feb 11, 2021

In the holidays, we would climb into their bed each morning.

In later years, caring for my granny, I would marvel at the modest size of that double bed and how it ever held two grandparents and three excited grandkids.

On those mornings, grandpa drew stories on our backs with his finger. The best story was his farm. A bullet in the leg during WWII led to early and fast-moving arthritis, which led to the loss of the farm and a hip held together with pins but still, years later, it was that farm he drew again and again onto his granddaughter’s backs. Paddocks, sheds, dams, Uncle Eric’s farm here on this side, driveways, cows and of course:

“Here comes Patchy coming to fetch the cows.”

I’ve lived in cities since I was three-months-old but I’ve never liked them. Melbourne was always my least favourite part of Melbourne. I thought I hated travel because I would always travel to cities and trudge around them miserably. Then I started travelling to rainforests and farmland to make theatre and I realised it wasn’t travel I hated.

I love the sensation of eyes adjusting to the landscape; the way grass changes from a green mist to dozens of individual species, their placement telling stories of past water tank overflows, the movements of animals or cars taking shortcuts. I love the way your ears quickly re-remember the sounds of lizards vrs birds vrs snakes moving through foliage. My body feels useful in these spaces. In cities I am weak, slow and often in pain but, when I move beyond their suburbs, my every action - lifting, carrying, digging, raking, watering, watching, carving - feels in aid of something. We are building something, this land, my body and I. Or re-building.

Today my back hurts. No core strength plus swinging a pick will do that. My mind drifts down my spine, checking in on the various muscles and joints, surveying the damage. But I think too of the map. Was it a spell of sorts? Written by a farmer who would never have believed in spells? From as far back as I can remember, up until he died, he drew a farm again and again. Patchy ran back and forwards along my little ribs for eight years at least. Cows came for milking twice a day. Sheds and fences were built and dams were dug between freckles. That leaves a mark.

Life right now is hard. It is hard to live in a caravan. It is hard to live in uncertainty. It is hard to build and re-build, write and re-write a life you thought you had figured out. But the land itself is as soft and welcoming as compacted clay can be. Every time I arrive I feel an eagerness: Let’s get to work, we tell each other.

Feb 5, 2021

Personally, I find animals help.

I stopped to apologise to a neighbour for making his dog bark with my constant treks back and forwards along the creek.

She is a big Rhodesian Ridgeback but the low fence and her barking methodology suggest she doesn’t yet realise her size: she’ll stay quiet when I am near but as soon as I round the corner there will come a fluffy of barks. ‘And stay out!’

I told the neighbour I bought Neville’s block.

“That was my If I Won The Lotto block,” he told me and instantly invited me in. He gave me a card with his number in case I need anything and signed me up for the community news bulletin. The giant puppy was delighted and licked my hand.

Another neighbour I met whilst carrying an injured corella in a towel. It had been tangled in bailing twine in the paddock next door. I threw a towel over it whilst alpacas and sheep watched on. I knocked on a door and heard a shout:

“I’m in my jocks!”

After a minute or so the door is swung open by a man now in tiny denim shorts. There are injured magpies in cages, a lizard free-roaming, rosellas and pigeons in a big aviary that had once been a sunroom. I had come to the right place.

Denim Shorts and his partner set to work instantly: out come the torch and the knives. Out comes the cornflower.

Birds are haemophiliacs, they tell me. If they cut her leg she will bleed out but a dusting of cornflower can provide artificial clotting.

For twenty minutes we work over the corella’s tangled feet. I see us as if from the outside: a frozen tableaux of heads bowed in torchlight over the little bundle on my lap. Then she is free: we take her outside and set her down. She takes a few slow wobbly steps.

“Nup. Catch her again. We’ll keep her over night”

I write in my diary.

Discoveries:

1. Where to take an injured bird

2. Cornflower stops birds bleeding out

3. Always have a towel and gloves

My car transforms: The cup holder is the seed holder – I pull over frequently by the side of the road to gather little treasures for later release - the boot is for compost and the glove box is the glove box, ready for more corellas or digging through the pouches of dead kangaroos. More reasons to knock on neighbours’ doors and be surprised by how unsurprised they are.

