I am sleeping beside  a thumper bumper jumper with the unerring capacity to launch him self across the vast plain of a queen-size and nuzzle into me like a mossie honing in on its target.

       I am perched on the edge a hot wriggler jiggler biggler wrapped around me. Is this sleep I wonder in the wee hours of the night.

       Thru the filmy drapes of the mossie net I watch the night press its self against the windowpanes.

       A few nights after full moon the sky is clear and the forest is backlit with shrubs  trees and stars  standing out in sharp relief.

      The tableau appears frozen but the air carries the buzz rustle squeak murmur of creatures meandering thru their activities of living –   tawny frogmouth…. possum….. bat…. sugarglider…. rat….  wombat ….bandicoot……owl…

      In real time the forest never sleeps – is never still not  by night nor day. Always in all sorts of ways life is  explored    burrows are dug , claws are sharpened , nests are rearranged ,  food is swooped upon, young are cared for and stories are swapped.

      ‘Just move him over’  Jess says when I complain about lack of bed room .  I pull the covers back and clumsily I admit lift the dreaming weight of a 103cm 3 and a half year-old lad and shove him onto the far side.  I fret then about the possibility of him head banging the bedside table so I wedge one of his dogs into position.

      I stretch out and tune into the waking sleeping dreams of forest and valley. From far away a fox yips a dog barks a vehicle moves along the main road.

       Will sleep claim me now? The heat missile returns in a series of tackles worthy of any AFL player and once again we are skin to skin breath-to-breath.

       It is a gift I mutter to my self.

       The night winds on, a bat flitters around the room and in the bedroom next door a rat scampers in and races about, John tells me the next morning.

       I sleep at some point because I awake and it is morning. there is a louder chorus of activity taking place outside. Lots of pips twitters whips chuckles whistles oodles loodles caws and whoooos.

       Wallaby delicately picks up  a fallen  peach leaf  and munches.  on the other side of the house another wallaby reaches deep into the dog rose and eats . They are  unfussed by the house and its occupants clanging and banging chopping and slamming calling out radio chit chattering.

      They eat what they will. And why wouldn’t they?

      Wild is their true nature  – their true heart and for that we should envy them .
They have not forgotten their way.

      Unlike us the interlopers invaders intruders who are lost and fear we have ruined the only good home we have.

      It beggars belief that so many realities can exist side by side and still the planet turns on its axis.

      Over the mountains and far to the west of this state uranium leaks into water held within the Earth. Chemicals are routinely pumped underground to achieve a dollar a continuance of the stock market and remnant forests are cleared for more coalmines while solar panels line up on roofs.

      People protest .  I wish I was there with them. I wish you were too. I wish we were all standing straight and strong and saying  STOP !!!!   enough ..no more…  And people are, they are chaining themselves to  heavy machinery living outside of their norm in an attempt to make the world a better place.

      What world will exist for this wriggler biggler boy?

      He needs the wallaby the tree the turtle and the spider  . They are our teachers  they show us how to live  and it is said that when we lose them we lose a part of ourselves.

      Perhaps the key is humility and we must find it fast because  arrogance has led us astray taking us into  quicksand and we are sinking.

Maules creek is calling you. Leach forest is calling you.The Pilliga is calling you.

Mother earth is calling us  –   come home come home come home …

Let us do it together  afterall we have no other home than this one.

      There is no time left for that second cuppa no time available for another drink .

      What other facts do you need aside from

      this beautiful boy needs the  river the  forest a landscape to grow with …a future to breath and a ‘tomollow’ to play in

     to convince you to act now.???????

     Today he said to grandad ‘the birds show us how to sing.’

Dad hops on the plane at Merimbula. he is stoic wanting to get away, his bottom lip is trembling and his face is a mask of holding emotion that threatens to engulf  him.

I am ticked all over with those tiny dot ticks .  .  .  .    .       .        .              .

.    .      .    .    yep as small as that full stop. this is them at the larvae stage. so after mum has laid some 2500 to 3000 eggs they hatch out  and what do you know they need a feed, they need blood so they hop into the bushes and wave their insey wincey little legs around until like a giant angel I wander into their domain.  bam bam they hop on board and suck.

if I don’t kill them that is if they achieve their drink they then morph into the next stage and become a nymph, sounds kinda cute doesn’t it?

