Skip and some more emails

As the firmament above lightened with the advancing of the sun I watched the car back out of the garage, do a lap of the fountain and finally pull out of the driveway. Tendrils of dust kicked up by the slow crunch of the tyres on the gravel hung in the air, creating a pink veil against the dewy grass. The dog followed them out to the road at a slow trot, his ears pricked up to their highest height, his eyes intently following the receding red coals. He cocked his head on an angle as if searching for a reason for the car to be leaving at this time of day in that particular direction. He waited, frozen, for a couple of minutes until he was satisfied that they weren’t coming back, and then turned back to the house to sniff around the frosted garden.

He snarfled his way beneath the fig tree’s umbrella shade of new leaves unfurled where it was still warm, disturbing a pair of guinea fowl that scrambled off screaming into the stockyards. He ignored them and nibbled a piece of rotting fruit before relieving himself on the trunk. The tortured voices of the cockerels in their pen croaked through the mist as they strutted about failing to attract the attention of the chooks in the neighbouring pen. Skip dismissed them with a twitch of his nose, imagining gnawing on their bones after their necks were wrung and the meat picked clean in the kitchen.

He made his way across to the sheds to peer into their recesses lit bright by the early sun. Bouncing through the long grass alongside the ringlock fence he saw the last of the new lambs lying slick and wet amongst the stubble and shit. If you listened close enough you could hear the crops in their perfect rows stretching against their roots. A bull hidden by the steam rising from the dam in his paddock bellowed three times-long and mournful. A few distant cows echoes his cries. It wouldn’t be long now until they would see each other again.

                                                                     *****

Hazel, [Sat 19]

Well, I didn’t get much reading done at all. I only got through one abstract and a few of the figures. The internet was too much of a distraction. I just stared and stared into that fluorescent glow. No one was particularly up for heading to the pub. We’ve all run through most of our money, and we don’t get paid until next week. I didn’t feel as though I could call on your friends what they were up to. For some reason I feel weird about asking them to entertain me while you’re away. So I had a quiet night on the couch with a 6-pack, pizza and TV. It turned into one of those nights where you stay up until Rage starts without paying any attention to what you were actually watching (footy then some foreign film on SBS *nudge nudge*), and then keep on telling yourself that you’ll watch one more clip, then go to bed, but then the next clip is good, so you extend the deadline until you look up at the clock and it’s 3am and you’re alone, without pants, and there are sauce stains on the carpet.

I’m feeling grumpy. The conversation I had with Piers and Yoshi the other day has really gotten to me. What am I doing here? Is this really what I want to be doing? Do I have what it takes to be a career research scientist? And you know what? I don’t think I do. I’m not pig-headed or strong willed enough. I’m not a leader, and I don’t want to spend all those years at the bench only to have to walk away from it and focus on grants and admin and management stuff. It’s such a bullshit system. It keeps circulating in my head, together with the ever-present imposter syndrome, spiralling ever downwards. I feel like I’m spinning around and around on a tightly wound swing- it’s the same stuff going around and around, but it gets blurred and distorted the longer it spins until I’m left dizzy and nauseous.

That, and I’m missing you.

I’m feeling pretty low. It’s been coming, slowly, and I’ve been ignoring it quite adequately, but now it is here. And I feel like shit. But instead of going out and doing something about it, I just sit here looking at dots of light and shade covering a box of metal. It’s as if someone has booted me into sleep mode.

Baaargh! I have to snap out of thins or it’ll settle on me forever.

Xx

Marshall

Marshall, [Sat 19]

Sorry to hear that you’re not doing so well. Of course, you know I am here for you whenever you need to call. Don’t stop just because you think you may inconvenience me. I assure you that you won’t. I only want the best for you and will do whatever it takes to help you get it. Do you know what’s triggered you feeling this way? I noticed before I left that you’d started to flatten and withdraw into yourself. I didn’t mention it because I figured that if I ignored it it may not actually happen, but I guess in hindsight that was a pretty shit thing to do. Sorry. I feel like a selfish arsehole.

Now, don’t take offence, but maybe you should go talk to someone qualified to deal with this. I fear that if you don’t do something this will keep cycling and you’ll never achieve the freedom and confidence you rightly deserve. I don’t want to nag, but I will if pressed.

I’m tempted to leave this message like that, but I figure that if I keep writing you’ll keep reading and it’ll distract you from it, at least for a short period of time. Dad failed in his attempts to sweet-talk his way out of hospital yesterday, but Mum went and got him this morning. I can hear him out in his shed.

I went out last night with Katie. It started with just the two of us at a bar in the cool part of town, before we were joined by a select couple of people from school (Toby and Alex). We went for dinner, then to another bar, then a pub, then once we were sufficiently lubricated, to a dodgy nightclub where we took over the podiums from groups of skanky girls and pimply boys. It was horrible yet wonderful all at the same time. I got a taxi home, and to be perfectly honest I’ve only just woken up, and I’m still in bed. Bad I know, but I just needed to let off some steam from the past couple of weeks.

This afternoon I’ll look into buying a ticket home. I’d like to stay a few more days, until Dad is embedded back into the daily routine. I think Mum could do with an extra set of eyes making sure he doesn’t get up to too much mischief, too (Too many to(o)’s).

Anne, Sid and Elise have just pulled in to the driveway, so I’d better get up before Elise rushes in here and jumps all over me. If you don’t call me, I’ll call you later in the day.

Love you. Stay safe.

Hazel XXX

Hazel [Sat 19],

Thanks for your words of support. Your love means more to me than anything else right now. You shouldn’t feel that you have to carry any of the burden for me being cranky/glum/depressed. You didn’t do anything to cause it, and nothing you could have done would have prevented it. It’s my own fucked up chemistry that is to blame. And that is all it comes down to in the end. Chemicals- too much or too little and in wrong concentrations and balance- in the brain. It’s kinda staggering just how powerful our own biology can be. Is it wrong that I find it inspiring? Maybe that is what’s led me towards a career in science?

