Off, On Again?

The Gembrook market of Sunday 31 May was supposedly the last. The next morning a black sticker bearing the words in white "CLOSED DOWN" had been slapped on the sign advertising the market in the main street. Both the sign, which I described recently as a blot on the streetscape, and the sticker, remain today, nearly a month later. For a while there I thought soon I'd be spared this ugliness every day as I walked past.



It unfolded that the Cardinia Shire Council's insurer had advised that some of the Council's Section 86 special committees, including the Gembrook market committee, may not be eligible for this status and therefore were not eligible for insurance coverage provided through council. The council offered to help the market committee through this to enable them totake out their own insurance but the market committee spat the dummy and ceased operation.

I heard jungledrums rumbling in the weeks before the last market. I bumped into a local chap in the newsagency who held doubts at a number of the claims and demands of the market organizers. He told me he'd been in touch with the council, about public safety in the crowded market environment, in particular the ruling by the organizers, whom he termed "market nazi's in orange coats", that the coffee vendor couldn't provide his customers with lids for the hot coffee in disposable mugs because the lids were plastic. Plastic was banned by the market committee.

"A few years ago my son nearly had his cock burnt off when he took his order at the drive-in take away window at 'X'(a high profile takeaway food chain store). The girl tipped the tray too much and the hot coffee spilled in his lap. Now he didn't take legal action but soon afterwards someone else did, and 'X' had a liability payout of $millions. Furthermore they were reqired to spend many more $millions installing temperature control for coffee at all their outlets nationwide as well as providing sturdy snap on lids. Now if I was to buy a hot coffee at the market, without a lid, and someone were to knock me in the the crowded walkway, and the coffee was to spill into a baby's pusher, who's liable for the legal ramifications."

I've wondered about public liability and local markets. As a small business operator who has members of the public coming onto our property I've had to live with high insurance premiums. The domestic household insurers will not cover our farmhouse because a business is conducted on the property, necessitating us to have commercial cover, which costs three times as much. I had always felt somewhat irritated that the market stall holders compete with us reducing our custom, but don't have the same overheads. I was not surprised the issue had finally arisen.

Moves are now afoot to bring the market back. Local MP Tammy Lobato held a meeting to try to form a new committee that would take on the insurance challenge with the assistance of council. Apparently three local bodies are interested, and the matter is being sorted through.

If they must have a market, frankly I can't see why they do although I acknowledge that the local traders have a once a month spin off, let's hope the new committee gets a new sign that's pleasant to the eye, if they indeed need a permanent sign. Couldn't it just be publicized by local newspapers and flyers and temporary posters?

And while I'm on the subject of signs, check out this one, very close to the market sign.



It's hideously ugly, and nonsensical, as most of the businesses advertised on the sign are not in Gembrook. The map of the district shows nothing in terms of Gembrook itself. It's been there for years. Crazy!

Blue Skies, Nothin But Blue Skies

I couldn't help but have Willie Nelson's song in mind this morning on my walk as I watched Glen Binstead mowing Grace Delarue's lawn before 8.00am. This, in the middle of winter with a pefect blue dome overhead, and dew glistening on leaves in the bright sunshine. I'd just checked the reservoir levels in the Herald Sun in the newsagency, they fell over 500 megalitres, about half what they would on a summer's day, in the the twenty four hours before yesterday's reading.

The reservoir levels used to start rising in May and continue on the up till some time in November. Here we are nearly in July, levels are at record low, and still going down big time. I can't help but feel a little depressed about it.

It All Helps

We had 5ml of rain during the night, which is better than nothing, but disappointing. That seems to be the trend these days, rain often passes by or teases.

On a light note, the cartoon by Mark Knight in The Herald Sun today was a beauty. A ute driven by someone resembling Kevin Rudd and with a passenger like Wayne Swan had a bloke, a good caricature of Malcolm T, with a chain around his neck, in the back of the ute.