I always think of nymphs as fey and mysterious .well not these nymphs  they are now the size of a small freckle and  have two more legs giving them 8 to wave around. they need blood too so they lurk around the shrubbery waiting for  something to wander past.

apparently bandicoots are a good score. I am assured that they do not drop out of trees but lurk around about 50 cm off the ground waving waiting.

we should  probably admire this  sort of commitment because  obviously their lack of size is no hindrance to their lifestyle.

Blithely I launched into new year resolutions this year – two pages of them written in my really cool rainbow pencil that changes hue as you form the lines.

insects –  be kind I wrote.

this is definitely not what I had in mind – becoming a serial donor to these itsy bitsy irritations.

it was probably a more romantic idea I had – like gently easing the huntsman off the wall in Elsie’s laundry onto a  bit of paper cupped in a glass and gently depositing it outside in the bushes.

further away than that she screeches in my ear as we watch it trundle off .

or lifting the moth reverently and placing it out of the way of big feet or flipping the beetle over so it can strut off to wherever

that sort of helpful thing not this itch and scratch.

something about bush living never a dull moment, even when I end up being the butt of the joke..

Dad has been and gone.

he has once again enjoyed the sitting on the verandah watching the bend in the trees, the dedicated fig eating of the black swamp wallabies, the hop skippity of the wren around his feet, the spritely splash in the tank of the yellow-faced honeyeater and the lazy coil of the black snake guarding the stacked wood on the verandah.

in between all these activities  he snoozes.

the black swamp wallaby sits at the bottom of the steps nosing its way into the cape gooseberry and trimming the leaves. the gooseberries inside their little lanterns are long gone.

the diet of these shy gentle beings is advancing season by season generation by generation.

once we could grow our food without fences.  our veges sprawled over a large area around the house and would remain uneaten by wildlife for the most part. the orchard was a feast of peaches  mandarins grapefruit  figs  and mulberries. netting was unheard of.

in those halcyon days we had the red necked wallaby mob living around the house and you had to walk a fair way into the forest to even catch a glimpse of the black swampy. somewhere along the way the world changed and positions reversed.

a red wallaby in close  is a rare sighting.

perhaps because the vegetation around the house thickened to a depth and richness that the  swampies  enjoy. But ever since they have come in,  it has become increasingly harder to grow food without  it being plundered.  like so many other forest dwellers we have been forced into creating  an enclosure for the foods we don’t want to share.

only problem is that as each season passes and each generation is a little bit more cocky more and more foods are being added to their repertoire.

rhubarb leaves  – oxalic acid and other toxins not a problem .

the chive hedge  – no more.

in winter they discovered the bark of the loquat tree and effectively ring barked the trunks .

this summer the new discovery is figs and fig leaves – they just haven’t learnt to climb yet but give them time.

oregano marjoram yep don’t mind it at all.

vietnamese mint can’t get enough of it.

thyme a little bit here and there.

comfrey leaves absolutely.

rosemary so far avoided but don’t hold your breath.

they are innovative and evolving .

lemon leaves for that delicious citrus flavour.

as you can see probably a fairly terrific diet medicinal calming nourishing .

natives shrubs should be safe from their predations we thought once upon a time.

but gee how yummy is  the new vulnerable shoots of the bottlebrush the boronia the hakea the correa.

Dad and I hug again. he  walks thru the gate towards the plane.

Kay is still saying goodbye to her family. reaching up to hug Floyd, touching the locks of Shyann and Natalia, pressing her son Wade to her one last time,  a giggle with Elsie moisture gathering in eyes.

come on Kay I call out.

everyone else is  already seated on the plane.

Dad turns  looking for her.

bye Dad I love you he tears up and nods bravely.

eventually without hurry she has hugged them all , Beau tall and pimply 16-year-old lad , a final joke with Stacey the new Mrs Asplin and then she gets to me.

we hug  at which point I burst into loud messy tears on her shoulder, she starts too and we clasp each other like  a drowning person holds onto a life raft and mumble words bodies shaking.

off she goes joins up with Dad turns and looks back at us all.

I snivel pulling a hanky out of my bag, my glasses have fogged up and where on earth did that wave come from?

