.
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