It’s funny that you say you’d noticed me withdrawing into myself before you left, coz I honestly hadn’t even noticed. I thought everything was fine. I was happy. Probably happier than I’d ever been in my life. It just goes to show that sometimes those that love you know more about you than you ever realise.

I don’t want to wallow in self-pity like some over-emotional teen. There will be no bad poetry or angst-ridden songs. The Smith’s have been struck from my playlist. I’ll play the ignorance game and maybe this shit will sort itself out. I’m still thinking about going to see someone. I know that it is rational to swallow my pride and ask for help. And you know how I regard rationality. But I keep getting that nagging behind my ears that if I can get through it on my own I’ll be so much better off for it. Dumb, yes. But that’s the way I’m leaning.

So yes, that’s me. I’m gonna go to the shops and get some stuff for dinner, and then I’ll get an early night; see whether lack of sleep has anything to do with it.

Love you.

Marshall XXX

Marshall, [Sun 20]

How are you feeling today? Did the sleep help?

Not too much is happening here. I’m spending most of my time either preparing food or feeding said food to the neighbours and family friends that are continually dropping by to see how Dad is. To be honest I’m fed up with having to tell people what I’m doing over in Perth, and when I’m moving back to Chch. I’M NOT! I’ve resorted to talking from behind clenched teeth. Even if they don’t get the hint it makes me feel better. I’m taking a time-out right now.

You will be pleased to know that having failed to do so yesterday, I have finally booked a flight home. I arrive in Perth on Wednesday at 2:10pm. Do you think you could pick me up? I have something big and sloppy to give you (no, not that. A kiss you fool. Get your mind out of the gutter. Gosh.). I am really really looking forward to seeing you again. While it’s been great to be around my family, even under such trying circumstances, my patience with them is waring thin. I think I’ve reverted to behaving like a teenager around them. Yikes.

Righto. I’d better head back into the fray. I can hear them discussing me through the walls. I miss you so much.

XX Hazel XX

Hazel, [Sun 20]

I slept well thankyou- a full 12 hours. I think I’m going to go for a bike ride this morning; try to clear my head and get some oxygen deep into my lungs. It’ll probably do me a world of good.

I hope these friends and neighbours aren’t doing you any permanent damage. I cop it every Christmas. Everyone wants to know what I’m doing and why I don’t have a real job yet. They think there’s something a bit kooky about choosing to stay at uni and learn less than minimum wage when there are all sorts of well paying jobs I could be doing instead. That’s why we had those ‘DON’T ASK ME ABOUT MY FUCKING THESIS’ shirts made up- to honour the incessant questionings of our families.

OK. I’m ready to hit the road. I’ll give you a rescue call later in the day. Stay sane.

XXX Marshall

Hey Hazel, [Sun 20]

Like I said, I went for a bike ride this morning to clear my head and try to make sense of what has been churning around in my head lately. I took a pen and paper and a few other odds and ends with me, but it is the pen and paper that is most important in this story. For the first time in god-knows how long I sat down in a quiet spot away from any distractions and just thought, and I wrote down what I thought without fear of judgement or recrimination. I’ve typed out what I wrote (with spelling mistakes (hopefully) corrected. What follows is that screed. Normally this sort of thing would cause me to clam up and stress about the embarrassment it would cause me, but I’m prepared in this case to just let it all hang out there. I suppose it shows that I trust you absolutely. Anyway, above all else I hope you can make sense of it.

Good night. I love you, Marshall XXXXXX

Marshall [Mon 21],

That was beautiful. I think that writing conveyed exactly what you wanted it to convey. Why don’t we head down to the farm this coming weekend? I’d love to see where you grew up. It sounds amazing. That’s not just easy platitudes, either. I really mean that. I really was moved by what you wrote. I feel like I understand you even more now.

Application to Dept of Immigration

What follows is an actual job application that I just sent to the Department of Immigration, offering my services as an Application for Asylum Assessor:

Attn: Department of Immigration

Re: Application fro Employment

With the recent influx of people arriving and claiming asylum in Australia it would appear as though you would need a few more employees to keep up with the demand and clear the backlog of applications. Not only would this clear up a few of the headaches no doubt being experienced by employees within the portfolio, but also speed up the process of application evaluation and the reduction in the amount of time applicants need to be held by the department, reducing costs. A win-win situation if you will.

As for my qualifications, I hold a PhD in Science within the field of medical research, and while this may not strike you as immediately relevant to your cause, it has blessed me with some pretty darn fierce research skills, objectivity in the face of data, deep thinking, and finely tuned attention to detail, all qualities I would believe to be important in the processing of asylum seeker’s claims.

An accumulation of small events has led me to contacting you regarding work. First and foremost among these is my current unemployment within my field of specialty, and secondly the obvious need for more people to help speed up the process (and saving guv’mnt money in the process).

Of course I would be lying if I said that I did not feel some empathy with the plight of those seeking humanitarian asylum within our borders. I guess the tipping point in all of this for me was the SBS program ‘Go Back to Where You Came From’, which has finally compelled me to actually get off my arse and do something worthwhile instead of sitting and talking about it with friends, but never actually doing anything to change the status quo. So call me a latte-sipping lefty (I prefer long macchiato) or a chardonnay-sipping inner-city elitist (I prefer pinot noir) if you want, but I’m actually willing to put myself on the line and work towards an improvement in the situation.

So those are my cards on the table. I am ready and willing to be set to work. You could possibly argue that the relaxed tone of this letter means that I am not serious in this application, but believe me, I am. I’m just sick of writing the same old dull cover letters over and over and over. I feel it’s time for a change. Of course I would prefer if I could remain based in Melbourne. I don’t think anybody willingly lives in Canberra do they? But with the right package I could be tempted to work in Canberra and commute back to Melbourne on days off.