Wade comes over and hugs me tight.

we stand together watch the plane clear the runway setting its nose for Sydney.

Shyann said she wanted kiwi Nana to stay for 100 weeks.  One morning she took  Kay to school with her for show and tell but when Kay got up in front of the class Shyann couldn’t get any words out , all show and no tell.

over lunch the little girls try to understand the connections

sisters  cousins who is your mum  pappap nanas dad aunties uncles.

who we all are in relation to each other.

the lines blur boundaries dissolve another person joins the family another birth.

I am trying to overcome my fear of going back into the garden.

we are desperate for kindling and I am still not keen to host any more little blighters.

I lurk in bed in the mornings so John has to light Stanley.

suits him he has a shed to restore.

Mac has moved in for a bit and is assisting John with the shed.

they seem to be enjoying it.

the job like the family seems to be getting bigger and bigger.

yesterday evening I  put some old eggs out into the garden  for the goanna. it has been around the house most days probably looking for more camembert  but no such luck.

is it off ? John pokes it under Macs nose.

I don’t know.  I don’t know either and he re wraps it  and puts it back in the fridge.

last night a ratty stole one of the eggs brought it up to the verandah and left the eaten out shell for us to find. this is without doubt the same fella that  took the  two litre plastic milk bottle and snipped the red lid into tiny pieces. finding no joy in that it ate holes in the bottom of the bottle to get at a smear of old milk.

lunchtime the goanna turns up and with its forked tongue leading the way finds the eggs and slurps them down. it seems a clumsy process from my point of view but  a few gulps later the egg in the gullet has shifted down the throat and disappeared.

the house is feeling  empty the bedroom in the lounge room is vacant.

I ring dad he is back home now tired from his trip.

outside on the verandah the goanna is wrecking havoc. the eggs were not enough. the mop at the back door has hit the floor. if the door had not been shut it would have come in. it has happened before and no small task to turn them around and get them out.  the  rubbish is being scattered all over the place – a frenzy of  plastic bags slathered over . it keeps coming back to the camembert / egg spot in the garden its tongue wandering over the ground again and again.

I have left some tomato seed pulp there but it gives that a wide berth.

so far they are not evolving into vegetable eaters.

I keep on scratching and decide the kindling can wait another day.

Dad is in residence gently snoring when I come out to the kitchen this morning.

I light Stanley – the wood pops and shifts in the firebox – my bread slowly toasts and the teapot warms waiting for the kettle to boil.

Smoky again smoky yesterday the day before and the season when all the ‘……. ‘ do their hazard reduction burns has not even started yet.

Some say it is Victorian fires others say Brogo.

The sun appears on the other side of  an orange filter and it is all pinky peachy tones. for our throats and lungs though  the air is thick and challenging. driving out to the coast today the hills on either side of the valley are hidden.

This is what we have seen.

A goanna a good two metres long eating Camembert.

It discovered the cheese  in the garden nestling in a hole that Kingston had been excavating with the garden trowel.

John had turfed it there. It was from  Johns latest cheese making enterprise . the funny thing about  cheese is , it is all about ‘off  ‘ he said to me after he threw it out.     But in the case of this particular Camembert it was the wrong off.      The others  went into the fridge and whenever we open  the door  a smell leaps out into the kitchen.  is it the right smell or the wrong smell?

hard to say when we are talking about cultures and bacterias and fermentations . The last batch of Camenbert John  made at Christmastime was excellent and loved by all.

This time he has done a Haloumi and it is perfect.  the feta is as good as any Bulgarian feta  says Elsie.

in the esky the blue vein increases in blueness.

The goanna hooked right in, its long tongue hoovering up every last bit.

the anomaly in all this cheese business is that after John went to see  Ken he came home and said Ken told him no eating cheese no dairy. he didn’t say not ever ….just not now.      This confirms Johns view of how the universe likes to tease him.

The skink that hangs around our sink will eat anything. John has taken to putting crumbs out for it on a plate as if there aren’t enough leftovers stacked on the dirty dishes that it likes to trawl over -lickedty lickedty lick.

We are often rescuing it from the sink or the metal bowl – the sides being too slippery to climb out of.  it is a big responsibility living with skinks  . We have to remember to leave sticks in buckets of water , a branch in the huge water pot so they can actually get themselves out. Not nice to come along and find a drowned one.