A lizard or some small creature on the ground had a caption, "Malcolm is back on his chain."

Rain Coming ?

The clouds to the east and northeast were rosy pink on the underside of sheeting grey this morning, as I made my way up the 'dead horse' hill (apparently a draught horse dropped dead hauling a dray of timber up Quinn Rd, which was the main road before it was re routed). Very different to yesterday, there's more cloud altogether, and a nice grey colour building in the west.

If you think I have a fixation with the weather and particularly rain, you're right. I heard it said on the radio today that the 19th century was the century of the goldrush, the 20th the oil rush, is the 21st century to be that of the water rush? It could well be. Southeast Australia, and the southwest, seems to be drying out.

It worries me enormously there's so much sceptism in the community about global warming, and apathy generally, about the degrading agricultural landscape and river systems. While Rome burns, as has Victoria regularly in recent years, Nero fiddles. Our leaders today are demanding apologies and resignations in the wash of Utegate, which looks like a fizzer, by the way. Last week the papers and TV were full of the demise of 'Twopence' Moran. The week before there was outrage because there was some doubt that ACDC might not be able to use Etihad stadium for it's concerts next Febuary because of the NAB Cup. It's all pretty sick and depressing really.

I've long believed that Australia needs a massive revegetation program to repair ecological damage. Even now, with so much more pressure exerted by environmentalists, logging of old growth forests continues in Tasmania and Victoria, and the humdinger of all pulp mills is close to happening. Our record is very bad for loss of wildlife species and flora, and Australia is the highest per capita greenhouse gas emitter.

As the forests have shrunk and dried out, they catch fire regularly, and we're told last summer's destruction will be more likely in future. There's the inevitable push to control burn more native bush to save life and property, but this will further dry everything out. Farmers are going broke in northern and western Victoria while the state government announces the proposed release of thousands of hectares of agricultural land close to Melbourne for residential development. How many desal plants will be needed in twenty years?

I love rain. And trees and forests. They attract rain. We need more. They suck moisture from underground and expire into the atmosphere, they lower the salt table. Timber is still the cheapest and most environment friendly building material, yet there's a looming world wide shortage. I don't mean fire prone native trees exclusively. There are 600 different types of oaks in the world. I'm sure suitable trees could be found for a variety of purpose and use, not the least of which is absorbing carbon from the atmosphere.

I would happily pay more tax, say on petrol, another fifty cents a litre, if the money was used to create forests or regenerate vegetation on degraded land. Maybe the state government could put an emission levy on registration of cars for private use, say $1000 each. What would that raise, $3 billion annually? That'd be a good start to building new 'green' industry and green jobs in planning and management. Down the track, there'd even be a harvest.

In the meantime I'll keep watching the clouds, and praying for change.

A Good Start To The Week

June 22 rings no bells for me historically. Today, days start getting longer. Meryl Streep's birthday, I heard. Utegate day, someone said on the morning news.

As I walked down Launching Place Rd. earlier the sun was bright and in my face, the sky above clear and blue, and a grey mist lay low in the Shepherd's Creek valley where the sun had not yet reached. Soon, large pine trees shielded my eyes fom the sun allowing me a good look at the magnificent vista in the distance. In an otherwise cloudless sky, grey and white masses sat on the Warburton Ranges, meshing together to resemble snow covered Andes peaks. The only give away was odd white shapes billowing up here and there like giant puffs.

Clouds are often spectacular. I should cloud gaze more often. There's something reassuring about them, I think we all spent time looking at them when we were kids.

So maybe we lose Ruddy today, maybe Teasurer Swan, maybe Malcolm T. We'll see. The clouds will roll on. No doubt The Universe is unfolding as it should.

Where have all the rainclouds gone?

El Nino Blow

That's the headline on today's The Weekly Times. In smaller print is 'Farmers Brace for Continuing Drought'.