Let me know whether my skills would be of use, or whether there is some more formal channel through which I should apply. I figured it was worth a shot circumventing the normal procedure as it could speed things up somewhat, both for you with your significant backlog of applications and for me with my current unemployment.

Yours in good faith,

Dr. Lloyd White

Phillip

Phillip slumped around the shearing shed the morning after they had marked the spring lambs- putting in ear tags, drenching against worms and docking the tails in preparation for their sale. The process had taken the full day, so by the time they had finished and herded the sheep across the causeway and around the lake the sun had dipped below the horizon and twilight’s lid was beginning to close for the night. Their late finish had meant that the drench-guns, ear tags and tailing rings, and an assortment of syringes, gadgets and spraycans were left strewn about the shed floor.

Phillip had taken it upon himself in the morning to head out and clear up the mess. The pungent stench of sheep shit, urine and lanolin hung in the air of the shearing shed. Diesel, grease and engine oil wafted over from the machinery shed next door to intermingle with those of the shearing shed to produce the unmistakeable odour of a well functioning farm.

            

           In previous years the whole process of dealing with the sheep wouldn’t have taken nearly as long, or taken quite the same toll on Phillip’s body. But he couldn’t escape the fact that he could no longer keep up with his younger self; all the physical effort and labour needed to make a successful go of it seemed to be just out of his grasp. He was now becoming more and more dependent on others to help get through each day.

           The news that he had been hoping never to hear again had passed through him with the same force of dread as the first time- the cancer was back. And it had brought friends. It was in his prostate, his liver and his bones- those very things that were holding him up were now breaking him down, crumbling and turning into rubble. The doctors started him on an intense cocktail of drugs and radiation, all the while knowing it was likely to be a futile exercise against mortality. He was that much older, the cancer that much more advanced and strong, not even his formidable strength and tenacity could be counted upon to conquer it all over again. Like Samson, he was weakened with the loss of his hair. They recommended he seek the services of palliative care. They told him the brutal truth. He should get his affairs in order. He was going to die.

At first Phillip tried to put on a brave face, defy the doctors’ bleak outlook and shrug off their dire warnings. He was stubborn. He resolved not to just sit around waiting for the cancer to over-run him. He tried to remain the humorous and carefree man he had always been, to make light of the situation and present a stiff upper lip to the world.

But deep down he knew the truth, could feel the cancer marching through his bones and metastasising beneath the skin; that he really was going to die. Through sheer pride and love he would never admit this, even to his wife, the one that had been his rock, his crutch for all these years. But she could tell for herself what was occupying his thoughts. After 50 years at his side she could read every line on his well-worn face. She could tell that he was abandoning hope, that she would be cast alone against to the world, and she started steeling herself against the day she would lose the other half of her soul for eternity. She tried to remain stoic, but every day she would catch herself crying, crumbling.

Now, as he picked up the odds and ends of yesterday’s labour, Phillip ruminated on his life. The life he wanted to continue living on that very land. The changes he’d seen and overseen. The advances in agriculture, the advent of herbicides and pesticides, those chemicals designed to kill. He thought of his dear daughter Olive, the sole heir to his throne. A girl, a woman who had, in partnership with her father, predicted and pre-empted the latest movements in agricultural markets, technologies and enterprise. Together they had expanded their empire, diversified their agricultural regimes, almost doubled their profits. They always had their eyes peeled for the next niche market, the next big thing.

On a day like any other day, as Olive was on her way into town to negotiate a deal with a local distributor for the delivery of several bins of eschallots to the city, she turned out onto the highway from the gravel road and into the path of a truck laden with potatoes. The collision sent the car spiralling into the culvert as the truck flipped and skidded to a halt, shrieking metal and sparking off the hot black bitumen. Potatoes spewed from their bins and out across the road. Hundreds were crushed beneath the weight of falling bins, mashed into the gaps between the stones, creating a waxy white film over the road.

Petrol flooded from the ruptured fuel tank, sparks ignited the vapour and the inferno that followed left no doubt as to the final outcome.

Ignatio came to make his silent vigil every day in the culvert where the car had fallen. He was powerless to do anything else. Eventually the weight of his grief became more than he could bear, and wandered away, trying to outrun the demons now settled on his soul.

Potato residue stained the spaces between the tar-packed blue metal for months, until winter brought the rains to clear away the wax from even the deepest cracks. It served as an all too visible reminder of what had transpired. Every time they ventured from the sanctuary of their farm Phillip and Beth were met at the highway by this reminder of their beloved baby girl.

Olive’s death had marked the foreclosure of the dynasty. The end of the line. With Phillip the era would end. He would be the last reminder of the Spring’s. A family of relentless workers, of innovators and dreamers. They had come to seek their paradise amongst the giants in an inhospitable wilderness. They would leave having succeeded to this end.

Tears welled along the rims of Phillip’s eyelids as he recalled the memories. The toxins hung in his mouth, coating his tongue and teeth with the taste of steel and death. It was a taste he could never get used to, and a sign of his fate to come. His body was simultaneously trying to keep him alive and trying to devour him. The chemicals and heavy metals the doctors jettisoned into his bloodstream traversed his body attacking everything they could cling to. He licked his lips and spat the rank poisons into the gravel. Still the taste persisted. He scraped his tongue against the roof of his mouth as if trying to remove all of the gunk from his body through this single pointless act.