The wallabies are summer tripping – whatever it is they are eating at the moment is zoning them out. maybe it is the heat or maybe they are super relaxed or maybe this is their  natural state.

in and around the yard most afternoons and early evenings nibble nibble  nibble scratch and dream  – coming to the water pot for a long drink and snaffling up any fresh shoots of chives that have dared to poke their  heads up.

the curling yellowy peach leaves that have left the tree and fluttered to the ground are consumed  diligently. no need of a leaf blower here.

They watch us go about our business without much need to run away.  their black eyes remind me of  button eyes on an old teddy bear except ted never looked as stoned as these fellas do.

John and Dad have a got themselves a BMW project. some part fell out the other day when he was giving it an oil change.

don’t ride it was the advice from Munich Motorcycles . so… a has to be done job and while John is trying to psyche himself up for it Dad is rubbing his hands together and can’t wait to get stuck into it.

he is nearly 87 for goodness sake.

great isn’t it? great that he gets up and leaves home at 3.30 am in the morning – into a car up to Auckland airport on a plane to Sydney – off the plane find your way around the airport onto a bus and round to domestic  –  onto another plane landing at Merimbula and then into the car with me and Elsie and Chloe and finally arriving here some 12 hours after he left home.

Dad  likes to sit on the verandah and watch the skinks play at his feet and the wrens noddle around after crumbs and the yellow eared honeyeaters wash in the tank and the gums sway in the breeze and a few errant clouds sail across the sky.

so good to be here he says

and so good to have him here too.

Saturday

there was a spell of heavy rain in the night – the sound drumming on the roof that wakes you up with absolute relief that all is well with the world . you can feel the land opening to receive , hear the veges brighten and see the branches of the gums drooping with the weight of water  so you wriggle back down glad the job is being done – at last.

and then you  wake again because it has stopped and you were used to the rhythm in your dreams.  the hoped for continuum has not eventuated.

we take what we can. what other options do we have?

in the morning there is another couple of lighter showers and the day continues grey with the  threat or  promise of more to come.

I have some friends who are bearing witness. I sat with them today. their sensitive hearts and delicate souls feel bound to listen to the news  – to watch it on the tele  – to keep up to date – to know what is going on. despite the horror and angst   the pain – and here they place a palm on their heart and their eyes glisten with unshed tears  when they retell a story – despite all this  they have to do it. I know what they mean and I can understand a little of this.

Living on a  blockade beside brassknocker road at the bottom of  Wandella Mountain  all the way thru a winter and deep into spring summer when the activism failed to uproot the loggers and their chainsaws the forestry and the chipmill from their purpose, I too learnt to bear witness.

I learnt to stand and weep and  sing and pay homage to the tree beings that rolled out as cut logs on trucks. I discovered that  the people that cared for the earth – that loved fern and creek and pinkwood – that adored owl and bandicoot echidna and glider – that respected stringybark black box silver topped ash and wattle  – that honoured worm beetle snake and goanna  – we were in the wrong. we were on the wrong side of the police tape and that made us available to be spat on punched and arrested.

this anomoly still intrigues me although I am well aware of the politics of reality as John likes to remind me. even so you must admit it is an odd state of affairs. respect and loving kindness are precisely the attributes our society discourages penalises and punishes.  we live in a world that uses  its undeniable right  by law to carve up the earth  remove our forests  and poison our habitat all for little bits of printed paper.

life without television means images and reports of the wanton destruction  of kindness  fresh water and oxygen , families  forests and rivers ,  does not parade past me each evening.

instead it is the chorus of frogs celebrating rain, it is deep rustlings squeaks and scampers, it is the bound thump bound of wallabies. it is possum delivering its tarzan cry snatching up some grapes and galloping off along the iron roof, it is the long whooo  whooooo of the powerful owl hunting that possum on the roof.

there is prey and predator, birth and death in the world of animals birds and fishes.  some spiders devour their mates,  a hive will mass into a tight band and kill their queen when it is time. so many examples of how to behave, what are we to do?

