Phillip and his groomsmen readied themselves first at the old Elliot cottage, then put the finishing touches on up at his parents house. Sarah fussed around them, making them take off their shirts so that she could give them a proper going-over with the iron, and darning a small rip in the seat of one of the groomsmen’s trousers. When all was completed to her satisfaction she stood back and looked at them in turn, before settling her eyes on Phillip and bursting into tears. The men stood awkwardly scuffing their feet, taken aback by this sudden display of emotion from one considered so hard-as-nails. Up until that day Phillip had only seen his mother cry twice before in his life- at her sister’s funeral, and when she accidently pulled the mutton stew from the stove after a particularly long and scorching day in the shearing shed. At each of those times too he had been lost for words or deeds.
But what surprised everyone even more was that she did so without hiding her face, without fear. She bawled openly and proudly, and enveloped her son in a vice-like hug that threatened to burst his ribcage apart. The groomsmen averted their eyes and shuffled off to the next room as Albert wandered upon the scene. Immediately summing up the situation he smiled to himself and followed the boys from the room.
Once Sarah had finished dressing her husband she loaded him into the drivers seat of the FJ Falcon and plonked herself in the passenger’s seat. As they headed off down the driveway Sarah bellowed final instructions out the window like a drill sergeant on the parade ground. Her words were lost to the wind and the crunch of gravel under the wheels, however the congregation had turned their heads in her direction so she felt that she had made her point and the car drove on.
Phillip Spring and Bethany Muir were married in the little Anglican Church nestled amongst the oak and weeping willows in the bride’s hometown. From what I’ve heard it was a joyous family affair, as all weddings should be. The immediate and extended families were all there, along with notable members of the community and a few select school friends. Phillip apparently had a barely contained and permanent smirk across his face from the moment his bride appeared through the glass-paned doors between the foyer and the aisle, right through until the exhaust pipe of the lipstick-smeared Datsun shot the potato clear through the window of the town hall.
The weather is not something that can ever be planned for, at least not when its accuracy is needed moths in advance. An ideal year would consist of a warm-to-hot summer, interspersed with occasional summer storms and cool days, gradually cooling across autumn until consistent showers set in from early May and continue through waves of cool to moderate temperatures until the start of October, before slowly rising in temperature and decreasing in rain until the end of year. Of course within this pattern the weeks when the farmer wants it to remain dry it must remain dry, and the weeks that the farmer wants to remain clear and warm it must do as he bids.
However the weather is a fickle mistress. A winter may break early in April and send all and sundry out into their paddocks to plant their potatoes and onions in the hope of being able to fit that extra crop swing in before the rains end, only to have the rain clear up and stay away in any reasonable quantities for the remainder of the year and prevent any of the crops from flourishing; while in other years it may stay dry and hot right up until mid-May and then rain unceasingly for 5 months, burying everything in mud and rotting the crops into the ground.
A couple of years after Phillip and Beth were married the rain started falling early, and right on cue the farmers took to their fields in their tractors to prepare their paddocks and plant their winter crops. However the rain just didn’t merely not stop, it got heavier and heavier. It rained until the ground simply couldn’t hold any more water rivulets started to scar the flesh of the hills. As the rain intensified the scars deepened and widened in return, sending sections of crops downhill into the creeks and into the dam, and the remaining plants clinging to life amongst the newly-cleaned rocks. Cows and their calves and ewes and their lambs started getting caught in the mud and the shallows of the waterholes and their distressed bellows and bleats rang out of the valleys throughout the day and night.
My roots kept me safe on the side of the hill, spreading deep and wide to cling to the earth, but they also prevented me from being able to help. I watched steadfast and immovable, for all appearances a passive observer of events, but desperate to help in any way.
While our valley lost a lot of crops during this winter, we were largely protected by being but an upstream tributary to the river below, which through the accumulation of waters from many valleys just like ours transformed from an idle river to a swollen torrent. The water rose from its usual banks to within a couple of feet of the dam wall. Its force cleared the undergrowth out from around the riverbanks, picked up rotting logs from the forest floor and uprooted ancient elders. Other trees died from waterlogging over the ensuing months. Farms lining the river were washed out, whole flocks were lost (although in one instance an entire herd was found a week later about 10 miles downstream), houses, sheds, vehicles damaged or destroyed, The one thing to be thankful of was that there was no loss of human life.
But still, the cleanup was a long and hard task. Debris had to be cleared, and mud transferred from the flats back up to the slopes. Those farmers that were unduly affected pitched in with their time and machinery to lend a hand clearing away debris and wrecked infrastructure. The damage was so extensive in some areas towards the coast that some simply walked away from their farms, while others were claimed in the following months through the unspoken of killer of farmers- depression.
The various arms of my family toyed with the idea of buying up a farm a few miles down the river, but were rocked a little by the flood that they baulked at the idea, consoling each other by saying that at that particular point in time it was better to consolidate what they had at that point. In any case they would have the opportunity to expand in just a couple more years, when the Mayfield’s sold up to finance their buying of a larger farm closer to the western coast, where they would be amongst the first wave of farmers to transform their rolling pastures into vineyards, creating a dynasty of their own and a considerable fortune in the process.
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