As he assigned tools to their relevant bins, he looked out over his life, the life of his ancestors, a dynasty of wood and water and earth. This was the valley of his birth, his growth, and his life. He knew it better than the leathery wrinkles and sunspots on his face and the face of his wife. The ridges and crevices sculpted by a life of vigour. Wise faces, full of the knowledge of life and the frailties of man. He knew every trunk of every tree, had felt every blade of grass beneath his feet. He had been cloaked by the calm darkness of the lake’s frigid waters, he had breathed in the dust of the dry summer’s soil and wallowed his toes in the sucking mud of winter. He ruminated over his life with a melancholy fondness. He had reached that point in his life where he afforded more time to the past than the future. When he was young he only had time for looking forward. He set himself goals and aspirations, no matter how fanciful. As he aged, his attention turned to the present and near future, and now he was of an age where he only ever seemed to be dwelling in his own history, his achievements and opportunities missed. He had resigned himself to his own fallibility and the final inevitability of life.

He wiped the dust off his hands by rubbing them together. They were hard, cracked and stained brown from a lifetime of labour. Immortal grease and dirt packed into the crevices of skin, drawing dark lines across their fraying parchment. He groaned and bent back into his work.

getting on

About a year after they returned, they was married in a small ceremony on the wooded banks of the river a few k’ downstream. Iggy’s mother had flown over for the occasion as the family representative, and the owner of the backpacker’s hostel acted as his groomsman and witness. In the interest of fairness and not to draw attention to Iggy’s small attaché, Olive only had immediate family and two close friends present. The ceremony and reception were both simple affairs, more akin to a family dinner party than the weddings everyone was used to. There was love, and that was all that mattered.

Iggy was a quiet fellow, introspective, and sometimes came across as rude or arrogant for being so, but it could more be explained more by the language barrier and his inherent shyness than anything else. Still, the first impression of an aloof stranger often rang louder than Olive’s assurances and explanations. Still, they were happy together, and that carries more weight than any other factor.

They stayed in the old Monroe house for a couple of years while they scrimped and saved and slowly started to put the frame of a two-story wooden house up in a quiet corner of the farm on the backside of the hill behind a clump of jarrah and blackboys grasstrees shielding them from the prying eyes of friends and family.

By now my brother, co-conspirator and sharer of secrets was most certainly entering his twilight years. His tight focus and intense thought were giving way to confused answers and unknowingly asking the same question repeatedly throughout conversations. It was quite clear that the light illuminating his brain had started to dim. As his descent continued he started muddling names, faces, generations and dates, despite the best explanations and doting encouragements of his wife. Throughout this time Sarah stayed tight and strong. She scampered about the place just as she had done for her whole life, organising meals, company, visits into town, white hair streaming behind like wisps of high cloud on a summers day.

In the end, Albert’s condition got so bad that Sarah, despite even her best efforts, could afford him the care that he so obviously needed. However she was dead-set against being separated from him, and despite being urged by her family to move with him into town, she wouldn’t have her steadfast sensibilities upset. She preferred the idea and the practicality of staying on the farm and having a nurse come by every few days to check up on her husbands progress.

And so she was there, in bed by his side, when his lungs finally forgot how to breathe. She lay there a while, just the two of them, cradling him as if rocking him to sleep. She closed her eyes and anointed him with her tears.

Once more the funeral blacks were pulled out of the wardrobes and a pall descended. They followed the hearse to the Anglican church in town, where the bulk of the district had descended to pay their last respects to my brother, this man who had not only led the transformation of the agriculture industry in the region, but been a friend and champion to everybody he met, a great man. People were crammed into the old wooden pews, stood lining the walls, spilling into the foyer and even out the door. The windows were opened despite the cold so that everybody could hear what was going on inside.

Eulogies were read, and then the microphone was opened up to anybody who wanted to pay their respects. Creased and leathery faces lined up, and one by one they recounted fond anecdotes of times spent together. Old and grown men wept openly and publicly.

Once officialities had concluded, everyone processed to the town hall, where as a mark of respect the Farmer’s Federation and RSL had set up and organised the wake to honour their fallen comrade. There, the tributes continued to flow well into the night and morning, while the family returned to their houses and Sarah to her own cold bed.

A couple of days later the remnants of the family returned to town to collect the ashes of my brother. Sarah held the small clay lump to her chest the whole car ride home. They sat down to a humble lunch of cold cuts and remnants of roast vegetables salvaged from the wake, before walking together down to the edge of the lake where, according to his wishes, he was scattered into the wind and water, his spirit returned to the earth he loved.

An open invitation stood for Sarah to move in with Phillip and Beth, and after repeat invites and badgering she finally did a few months after Albert’s death. She was tired of being alone, tired of cooking for one, and while there was no replacing her husband she finally realised that there was no sense in trying to do so. She would simply have to adjust to this new life, single yet not free.

She moved all her necessary furniture, bedding, mementos, photographs and trophies around the lake to Philip and Beth’s and set up camp in the back corner bedroom out of the way. She did her best not to intrude or make a nuisance of herself, and with time settled into a new routine of cooking, cleaning and scrapbooking. She also made sure she kept up to speed with all the local news, and continually harassed the editor of the local paper with stern letters regarding the local politics. She also took it upon herself to take charge of the local gardeners association, organising seminars and workshops and visits from prominent horticulturalists. She found a multitude of ways to distract herself from her sorrow, but the ghost of her husband travelled with her wherever she went, always there, always beloved.

Sarah lived in this manner for another 10 or so years before she too finally succumbed to the inevitability of life. Right until the end she was the matriarch, the arbiter of order and justice. And on the day they scattered her remains amongst the reeds where Albert had been freed they stood together and cried. I bowed my head and agreed that yes, she was loved.

Olive II

A note from the author: 

You might get the impression from the last few posts that I've put up that this novel is all drama and depression, but believe me, that is not the intention. I am drawing close to having a final version of a full first draft of the novel, and the past couple of weeks have chronicled the tying up of loose ends. I guess in many ways it is quite a morbid novel, but I want this to be matched by a sense of optimism and wonder, almost whimsy- an acceptance that this is what life is, and that drama and death are OK. They are all a part of life. So while it's been heavy going of late, there is quite a lot of light in what has already been written (pre-blog) to balance out the darkness being written now.

