We knew it would be a jolt to our systems. The Building Supervisor and the Secretary trading air-conditioned offices for the great outdoors. Not for a simple weekend away, not for a holiday escape... this was a tree-change planned to last for at least a year, maybe two.
"You'll be back," workmates said.
"You two party animals turning into country bumpkins? No way!" friends said.
"Your jobs will still be waiting for you," said our boss. "I'll give you three months!"
Ignoring all this negativity, we side-stepped the rat-race, the smog, and the mainstream of Life as we had lived it so far-landing with a decided wallop, deep in the Western Australian countryside... in the famous Wheatbelt. This distance from the madding city crowds there would be no more weekends with two whole days off, no more public holidays, no more RDO's (rostered days off). Can't help a chuckle to myself. To be painfully honest, we go back so far, these perks hadn't yet been born.
"Just imagine," I say to Kanute. "If I'd been more chicken-hearted and less pig-headed, and a whole lot less in love with you AND our dream, I would have dragged you bodily back to the city!"
A smug smile creeps over his face. "I know," he says. "But just imagine how much we would have missed."
"A heap of hard work and heartbreak, for starters." But my tone softens as I feel my smile spreading, too. "And blue skies and sunshine and fresh air."
"And kangaroos and puppies? And baby lambs and ducks and pigs?" I shake my head in defeat. Kanute always knows my most sentimental buttons to push.
It had been easy to say goodbye to such questionable comforts as the never-ending rush hour traffic jams, sardine-can crowds, and the almost constant frustrated beeps of car horns-the questionable music we had lived with.
"Hmmph.. and no 'road rage' in those days." Kanute shakes his head in disbelief at the thoughts of a slower pace, kinder people, a gentler way of life altogether.
The corner of my mouth tightens in a twisted grin. "Road rage. Hmmph... there's an expression that hadn't even been invented yet." I shake my head as I think about this unpleasant development. Wasn't needed back then. Passengers would be hard-pressed to hear choice words mumbled under the driver's breath. Rare moments indeed-even under great duress-for any cursing or bad tempered outbursts would happen. Maybe, IF the driver was alone/ Such genteel days by comparison-who'd have thought they'd end so soon?
Hard to believe that less than two months had unfolded since we made our choice to leave our jobs in Perth to change our lives... forever, it turned out. We would learn farming as Kanute worked for Sam, our friend-now our new boss. This idea of working together for a year or so had been born and blossomed over many weekend visits.
"Wasn't it odd how the timing was so perfect for all three of us?" Kanute nods, and then shakes his head slowly, thinking back.
Sam had inherited his grandfather's 6,000 acre (2,500 hectare) wheat and sheep farm. Unfortunately, the old man's age and physical problems had seen a significant deterioration in this farm in his last years. Since both grandparents deaths, Sam had tried valiantly to tend other substantial family farm holdings at the same time as this one. He desperately needed help to restore this old, established land to its previously flourishing condition. And here were we-in our prime-at 25 and 30 and no children yet-we were SO eager to see if farm life was what we really wanted.
"You know, the way we were, without any 'real' farm experience, we'd have been pushing to get any kind of farm job," Again Kanute shakes his head, this time with a sober expression and faraway eyes. "What do they say? It was a ... uhmm... "
YOU ARE READING
Old McLarsen had some Farms
No Ficción"You two become farmers? You must be kidding!" How little our friends really knew us. Sure, that's how life had been for the Secretary and the Building Supervisor... but those were the keywords - "had been". An opportunity had arisen to learn farmi...