Two weeks ago I took out a year's subscription, mainly to get the inducement offer of 'The Cook's Book' which is a ripper. I was so pleased to see an article in the first weeks subscription, stating that Japanese scientists were predicting a wetter than average winter and spring for Victoria, that I cut it out and took it to the farm where Meredith stuck it on the fridge. In the next week we had 50ml of rain and farmers in the wheat growing areas had the same or more and all was optimism.

Now, Professor Yamagata says the readings now say the El Nino will kill the rain inducing Indian Ocean Dipole event which was previously forecast. Talk about being set up to be shot down. With Melbourne's reservoirs showing 25.8 full, that's more than 3% lower than the lowest figure last year, and still going down, the prospect of a dry winter and spring is a hideous one, for city dwellers, small business and farmers alike.

You Never Know What's Coming

Young Pip, who is two years old this June, yesterday managed to get herself a bellyful of snailbait. I left her at the vet's in Avonsleigh about 6.20 pm on a drip with the prognosis to take home to Lib and the boys that she had a better than 50% chance. It happened all so accidently and easily, but it was my fault.

The whole trauma up to 6.20 when I left her at the vet's, was played out inside two hours, but the tale has it's origin a week ago, last Monday. I went into the vegie garden at the farm to see how my broccoli plants were going. I'd planted a batch of seedlings out, another week earlier, and we'd had 50ml of much needed rain since, so I was expecting them to be thriving. Not so. 90% of them were chewed off almost at ground level, obviously by a rabbit.

A gardener so much enjoys seeing the progress of his labours, especially when you grow things from seed and nurture them through dryspells and caterpillar and slug attack. To make it worse, there was a rabbit fence around the vegie garden but someone who worked for us in recent times, while doing a clean out in the garden, had cut a hole in the fence so that he had less distance to walk pushing his wheelbarrow, rather than to walk further each trip to the gate at the lower end.

When I got back into the garden this autumn there didn't seem to be any rabbits around so I also made use of the hole in the fence rather than spend ten minutes putting the rabbit wire back up. This I now regret. I fixed the fence. I scrounged around at home and found enough seedlings left over, previously thought to be inferior, and took them to the farm with me last Friday. Toward the end of the day in fading light I planted them out, somewhat soothing the disappointment caused by the rabbit. Last thing, almost in darkness, I threw some snail pellets around them, thinking I couldn't stand it if slugs and snails ate the next lot. I usually use the 'dog safe' type, especially at home where there are dogs, but not having any on board I used some 'Baysol blue' that I found in the farm shed.

Pleased to be finished I put the tin of the remaining snail bait in my toolbox in the van and dashed off to do some shopping. I'd arranged with Karen at the Gembrook Pizza shop to pick up, at 6.30pm, two pizzas and 3 serves of cannelloni that Lib loves, I was on schedule. Rob had had an exam that day and was crook as a dog with the flu and crashed to bed, but the rest of us enjoyed our Friday night takeaway, sitting by the fire and watching TV.

Unusually, I didn't use the van on Saturday. I poked around home getting firewood into the shed and having a rest. I used Lib's car to go up the street, and check Vilma's garden. Despite it being a windy night the grass was too wet at Vilma's to spray under her blueberries. Sunday I woke up with a burning throat, the dreaded lurgie that Lib and Rob had already had. I didn't even do my morning walk. Lib went to work at 6.30 am and I went back to bed. Feeling a bit crook when I got up, I stayed inside and wrote my letter to Phil Allchin in WA and did the vegies for the Sunday roast etc. It had been my plan to go to the farm and put some string around the broad beans to hold them up, so when Lib came home and with the fire going and firewood in, I thought I'd make up for the dogs missing their morning walk and take them to the farm for a run.

I loaded them into the van at 4.30., stopped at the post box outside Sal's supermarket on the way to post my letter, and had a chat for five minutes to Gary and Anita Stephens who were mowing and cutting back outside the physio's clinic. Anita said she would rake up all her autumn leaves into bags for me as she has done for a couple of decades, with the exception of the last couple of years following her car accident. At the farm, the dogs ran about outside the vegie garden trying to sniff out rabbits, having a lovely time, while I tied up the broadies and threw the ash from my fireplace around the pansies and silverbeet.