I live in an activity  ; a constant regular /irregular/random /chaotic/ ordered / wild /evolving  action  in which all aspects are interwoven interconnected interdependent and totally awesome.

there is little that is newsworthy about this activity  about sightings hatchings nestings foragings  feelings and interspecies communication.

there is nothing newsworthy in diamond dewdrops flashing off feathered wings and cupping a bright green iridescent beetle  in the palm of your hand . What interest in ticks so tiny smaller than a freckle that have managed to clambour onto your body and eat you or leeches that suck between your toes wearing bright orange racing stripes. there is  nothing new about any of this or a wind that lifts leaves off their stems and floats them gently in a spiral pattern down to the ground or worker ants carrying a blade of grass twice their size back to home base.

this is  ….  life on planet earth going about its busy ness.

the news is primarily of the people world . it is the measure of cruelty between humans – the measure of hatred and aggression – the sum of our lesser qualities. we name this reality and we call it news.

I am with Mary Daly – it is ‘olds’ –it is an old story way past its use by date and its purpose is to keep us in thrall in fear and disempowered.

not my friends though, by some quirk of nature they can witness the real time horrors and remain alert and alive to the grandeur of the earth around / within them.

the stories we tell each other, the stories we listen to say something about the dream we are dreaming, the life we are creating .

the story is our canvas and we are the brush strokes.

All I can do is make it my business to walk thru the mist in the forest in the morning, tilt my head towards the kookaburra chuckling  and sing a note back to the magpie. All I can do is live  within this given space of nature and spirit.

I do bear witness to grey kangaroo and black swamp wallaby, to sheoak and cutty grass, to web and eel and cloud. I bear witness to beauty and magic to grace of being to the ordinary everyday going about busyness of planetary life and these are the stories I want to share with you.

Friday

Cheryl and I went for a swim in the dam today.

hardly reason to blow your trumpet Sandra,

oh but it is.

the afternoon is warm muggy and still.

we hang around on the east verandah talking of comfort zones , mortality,  medicine and family.

skinks wander around underfoot.

John is still abed feeling sick achy feverish hot cold sick –

not a well man at all

mostly sleeping or reading living on water and  a few squeezes of lemon juice.

his last action in the world was repairing Caroles water tank and he has been horizontal ever since.

do you ever go for a swim in the dam anymore ? Cheryl asks.

no.

she wants to know how long it has been. I have a vague recollection that my last swimming time there was in the era of Bridie and Sooty and that is at least two girlfriends ago.

why she wants to know ?  Cheryl likes to know things and can strike up a conversation with anyone anywhere anytime about anything. She has just become a pink lady which is someone that visits patients in hospital.  every week she heads up to Bega Hospital and changes water in the flowers or helps tick the menu and chats if people are up for it.

we laughed that she had come out as a pink lady to John but he hasn’t been much in the mood for conversation.

perhaps she says it was the brown snake she says.

could be I reply.

once the big dam was our summer hub – the place to hang about  to plunge into and play.  one Christmas  before the children were of school age John had a truck load of sand delivered for a beach.

and then as they got a bit older I would offer a gold coin if they swim a lap around it.

I hate to think how much I will have to offer Kingston to swim the course.

one day John was down at the pump and being hot decided to cool off by diving in . He swim across to the beach and as he was walking out a stick on the ground began to move. it materialised into a brown snake and darted rapidly towards John . he quickly backpedaled  falling back into  the water kicking and splashing up enough of a fuss to save his life. the brown snake lost interest and swam away to the right disappearing among the water irises . heart pounding John continued on across the dam and brought the news to us up at the house.

this is to date the only sighting and encounter of a brown on Jellybean Road in 30 years. and we touch wood when we say that.

mmm that could be it. perhaps we  never felt entirely comfortable with the big dam after that .

Bec goes swimming in the lily dam I tell Cheryl.

shall we ? she asks.

might as well.

along the track thru lazy summer heat on a day poised for rain we wander down past the  abandoned lily shack  and over to the lily dam. it fair took our breath away. from a couple of pots of waterlillies  thrown in 30 years ago the dam is an enchanting temple scene . yellow flowers perchon stalks above large flat glossy green leaves. round the edges of the dam and hosting the lilies is pampas grass.

in the middle there is still a clear space of water but probably not for much longer.

we stand and stare. it is beautiful and already I feel spiritually uplifted in its presence.

how does Bec get in ? wonders Cheryl.

good point. she must go thru the lilies I say.