                                                          *****

Hordes of young people from right across the globe set upon the world searching for life, and in order to find and fulfil this life they needed money, work. My family was among the first in the area to welcome these young travellers- backpackers as they came to be known- with the promise of food, board and a small wage to cover other expenses in exchange for their time working on the farm. For the first few years these backpackers were put up in any of the spare rooms they had available, and they usually had between 2 and 4 staying at any one time, until some bright spark had the idea to set up a business of her own accommodating, feeding and drinking these youth on an old tobacco farm out of town, finding them work on local farms and orchards and ferrying them to and from work as required. It took a lot of the obligation off the host farms, and strong bonds were developed between the locals, the hostel owners and the backpackers so there was never any real shortage of workers or locals. It all worked together so harmoniously, and with the application of mechanised cropping any extra hands the farmers could find were worth their weight in gold.

                                                          *****

Indeed, Olive’s return turned out to be rather serendipitous for my family, for it wasn’t long before she was called upon to practically run the farm. Firstly, her grandfather- my brother- was headed into the twilight years of his life and could no longer match his offspring for strength or endurance. Sure he was still mentally all over it and surprisingly spry for his age, but the energy required to maintain and run a farm was now beyond him. As he said, just like his father had said before him, ‘Energy is a commodity that is wasted on the young’.

And then came the news that Phillip had cancer of the prostate. The shock of the diagnosis and the debilitating effects of the radiation and chemotherapy had rendered his input into the physical running of the almost negligible. He was forced into lying around the house while Beth and Olive took command of the valley. Of course he still maintained executive control of all major decisions, but was no longer able or allowed by his wife and doctor to get out there amongst the dirt, mud and sweat.

Cooped up in the house, in the bed, all day every day sunk Phillip into a deep funk. He was overcome by a feeling of utter uselessness. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the handiwork and judgement of his family- he had learned well before now to do so implicitly- but more the fact that it was his own body that was conspiring to render him utterly useless. The tasks he had undertaken for thirty prosperous years, the running, diversifying and progressing of the farm, all that was known to him in life, was swept out from under his feet. It chewed him up, digested him, and shat him out. He sank into a deep depression. He had always believed that he would be out there running the show right up until his final dying day, and the realisation hit that that fateful day may not be too far away at all.

Only that, thankfully, it wasn’t. The early intervention, the profound doses of chemistry and physics had succeeded in their aim. Relief flooded the valley. Within eighteen months he had reasserted himself as patriarch and regained much of his former strength of an ox, and with it his sense of pride. He was able to put the whole cancer business behind him and recommence his grand and perpetual plans pertaining to the diversification and expansion of his kingdom.

Phillip sat himself back on his throne. He was the strongman, Olive a devil with the numbers, his father still full of ideas and his wife and mother right there beside them keeping them going- The Fantastic Five. Together they set the trends that others in the district imitated, but couldn’t match. The Spring’s forged ahead, ensuring their product remained at a level far above their contemporaries; seeking perfection with a zeal approaching obsession. In this way they could ensure they always captured the high end of the market. And being the first to fill the hole, they could breed loyalty in their produce and set their own price, at least until the market became inundated with imitations. And when the market became saturated and the winds of trade switched, they would be right there waiting to switch tack.

In the course of working and running the farm they naturally worked shoulder to shoulder with the seasonal backpackers that flooded the region. And in the course of this work Olive formed an especially close relationship with one particular backpacker- Ignatio- from Brazil. At first it was just a meeting of eyes across the rows of cauliflowers, then a series of moments in the truck driving across the paddocks, and then a fully blown summer fling. I don’t think either of them took it overly seriously, after all she was settled here and he was but an itinerant farm labourer. He was staying for a couple of weeks, which got extended to a month, then a couple, then a full season, and eventually a year until his working visa ran out.

After Iggy left Olive was glum. She was still just as busy as ever, but it became harder and harder to make her smile, let alone laugh. Until one day she decided that the time was right for her to travel. She booked a one-way flight for Sao Paulo in a couple of months, and from that moment until she left she was restored to her former self.

She returned a few months later with Iggy on her arm, engaged, in love. They set up their lives in the Monroe’s old house for the time being, until they could afford to buy a 10-acre corner of the farm- a place Iggy could also call home- and build their very own house and start their very own family.

Olive

Following on from the death of my parents there was a general malaise that pervaded the valley. Old Bill Monroe, the patriarch of the only other remaining family from the Groupie Scheme in Karabup had moved into a retirement home in town several years earlier, and had slowly succumbed to the fog of dementia. To make a coarse analogy, people were dropping like flies. People withdrew into themselves and wandered the paddocks within their own psyches, as though contemplating their own inevitable demise and the parts they had played in the grand scheme of life. A lot of soul searching was undertaken- looking back, looking forward- and tough decisions and resolutions made.

Oscar and Felicity still lived in the old house near the lake, but it was now unrecognisable from the original building that had stood there decades before. Renovations were an ever-present reality in the Monroe house, with rooms extended, wings added, and the interior nearly always undergoing some adaptation or other. Their eldest son Tim, a confirmed bachelor- lived alone over the back of the hill and was largely responsible for the day-to-day running of the farm, while Ian, an engineer, lived with his wife and kids way off in the city and had no inclination towards farming aside from it being a convenient and cheap place to holiday.