The days are so short now, light was fading, I looked about for the dogs to get them in the van. Pip was about twenty feet away, looking like she was trying to do a toilet. Her movements were odd, her back was arching jerkily. I thought she might be constipated. I went over, I could see no bowel motion on the ground. She went to the van, not jumping up as she usually does. I picked her up, she was shaking. I drove to the house to see Elvie and Meredith and fill up a few jars of honey. I told them something was wrong with Pip, I didn't know if it was serious, maybe it was, maybe a bowel obstruction or something life threatening. On Sunday evening, bugger it.

I rang Tom, our Gembrook vet. A recorded message said he was unavailable till Monday, and in emergency ring the Avonsleigh vet or Cranbourne. A young lady, Fiona at Avonsleiegh, said she would be at the clinic at 5.45pm, somebody was coming in to pick up a dog, she would need to talk to them and would see us at 6.00pm. "Are you aware it will be an out of hours fee?" I went back to the van. Pip was in full tremors and dribbling at the mouth, and bum, frothy dribble. Her abdomen was so tight and her back half as stiff as a board. She lay in a gap between two boxes, seemingly in great pain. Now her tongue was hanging out.

I went to the Avonsleigh vet and spent ten agonizing minutes while the vet and a lady picking up a German shepherd with a bucket on it's head discussed what she was do when she got the dog home. The lady asked the same question six times using different words, the vet gave the same answer six times. I nearly yelled out, "My fucking dog is dying while you are talking." I didn't, I didn't want to alienate the person who could help me. Pip had staggered to her feet, as if in a last ditch panic, and made a convulsive arch, while the vet asked me my address and tapped at her computer. Little Pip, with a huge effort, or so it looked, spewed up a big blue vomit. I'd fed the dogs before we'd left home, knowing it'd be dark when we got back. Much of her evening meal was on the floor, died blue by what was now obviously blue snail bait. She'd found the tin in my tool box, probably bored when I'd stopped to talk to Anita and Gary, if she hadn't already while I was driving. I had totally forgotten I'd put it there the previous Friday.

We went into the vet's rooms. Fiona gave Pip three injections, one to help the heart keep working, one to calm her muscles, and another to help her spew more, which she did. The senior vet John Hamilton turned up and he and Fiona put Pip on the drip and explained to me how deadly that blue shit is with dogs. It can cause blindness and brain damage if it doesn't kill them. It affects the nervous system. It was fortunate I'd fed her before she ate it, that diluted it and slowed its absorption. I think it probably helped her spew too.

I rang the vet this morning at 8.30 as instructed, then Lib to tell her the good news. Pip survived the night, she showed no obvious damage, and should be OK. After a long night and a sad walk in the morning with just 'Snow', I couldn't have been more relieved if I was on death row and given a reprieve.

Old Soldiers

I've had little time to post lately. Not that I've been short of ideas; I have too many going around in the conscious and subconscious, if I could focus on one at a time it would be better. I wrote a letter today to an old mate of Lib's dad. I'll copy it here as it'll help me learn how to do things and also it may be interesting to some. It will be self explanatory.