We  consider this for a long time.

I don’t think I can do that . nor me.

we see a possibility on the other bank and investigate.

she’ s a warrior I say.

no doubt about that agrees Cheryl.

we turn around  and walk past Sooty and Kats garden past the stack of bourby cans past their shack  and down the hill to the big dam. They are away activisting – up near Boggabri where  a new mine is going in to the detriment of a native forest – again – .

We strip off and wait pondering this idea. the sandy beach has gone and instead the ground  is pocked with cow hoof holes .

one foot in and it sinks thru squelchy smooth slimy mud up to our calves.

I don’t know if I can do this.

me neither.

another foot . the dark tannin coloured water is coffee stained by the release of the clay particles that swirls around our feet.

a black snake is spotted on the bank nearby.

what is it doing eating something? I don’t have my glasses on so the visual is hazy. it seems to be in pursuit but then it stops and curls into a horseshoe shape.

another step. all we have to do is dive in Cheryl says bravely.

where are those warrior women that swam from Little Belimba Creek down the Tuross River for miles one day?

what has happened to us ?

our comfort zone is interfering with our capacity of delight for feet sinking into sludge and disappearing in black water.

we dive in –  there really is no other option and one can only shag around for so long.

the temperature is divine . indeed the water feels like silk on the body like some of those hot  mineral waters in New Zealand –  wholesome and healing ,nurturing and rejuvenating.

the black snake is still there when we get out.

Cheryl said you know I don’t think I would have got in if that black snake hadn’t been there. it made me feel safe.

Thursday

dawn : A thick visible shushy mist carrying multitudinous drops of water creeps thru the forest and garden. by the time I light Stanley it has gone and a shy morning emerges. The sun lifts thru the trees pushing hard onto the east verandah.  Ravens wing in and call stridently urgently demanding my attention.

They have something to say and I have to listen.

    The lewins honeyeater moves into its shriek alarm signal the one that signifies threat danger predator. The diamond python could be nearby. I go looking at the corner of the house in the lemon verbena, the bottlebrush, the wisteria arbour where the lewins has built its hanging basket nest. It is so very delicate and yet sturdy made of spiders web shredded Stringybark, bits of white paper, hair and filled with the softest looking nesting material  in which two eggs lay. They are about the size of the top of my thumb white with a few speckles. Is this their second nesting or still the first or  has she given up… abandoned the project?

     I am watching to see if she is sitting but although she sets off the alarm I do not see her go near the nest. Earlier in summer the diamond python hung out a lot on this corner and the lewins became a nervous wreck shrieking and  squawking all the time. nothing I can do I tell them. at 3 metres long the python will move where it will. Just not into the roof anymore, it hunted and probed, tried again and again to get in thru its old doorway but along with the rat proofing means no entry for pythons.

 Sorry but you didn’t eat enough rats. In fact they were roof buddies sharing premises and the rats did not take a break from making out and producing for a second.

       it has  a patch of gingery fur ringing  its grey upright ears. the back is grey with a bit of white underlay and the tail as easily as long  as the body is a solid dark grey. there are little white patches on the elbow and the front of the body is the same gingery russet tones of autumn.

   it has been very busy this morning ever since I got up. hovering around the edge of the tank  focused on eating. I cleaned out the compost bucket there yesterday and it has probably picked up a few scraps. it nibbled its way to the back door and up to the kitchen window stopping to glance at me as I clunk a dish into the sink. it is quite young very small  but old enough not to have mum or dad hanging around. On slender perfectly suited for bounding legs it gracefully hops into the herb garden. I don’t mind waking up to these swampy wallabies around the house. their gentle grace and  innocence and the fact that they are at home  indigenous to this place.

   last week it was cows, big hulking grey brown black and white all tail flicking  and giant patties of smelly plop everywhere. on a certain breeze it stinks inside the house. we chased them this way and that  debating did they belong to  Christa or  Norris? just bloody cows to us , piss off we yell go home . they are offensive rude loud and destructive. they hammered the asparagus and dahlias leaving them stripped bare, they break branches off  trees and mow down shrubs. it is true the lawns are clipped short and there is no need for a mow.