It came time in Oscar and Felicity’s mind for them to retire, but in order for them to retire they needed money in order to buy the block of their idyll down near the mouth of the river on which we lived. Tim was initially against their plans of selling, but in time was worn down with guilt and finally agreed to give up the farm on the proviso that the buyer would be willing to let him stay in his house with a couple of acres of land with which to keep himself occupied. It was an unusual deal, but one that all parties were content with so who are we to judge.

Finally the opportunity arose for the Spring’s to take control of the entire valley, and after brief negotiations with the Monroe’s a price was settled upon. With all their common history the negotiations were surprisingly hot, and yet both parties walked away thinking that they had bested their opponent.

So after all these years, all the time, effort and heartache invested into the soul of the valley, the responsibility for its future life and sustainability rested on my family’s shoulders. An honour yes, but not one that would be taken lightly.

Olive had followed in the footsteps of the men in he family before her. In the same way they had, Olive was given a couple of acres of land to do with what she will, to learn the ropes of farming, to make mistakes and learn from them what she would. Like her forebears, she took to it like a duck to water, spending the bulk of her days after school tending to her field of pumpkin, corn and tomatoes. But as had been the case with Phillip, she really had to work at it in order to produce the bet possible product. Even more so. With Albert it had come instantaneously; he had that raw and natural flair- the green fingers- so important in farming. Phillip had inherited much of that instinct, but had had to work hard in order to maintain the same level as his father. It was as though the green fingers were being diluted with each progressive generation. So when she finished school, Olive took leave of the farm to go to University and study Agribusiness. In between semesters she would return home and put what she had learned over the past few months into practise, and once she had finished her degree she came back for good, building a house for herself tucked away from the world near the Karri grove at the back corner of the original block. It was her slice of serenity, her refuge from the maddening world of her kin.

Between coming home and finished her house Olive took complete charge of the business side of the farm. Until then the accounts had been split between her father and grandfather’s activities, so she took on the responsibility of pooling the books, sorting out who had bought what and when. It was fair to say that they had been completely disordered. Receipts and invoices were loosely slotted between pages, often in not only the wrong year but also the wrong decade. She scolded the men and sat down to work bringing some much needed order and logic to their affairs.

Flu II and Fire II

With time and medicine, Dad slowly recovered, but the mossy air only served to exacerbate Mum’s condition. By now she had become immune to the antibiotics the doctors fed her, and the flu now developed into full-blown pneumonia. She was feverish and pale and her cough reverberated up the valley thoughout the day and night. It was only now, confronted by the heightened pleas and tears of family and friends and the looming threat of mortality, that Mum and Dad finally decided that it was probably best if they were admitted to hospital.

But for Mum it was too late. The day that Phillip drove his grandparents down the driveway in the back of his Commodore was the last glimpse I would ever take of the one who brought me into the world, nursed me, surrendered to my whims; that fount of wisdom and knowledge; my Mother. Albert came to me on the night of her death after he and the rest of the family had returned from the hospital where they had sat at her side while she breathed her last. He talked to me, outpoured his soul to me like he had done all those years before.

Margie came to me the next morning as she wandered aimlessly through the dawn frost. It had been years since she had stood beside me and felt my warmth. Sometimes I would catch a glance from her when she visited Mum and Dad, and while I guess time moves people in different directions, I know that she never forgot me. Those glances never meant less than ‘I love you and miss you’.

But on this day she came to me and sat and leaned against my skin in the embrace of a fold of my buttress as the sun tickled the curled hairs of the trees that made the horizon. In the songbird silence of dawn she took out a notebook and a pen and started to write. She wrote a tender note of love, of loss, of regret and reassurance and just as she had done when she left the first time she buried it in a shallow grave beneath my root. And without a word uttered she stood and returned home as daylight advance and movement stirred at the house.

Two days after they buried our mother, our father died of a broken heart. And three days later they reopened the hole that contained the shell of my mother and lowered that of my father down on top. As he requested they buried him face down so that they may hold each other forever.

It was many years before I could speak with my parents through a series of Chinese whispers and catch up on all the time we lost from each other. Their spirits- so long trapped inside their coffins- had to be fed upwards and outwards through the food chain to take flight. Through the decaying of all the worms, insects, rodents and birds that had nourished their own lives on the flesh of my parents their spirits were freed and absorbed back into the earth to be remodelled into flora so that their spirits reside together in the form of an old oak tree growing at the edge of the cemetery.

                                                       ***** 

In the wake of the clean up and once everyone had made note of what they had lost, farmers throughout the valleys and district started the long and difficult process of getting their lives back into some resemblance of normal. Fences had to be mended, sheds and stockyards rebuilt, and machinery and infrastructure replaced. Nearly everyone had to mortgage or remortgage their homes and lands to pay for it all. The first white heads of grass had emerged from the blackened soil within a few days of the fire, but for that first year extra feed had to be brought in from outside the Shire to help feed the stock that had been bought to replace those lost. Some of the animals that had been turned loose as the inferno hit were found roaming the backtracks through the forest, and it took a month or more for everyone to sort out which stock belonged to who.

But eventually people started to get back onto their feet. The wave of melancholia that had broken across the countryside had receded and been replaced by a resurgent tide of humour and vigour as people knuckled down and devoted their energies to getting things back to how they were. It was heartening and exciting to watch.

In the cleanup, Albert had salvaged my arm, laying it on the ground under the awning of the house. Sarah badgered him for days to ‘move that bloody tree from my verandah’, but my brother had loftier plans. He reassured her that he would move it in time, once the new shed was built it would be moved there to be his own special project.

Whenever he found himself with a spare half hour Albert would head on out to his shed and take to my arm with the chainsaw, the handsaw, the plane and the lathe. With his bare hands he formed me and smoothed me. Slowly but surely and with tenderness and care he shaped me into something proud and strong- a coffee table. Sure, it may not be perfect or the best, but it was made with such love and patience and care that such things can no longer have any bearing on it price. It sits now in Phillip and Beth’s living room, a thing beyond value, an heirloom.

the flu

You would have thought that having been through it myself would have immunised me against the sense of loss and despair that accompanies death, but the harsh reality that confronted me was that I was not. Even when you know that some ay it must come, nothing can really steel you against it when it finally does arrive.