Dear Phil,
Glenda Salter, daughter of George Atchison, told me, after she spoke to you on the phone recently, that you were interested in my relationship with Bill Meek, and also that you would like some news of Bill’s widow Molly. Glenda told me you’d written to Jack Cullen who lives in Wangaratta and sees Molly regularly, but she thought I may like to write to you personally, which I’m pleased to do.
I first met Bill in 1979 or early 1980, in Wangaratta, where I worked for the Dep’t of Agriculture as an apiary inspector. Bill’s youngest daughter Libby was a nurse at the Wangaratta Base Hospital and had a nurse friend who lived in the same block of flats as me, near the hospital. We met when Lib visited her friend, and a friendship grew as we met at social functions, as you do in a country town.
Lib was planning to do a trip to the U.S. early in 1980 with the friend who lived two doors from me. Lib had relatives in Canada and California and her older sisters had been over to see them previously so it was high on Lib’s priorities to also do the OS thing. Before they had made concrete bookings, Lib’s friend pulled out. Lib was disappointed when I visited her at her flat she shared with another nurse. She said she would go alone.
I had been to the US and Mexico with two mates on a holiday the previous year and frankly, had found US cities, especially downtown bus stations, a bit scary, but having enjoyed the travel and not liking to think of Lib over there alone, I said I’d go with her if she’d like. So it was some time before our May 1980 trip that I met Bill and Molly, with them keen to meet the person who was to accompany Lib to America. Molly had retired from her secretarial work at the WBH and Bill was semi-retired, still working from home as a stockbroker’s agent, but scaling down.

Well thirty years have passed so quickly. Lib and I were married on 31 Jan 1981 in the church opposite Brown Bros winery (Ed's note- how appropriate!) followed by a reception at ‘The Old Emu’ restaurant in Milawa. In the almost twenty years I was fortunate to have Bill as a father-in-law I found him to be one of the most pleasant people I’ve ever met; always calm, good natured and considerate of others. He was devoted to Molly. Lib’s sisters, Margaret and Pat, in Bairnsdale and Bendigo, have enjoyed successful marriages and raised families, with their now adult children making their way in the world. Lib and I left Wangaratta in 1981 and moved to Gembrook, where we reside still with our two adult boys, Gordon and Robbie. Gord is doing horticulture at TAFE and Rob biotechnology at Monash Uni. I am in a family herb/flower/foliage farm/nursery business at Emerald and Lib still nurses.
Since Bill died in 2000 Molly has battled on remarkably well. She turned 90 last January, and has struggled lately with an infected leg and other ills associated with old age, eg. osteoporosis, arthritis and poor circulation. Her mind is still as sharp as ever and she remains a great conversationalist with a wealth of knowledge. We saw her in Wang recently, she was in hospital recovering from the leg infection. Before this year’s reunion, Gunny Waddell and Jack Cullen took Moll and her neighbour Nell, also a widow, out to lunch to a restaurant/cafe in the King Valley somewhere. Gunny drove them, and insisted on paying. They had a lovely day. Unfortunately Molly gave her leg a slight knock on the car door which broke the skin and led to the infection. She’s home now. I’ll tell her of course that I’ve written to you.

I met George Atchison's sister, Ida Pullar, in Gembrook in 1995. A couple of years into our friendship we discovered that my father-in-law Bill Meek spent five years in the army in the same unit as George and Ron Atchison (who had already passed away). Consequently I became good friends with George and his daughter Glenda, Ida’s niece. I’ve met Jack Cullen a number of times, he was headmaster at Wang High School when Lib was a student there and I met Gunny Waddell at Bill’s funeral.
I see in Bill’s notes about his war years that he met you, Phil, at Puckapunyal in 1940- nearly seventy years ago. He mentioned that you went to Brighton Grammar, as he had. I hope this letter arrives with you in good health. I’d be thrilled to receive a reply giving a brief outline of your life since WW2, if you are up to it. I’ve only been to WA once, in 2004. I would have looked you up had I known of you.

Glenda says Lib and I would be most welcome at the next reunion, 24 April 2010. Glenda met your daughters at this year's. I hope Lib and I can get there to meet Glenda and your daughters.

Gardiners Creek

Carmel, the charming new owner of 'Pandora's Book Cafe' in Gembrook, grew up on a farm outside Wangaratta, where she learned to cook good wholesome food. She left for the 'big smoke', as many young country people do, when she was 18, then went back home to Wang for a decade, if I recall correctly, before recently moving south again.