Christa drove over one day and called them come on maggie  come on annie barry belle come on…  gathering up her children from around the  house because they refused to budge even with Kingston John flapping and windmilling his arms shouting buddy cows get away.

on another day the two neighbouring herds met up in our bush and we managed to sic them thru to Christas. that set the cat among the pigeons. a lot of phone calls ensued .

buddy cow poo everywhere says Kingston.

Norris replied to Johns phone call with a we need a new fence. forgive me my derision lord but I need a new fence like a shot of heroin in the arm.

once it was  easy for me to despise my neighbours especially of the monoculture cow variety . these days in the middle of blowing off steam I remember I breathe I hug silence and it washes away.

     his second reply to John was to come out the next morning and drive around shooting for hours while John tried to keep his head down and fix  the breaches in the fence. not one star picket not one bit of wire not one post not one anything has Norris contributed in 20 years. yes  it is an old fence and the original red gum posts have rotted off in the ground. we have brought most of them back to our yard, replacing them over time with new posts and steelies adding sticks and rejigging barb wire plugging the gaps as needed.

one night a herd camped right outside our bedroom and we were woken  repeatedly to listen to the entire process of their digestion.some orchestral music that.

neighbour issues belong to the era of my childhood so obviously I have a preset pattern waiting to cut sick. forget it, I have moved on and will not waste my energy going there. Mum was a beauty at it.  She used to have window banging contests with Mrs Macaninny next door in Whangarei. I was only little tot   but I remember Mum harumping and going to the kitchen window banging it  shut a couple of times with a certain amount of satisfaction as if to say there got her. I was four so maybe this isn’t reliable but there was a story to go with it as there was wherever we moved. something always came up to sour relations with next door. Dad is doing alright these days gets veges from his next door so it must have been Mum generated all those years.

there was a low hedge between us  and the older kids including my 2 sisters around 13 and 12 would play leap frog over it shouting rubber neck rubber neck meaning Mr Macaninny the school bus driver. Kay shudders whenever I mention that memory. She says Mum and Dad thought it was funny  Sandra ,they should have stopped us.

in Taita it was Mrs Willis on one side and Mrs Wells on the other. their husbands had been friends and drowned in the Hutt River fishing one time. that was before we moved in. they hadn’t talked to each other since which placed us at piggy in the middle.Both of them had male boarders which caused raised eyebrows and comments in our household that I didn’t understand. Mrs Wills was not allowed in our house and got the blame for a tree that crashed on my bedroom window in a storm one time. she severed the roots mum and dad said. once dad told Mrs Wells to stick her head in a bucket of water twice and take it out once. 

is it any wonder that occasionally my preset button pushes me into some sort of desire to blame the neighbour? still not going there.

it is really   the cows in our forest that I object to the way they   trample the delicacy of the shrubbery and habitat of the little creatures   and their capacity to introduce  pasture grasses thru their poo.  it was kinda cute though wandering out to the verandah for a late night wee and them  all lying around snoozing and farting and chomping .

last night on the eve of dark still grey holding the implied threat of rain I met the Frenchman on the track, him going out me returning from astrology . We wound down our windows and grinned at each other  genuinely pleased to meet like this. is it going to rain? he asks me. my citrus they are bad the mandarins oranges dropping to the ground ,I have no water for them only some in the tank for me.

all the signs are there John I tell him . rain is on its way.

we smile and say good night .

Wednesday :

Another grey morning almost on the edge of precipitation one might think but is it ??? 

It is T- day, the day when John repairs Carole’s leaky concrete water tank. This means it needs to be as empty as possible so that John can climb into the octopus’ garden he calls it where  all sorts of plants are growing .Hence the gumboots. Using a waterproof adhesive John will patch the weepy seeping site. I decide to go over with him and have another harvest of black berries from the hedge along the road just down the hill and around the corner from the tank.

Driving along we notice the paddock world is starting to brown off,  intense summer heat and lack of rain in the last month is now showing up. On the verge along Yowrie road is  brown shrivelled up trees and shrubs,  poisoned.   I still cannot fathom the reasoning of this action. Do we not all breathe the same Air ? Do we not all eat of the same Earth and do we not all drink of the Earth’s Water.?

I have settled that there are things I will probably never ever get like silicon in breasts, adding no’s into food and packing depleted plutonium in casings and then lobbing them at towns and villages and people.