Both Mum and Dad had caught the flu. As they had gotten older their formerly healthy and robust immune systems had slowly collapsed. Now, every year they seemed to come down with a succession of colds. There was a near continuous stream of antibiotics being prescribed, stored and swallowed, but this was the first time they had been hit by the proper flu. At first they thought they could ride it out together with a cocktail of antibiotics, honey-lemon tea and eucalyptus-infused steam. But when the muscle paralysis and delirium set in they knew that this was definitely worse than the standard colds they had grown used to riding out.

Albert, Sarah, Phillip and Beth took it in turns to look after them and try to convince them to seek proper treatment in hospital, but the combination of time and of being of that generation had hardened them into the belief that hospitals were for the weak. But they were stuck in their ways and wouldn’t receive the help they needed despite how awfully they must have felt, and so they stayed there in their small, dark, draughty cottage.

fire

That first winter the house sat triumphant atop the hill amidst the swirl of rain and hail. The clutch of old gums bent with the wind, showering the house with leaves, nuts and bark, while the newly planted old English oaks and conifers struggled with the harsh realities of life. The old worksheds across the ridge continued their stop-motion collapse into each other. As the drying spring gave way to summer the grass was cut and baled, the hayshed filled to overflowing, and the last of the potatoes harvested and the first cycles of cauliflowers planted. Before long the earth dried and crackled under foot, the grass paled to yellow and the devils started their dance across the paddocks. The east wind howled down the gullies, singeing the tips and wiping the remaining moisture from the eyes.

And then it came. It started as an unnerving calm, the kind where you tilt your head as if listening for the far off answer to an unwanted question. The air hang heavy and dead; a corpse waiting to be cut loose. Then slowly it came- a long guttural moan conjured by the devil from the depths of hell. A wet-hot gale across a dry-baked land.

What started from the east swung down from the north, carrying its white-hot fire. Its storms set fire to the parched forests and paddocks, and its vicious winds fanned the flames forth across the world. Man, woman and child pitched in to save what they could and stem the fiery tide in the face of the cyclone. Paddock gates were flung open so that animals could flee into the forest or into the dam. Litter was hastily removed from gutters. Hoses and sprinklers were turned onto the walls and roofs of houses.

Tendrils of fire licked through the canopies fringing the farms, and caught the stubbled stems of the fields alight. The unrelenting wind whipped across the land, spreading fire wherever it went. Cinders and ash set to flight by the wind fell all around setting off spot-fires ahead of the red front, only to be engulfed by the body of the fire.

Irrigation pipes and sprinklers were quickly diverted from their crops to houses, yards and sheds. Pumps hungrily gobbled water from the lake and spewed it upon roofs, walls, windows and sheds. Crops were surrendered to the fire, although parts were spared by the moisture retained from the previous evenings watering. Haystacks became fireballs; oxy-acetylene tanks and 44-gallon drums of diesel went up like bombed munitions dumps. Burning shrapnel fell all around. Families hid in bathrooms, fearful of looking out the windows at the approaching wave. It roared in their ears as it swept over and around.

And then it was over. As fast as it had come, it was gone. The red-orange front disappeared into the forest, leaving behind a carpet of black dotted with orange coals humming and spitting like bees released from their stings. The wind continued to shriek, lifting ash from the ground and hurling them forward to stain. The people pulled on their boots, picked up their buckets and shovels and set to inspecting the damage and dousing the smouldering coals with water. The ground spluttered and hissed against the water. Blackened figures wandered the slopes into the night, visible through the glow of the scorched earth. They returned exhausted and hungry, stained black by ash in flight. Lines streaked their faces where their sweat had run.

As they sat down to eat, the wind by measures diminished and fat dollops of rain began to fall. Thunder rolled down the valley again, this time accompanied by a veil of water. It fell with a continuous intensity dousing the remaining coals and sending clouds of steam spiralling upwards. Ash that had escaped the winds grasp was washed downhill by the torrent into the lake, staining its fringes black.

So what of me in this maelstrom of wind and fire? The fire had swept across the stubbled slope of the hill on which I stand. Thankfully for me there was not too much fuel littering the ground, so I was left with only shallow scorch marks on the base of my trunk and spot burns on my flesh from pieces of coal flung by the hot wind. I had friends who were not so lucky; who were consumed, their blood boiled by the inferno.

However after the fire had raced past and the wind flipped its direction and intensified with the passing of the eye my arm was twisted and snapped near the shoulder. It fell amidst the ash and embers sending a shower of sparks into the darkness. The wound burnt worse than the fire. My blood beaded on the shards and splinters, to be washed away and cleaned by the lashing rain. That night I cried. My remaining limbs rubbed against each other giving voice to my pain.

By morning the world was still again. The smells of woodsmoke and phosphorus hung in the air, yielding a brilliant purple and yellow morning. Dogs trotted across the black earth lead by their snouts and chickens scratched at the roasted corpses of insects and worms as the people in their houses slept solidly against the night before. In time they emerged and converged down by the water’s edge to check that everyone was OK and to count their losses and recount their tales.

With no small luck everybody had survived, and the houses of the Monroe’s, Albert and Sarah, and Phillip and Beth remained in place. Some sheds had been destroyed, their black smouldering carcasses cracked wide open to the elements. As they walked together they encountered the burnt bodies of stock and sifted through the remains of the summer crops. The paddocks and patches of bush on either side of the lake were charred black. Scarcely a blade or leaf of green remained. Grey fingers reached up from the earth at random intervals, and as they walked they spread and buried the coals and doused the ground with jets of water from the water packs strapped to their backs. A mist started up that nobody seemed to notice.