Jan 31, 2021

With the caravan in place come new portions of the day to discover. An unfamiliar clock makes its presence loudly known: I had thought I was living in Corella Country but I had simply been on Corella Time.

Evening begins with their exodus to further afield trees. At 6.30 I realise I am in the middle of yellow-rumped thornbill hour. They spread across the dirt like a well-trained search and rescue team, combing the ground for traces of seeds.

The galahs take over after that: a softer higher, more conversational sound than the shouts and swears of the corellas. They mob my neighbour’s field.

Quieter again and more camouflaged, rosellas nibble their way through bushes. A magpie flaps by, its wing beats so percussive they syncopate with the bounce of a basket ball a block away. Crows mourn. Kookaburras cackle. With the corellas in their nighttime tree there is more nuance to the soundscape.

I watch them all find their roosts. They move with such purpose: Galahs to the river red gums, rosellas to the grove.

‘I to my caravan’ I whisper to the dimming sky.

It is nice to feel that we all have a little place in the dark.

But I mess it all up: An evening walk up the creek to the toilet and provoke a chorus of rebuke from every tree.

‘Does she not know? Does she not know how to roost?

‘Here she comes,’ neighbours call to neighbouring trees. ‘The one who cannot tell time’

Jan 28, 2021

The block doesn’t really have an address.

It is usually easier to say ‘meet at the pub and we’ll walk down together.’

(Yes, it is The pub)

(Yes, it is just a walk away)

It doesn’t have a house either. Here is a list of what it does have:

1. A little shed for the ride-on mower

2. the ride-on mower (Mustang Sally)

3. A pile of fence posts, await transformation

4. Water. Both bore and SA Water.

5. A large collection of hoses and sprinklers, some working, many not.

6. Two tiny but productive mulberry trees, lovingly dressed in netting.

7. A plum tree.

8. Approximately one million corellas. A pair of willy wagtails. Eastern rosellas. White-plumed honey eaters. Yellow-rumped thornbill. A few galahs, looking out of place amid the corella army. Wolf spiders. Bees, industriously slaving over frogfruits.

9. Supervision from the neighbour’s alpacas, sheep and cows.

10. Paterson’s curse.

11. Windmill grass. Wallaby grass. Many others I cannot identify.

12. She-oak by the dozens.

13. Prunis.

I know there is more than this here. That is part of the joy. I often think imagine when I know all their names.

Imagine when I take people on tours and say ‘oh yes, that is a so-and-so’ or ‘this has just shot up in the last month!’

Each day I go there, I write a discovery:

Day 1: The water turns on and off up near the bore. Just set it to ‘man’.

Day 2: The mower’s trailer tips up so you can empty it easier!

Day 3: What a difference thick layers of mulch make.

Day 4: How to turn on the mower. (Break pushed all the way down, blade up, revs up to ‘hare’ - as opposed to ‘tortoise’ - turn key then instantly bring the revs down a bit.)

Day 5: How peaceful it is to work alone. How long the drive is if you do it two days in a row.

Day 6: The soil is tough to get through but, once you do, it is beautiful and rich!

Day 7: How wonderful it is to work with friends. How good I am with a pickaxe.

Day 8: One cow, all black and curious, is braver than the others. I named her Barbarella and fed her bread. Her tongue is big and thick and blue and strong.

Day 9: Where to take an injured animal. To hold a bird by the neck when you turn it over. To always have a towel and gloves in the car. That a coating of cornflower will clot the blood for the bird, as it will not clot by itself and they bled out easily. Also, there are worms in the soil now!

Day 10: How resilient the soil is. When you put things in it responds instantly as if to say ‘Oh good, you’re here. Let’s get to work.’ Also, I don’t like tents.

Day 11: That I need a place to stay up there. I work too hard when I know I have to dash off. That night I made an appointment to see a 1972 caravan. The next day, I bought it.

Day 12: How good the plums taste. How bloody the mulberries make my fingers appear.

Day 13: What a relief it is to return after a few days away. How happy the land seemed to see me again and how willing it was for me to bury my fingers in its dirt and make homes for new plants.