I was in 'Pandora's' on Saturday when I spotted a book as I browsed, waiting for my soup. The 'History of Camberwell', or close to that, was the title, by Geoffrey Blainey. I read the first few pages, it triggering a myriad of memories while I indulged the tomato and bacon soup with crispy buttered toast.

I spent a fair bit of time playing in Gardiners Creek as a child. Not as much as my my mother did; she grew up in Ashburton, 9 Donald St, a couple of stone throws east of the creek. When her parents moved there in the 1920's, their house was the first in the street and in the immediate vicinity. They were surrounded by paddocks. Elvie was their third child and only daughter, born in 1928.

Mum tells me the west side of the creek was swampy flatland that flooded when the creek, normally a gentle trickle, rose and spilled over it's deep banks. As the water subsided in the weeks following, various ponds remained, 20 or 30 feet long, scattered all along the flat. This was the 1930's, Elv's childhood. There were always tadpoles in these ponds. The creek and ponds provided a natural playground for kids and a haven for waterbirds like ducks, ibis, cranes and coots. In the trees and scrub there were crows, magpies, peewees, currawongs, robins and bluewrens.

This swampland had become sportsfields by the late 1950's and early '60's when I used to play in the creek, usually with Meredith, mum having dropped us off at her mum's on Saturdays and during school holidays on her way to her shop in Sth.Yarra. Jod, a bit older, was left at home in Mt.Waverley, roaming the bush and countryside looking for bird's eggs with his mates.

In our play in the creek we made dams and diverted water into holes we'd dug, making 'milk', the creek bed being a white clay that easily made the water look milky. We'd go back to nanna's house for lunch followed by an explore in her garden, or finding worms for the chooks, before the lure of the creek called us back. If the water was high we weren't allowed in, with strict orders to stand well back away from the footbridge to watch the torrent. The footbridge washed away a number of times in mum's day.

All these years later, sitting in 'Pandora's Book Cafe' reading Blainey's book, I learned where Gardiners Creek got its name. Not long after the aborigines that hunted possums, kangaroo and wallaby in the grasslands and black and teal ducks in the swamps first saw the white sails of a schooner in the river and tents along the bank, John Gardiner, a pastoralist from Tasmania brought a thousand sheep across Bass Strait. A storm caused the loss overboard of 130 sheep and drove the ship ashore well short. Gardiner walked overland to 'Bearbrass', around Western Port Bay.

He explored up river and found the grazing land so impressive he teamed up with his ship's captain to drive a mob of sheep overland from southern NSW, no longer wanting to risk Bass Strait. He was probably the first white man to build a residence in the area, somewhere near where Scotch College stands today. Around 1840, there were 4000 people in the new colony. There was a real estate boom as land was sold off around what is now inner Melbourne. Auctions were flooded with bids, prices went up and up, such was buyer confidence, before the hammer closed the sale to the bravest speculator.

My parents were married in the Gardiner Church of Christ in 1948. My father played footy for their football team in the eastern suburbs churches comp. I used to change from the train to the tram at Gardiner station when I attended Camberwell Grammar. Both sets of grandparents lived in the area all their married lives. My parents grew up there. Somehow it was nice to find out the origin of the name Gardiner. I asked mum did she know. She didn't and was glad to hear.

I checked the Melways to see the start and finish of Gardiners Creek. Upstream from where I used to play as a kid it meanders through Ashburton and Burwood and seems to start near the intersection of Middleborough and Canterbury Rds, in Wembley Park Boxhill. Maybe its creation is a rising spring or confluence of a number of small ones. It's something I'll explore one day when I'm in Melbourne. Downstream from Darling/Asburton it runs into the Yarra at Heyington.

In the 170 years since John Gardiner brought his sheep to graze on the banks of what was to become Gardiners Creek, the 4000 population of 'Bearbrass' has become nearly 4 million, of a Melbourne stretching from Pakenham to Melton and beyond. Strewth!

Give Carmel's soup a go, and have a browse of the books. You won't be sorry.