As the procession neared the weir my brother looked up the slope of his origin to see the burnt out mess of his parents home. Smoke still curled upwards from the pile of pale coals and twisted, reddened corrugated iron. His heavy eyes drifted across the hillside to rest upon my distorted and ghostly form. He dropped his head and cried through closed eyes. His wife put her arm around his shoulder as he sobbed. She clutched him to her breast and cradled him until he was stilled.

growth

The years following Olive’s birth were a time of great change for Karabup. The roads into the district were widened, and some of them sealed to give better access for the logging companies whose bulldozers, loaders and trucks cut their way deeper into the forest. With the improved infrastructure the school bus also extended a spur from the schools in Manjimup to Karabup and the 20-odd square miles of farms and forest that the local school serviced. The school closed and the two teachers transferred to town, leaving the small wooden building to serve as the local children’s playgroup twice a week, before being moved to town many years later as a historical relic of the failed Group Settlement Scheme. The local store would battle on for another decade, but would eventually succumb to the larger range of goods available in town. So too the post office received and distributed the local mail for nearly 20 more years until the postmistress Ms Giacomo finally dies of old age. And so for all intents and purposes- other than for the local’s themselves- the district of Karabup merged into yet another part of Manjimup. The road signs notifying travellers of its existence still pointed the way from the highway, and the old postcode remained; relics of an age lost but for the memory of the few.

Given Olive’s proclivity for hands-on work, by the time she had started school Beth had put her in charge of looking after the chooks and a small patch of the veggie garden. Just like her father and grandfather before her, Olive took to these tasks with verve. No sooner had she jumped off the school bus, ridden her bike down the track and dumped her bag in the corner of the kitchen, than she would be outside in the mud scratching away at the dirt pulling out the smallest of weed sprouts or searching for earthworms, so that by the time it came to clean up she would be caked in a layer of drying mud. Phillip and Beth would joke at night about how this daughter of theirs seemed to think that it was the chickens that were her parents and not them at all.

So life continued. The men continued the cycles of crops, stock and hay; never tiring of tinkering with what they grew, when, where, and with what machinery. They didn’t tend to be the type of farmer who has to always have the latest machine or gadget, preferring to mainly keep with that which was tried and true (kind of the opposite to how they were with crop selection, really) and modify that which was no longer ideal so that it functioned just as well as the new machines, only not as pretty or shiny, with strange additions welded onto the side. They were of the opinion that there was no point in spending all that money on some new machine when you could knock something up yourself that did the trick nicely, and for just a fraction of the price. They also had a firm faith in the versatility and practicality of wire, and if anything ever needed fixing the first thing they would call on was the roll of wire in the back corner of the machinery shed.

With the savings they made from adapting their own instruments to suit new causes- not to mention the profits that kept consistently rolling in from the farm- the youngest Spring family decided it was their turn to build a house they could completely call their own. They settled on a design of stone and wood- 4 x 2 with a verandah surrounding the northern and eastern sides catching the sun and looking out over the lake. The kitchen, and master bedroom would take advantage of these views through wall-to-ceiling windows, with the other bedrooms and bathrooms sheltered behind, and a loft that would serve at various times as a storeroom, a guest room, a study and a library. During their mornings and evenings Phillip and Beth, and later also Olive, would look over to the lights illuminating Phillip’s grandparents old cottage across the weir, along the bank to the cloister of trees sheltering his parents, and directly over the old Craig house and across the lake to the old Monroe’s. As the sun graced the horizons its light would play on my skin and through my thinning branches, my form a shining silhouette against the pink sky.

birth

The Mayfield block had long been a thing of envy for my family, located as it was at the narrowing end of the lake it not only contained the greatest area of arable land in the valley, but also land of such quality that it considered one of the best blocks in the region. The hill rose steeply from the water’s edge to a crest, and then receded slowly towards the north- a fertile slope that caught the best of the sun. The rockier southern incline had long been established as an orchard containing a couple of different varieties of apples, pears and nectarines that provided a nice little extra money-spinner and a great source of fruit for the kitchen table.

Only a couple of weeks after they had bought the Mayfield’s farm, Phillip and Beth announced to the family that they were expecting a child. They had known this information for several weeks and had successfully managed to keep it hidden, but now that the truth was out the cause of Phillip’s recent vagueness and Beth’s coy smile were only too apparent, and their mothers in particular berated themselves in private for not having put the pieces together before now, while simultaneously implying that they had known all along.

Of course everyone was overjoyed at the news. They had been married a couple of years and whispers had begun in the bedrooms and studies of their families as to why they hadn’t conceived by now, so the news caused a palpable ripple of relief across their faces. The grandmother’s set to work crocheting little boots, gloves, pants and jumpers, erring on the side of yellow since the sex of the little one was not yet known.

When she did arrive, little Olive was possibly the most doted upon baby in the world. Both grandmother’s would visit almost everyday and developed something of a rivalry, which Beth tried to mediate by dressing Olive in clothes made by the two elders on alternate days. Meanwhile Dad, Albert and the older Moriarty’s never tired of slapping Phillip on the back with a sly wink and bringing up stories of Phillip as a wee one. None of them could disguise their glints of pride.

From an early age Olive displayed tendencies not at all like those of a normal little girl. As soon as she could toddle she would follow her father around the yard and as he left the house in the mornings to go to the sheds or out to the paddocks she would stand there, hands pressed against the wooden slats of the front door, and wail. And as a child she would prefer to sit for hours digging amongst the chook manure rather than play inside with the dolls that her grand- and great-grandparents insisted on buying her, and which sat barely noticed in a box of similar such toys in the lounge room.

I have a Title

...and it is "Between Here and the Sky"

getting there

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.