A Kind of Hush

It's quiet today. Lib's gone to work and I had a walk in the garden with Rob to work out where he could put some vegie seeds he bought cheap. He's been bitten by the gardening bug, I'm happy to say. In the end we decided they could go in pots and old tyres as our current garden space is full with beetroot, beans, zuchinnis, button squash, tomatos, cucumbers, eggplant and pumpkins. His seed packets include radishes silverbeet, leeks, beetroot, pak choi and kol rabbi, all of which should do alright in containers I think.

Elvie just rang to say Shane wants 10 bunches of green holly; why, after Xmas, I know not. She asked could I pick it, they're busy at the farm working on the 'Herb and Spice' order, which Ian wants to pick up at midday. Jod was looking at the paper having morning tea and saw that Norman Hargreaves died on Boxing Day, which has made him sad and upset. When my parents moved to Dixon's Creek onto 300 acres of bush soon after they married, the Hargreaves were on the farm next door. Norm was the youngest of the three boys who were staunch friends of my parents through tough times then and remained so throughout their lives. It's like the end of an era for us. Norm was immensely strong, quiet, a real bushman from a different time. He was 82. He suffered dementia made worse by the bushfires last February which destroyed pasture, stock, and fences on his farm. Jod worked for Norm on the bulldozers for a while, in the late seventies, I think it was. I'll post about the Hargreaves one day.

I hope Jod isn't too upset to have his mind on the job. Shane also wants beech, berries and flowering artichokes and Foxy is picking up today too. I picked camellia for her yesterday and she wants whatever's going. No rest for the wicked as they say. I wonder at the origin of that saying. I weeded the herb/vegie garden at the farm yesterday, the basil seed is up and away but would be swamped by summer weeds particularly oxalis and paspalum unless the rows are finger weeded so the young plants can get away. I mowed Hughesie's grass on Saturday and did some cutting back, so with the exception of Christmas Day it's been work as normal. Lib worked Christmas day, Sunday, and today.

The town was quiet when I walked through this morning. There's been some changes I haven't mentioned over the last month. The sweet shop closed down, and on the door of the vacant shop a sign went up, 'TATTOO MAYHEM'. Shortly after, a sign went in 'Pandoora's Book Cafe' window next door, 'CLOSING DOWN  LAST DAY 31 DEC'. Yesterday I noticed the window front of the proposed tattoo shop had been smashed and hoardings put up over the broken window. It creates a poor town image. There's a sign in the pub window, 'CAFE OPENING SOON'.  Lordy, Lordy! The local supermarket has changed hands. Richard Mullet, the popular proprietor who went to Camberwell Grammar at the same time I was there, has ridden into the sunset after a decade or so, and a new owner 'Andrew' has taken over this business pivotal in Gembrook's commercial precinct. I hear he has another small supermarket somewhere in the hills and I wish him well. We need good businessmen in this wide brown land.

Talking of supermarkets, a fence has gone up around 'Sally's' supermarket at Emerald and I expect demolition to begin shortly in prep for the new 'Safeway'. Rumour has it a medical superclinic is to be built on the site of Dr. Mark's surgery and the Emerald Community House next door, though this hasn't hit the headlines of the local papers and may be fanciful nonsense.

I have some good things to blog about but not time now. I'll leave you with a quote to think about, a powerful sentence by Sir Thomas Browne, whose work I've not come across before, but who now excites my curiosity.

"There is surely a piece of Divinity in us; something that was before the elements and owes no homage unto the Sun."