They don’t get in here, Carole says hands tightly clenched, no way. I won’t allow it Sandy, I’ll lie down on the road if I have to. She means it too. And touch wood so far they give her a wide berth. Bless her, what a Earth Warrior Woman! Drawing a line standing up holding the space so that one day I can turn up and eat wild sun warmed bliss balls of juice.

I am very grateful. the berry bunches  are full and black and red and purple hiding among the prickly leaves and the thorny stems that spot the arm coming and latch on. Ouch. it is definitely not for the fainthearted.

The tank is not empty. This does not bode well. John shakes his head.  So he comes down the hill with me and picks  for a while before going back to discover that it is draining out a drop or three at a time.

John has words with Carole; I am too far away and cannot hear them. I get caught up in the dance of the eagles. Two wedge tail eagles fly low over the paddocks and into the lower foothills of wandella mountainn. They soar languid circles dip a wing turn catch an updraft disappear for a minute or two and then glide in a broad sweeping arc so close I could almost reach out and touch its feathers.

They have a nest up here on the Dumpling behind me, a small knobby little hill identified  by its large bald faced rock on its  western edge and the two nests on the eastern side. they can see  out over Wandella Valley thru to Cobargo and the coast and up to Narooma. In a fork in a huge tree they add sticks and bark year after year making it longer and deeper. 

This is their home territory, their place. They are indigenous to this spot on the landscape. Thru all the cycles of breeding brooding and birthing to old age and death, thru parenting hunting riding  currents I cannot see and  dodging the farmers bullets they are a sight to behold, a sight to sink into.

Last week I had picking companions along this hedge Kingston Jess and Carole. Watch out he’ll eat them all, says Carole. No he wont, replies Jess. Kingston grins thru a purple stained mouth. We make jam when we get home adding some of Caroles sweet pears and , sugar lots of it.

Jams are probably going out of fashion now, the new nasty perhaps. better hook in while we can.

The sun is burning inside my clothes and thru my hat  and I am hot. Then clouds rush over and a breeze cools my neck. It is a tussle but on this day eventually, the sun will win and whatever drizzle was promised holds back, again.

 It’s going to rain ,says Carole. The yellow tailed black cockatoos have been in and the white ones, I’ve got ants in the kitchen, and a cricket came in, there is a slug on the wall … the list rattles on. But are the springs filling?  I ask. Yep they are full Carole tells me. Rains coming Sandy.the signs have been there for about three weeks, she laughs, that’s why I haven’t been worried.

We go home. John decides to go back later when the tank is emptyish . Nothing is ever a simple exercise with Carole or at her farm but that is just how it is.

Tuesday : time for Jess and Kingston to return home. Greg drove down from Canberra to pick them up in their borrowed truck aka a ford explorer. playgroup starts up this week; the second year of uni begins.

The holy days are over.

Our friend Mac had ridden down from Araluen for a visit on his on road /off road BMW  and he was ready to go home too. The fish weren’t biting and rain is forecast, he said.

I’m going to ride with him as far as Moruya, John tells me after breakfast. I am playing Thomas ball games with the little king helping vaguely in the pack up. I look at Jess, that’s ok mum we are readyish. I want to come too, I reply.

It made sense to meet up in Narooma at Montague for a coffee. Kingston wraps himself tightly around me his fingers twirling in my hair his eyes glassy. Gandma he says, I love you. I love you too, I say.

The sky is grey puffballs of white, layer upon layer of thick woolly woven clouds. it is sombre, it is holding on the verge of drizzle… suspended teasing. A cool wind accompanies us .

 We pass a car and a boat for sale sitting on the layby at the top of the hill as we enter Narooma. The aquamarine blue waters of Wagonga Lake shine thru the spotty gums. Goolaga squats pregnant green silent in the background. John stops as does Mac and we  read the details printed on the car window.

Jess turns her gaze towards it as they enter town.

Low mileage fat tyres leather seats immaculate condition tinted windows  discussed over coffee and slabs of orange almond cake, carrot cake apple muffin and a bubba nino.

A beautiful day to ride echoes Mac John and me. Is there a day that isn’t?

Sahi and friends are sitting at the front of the café. She comes over and runs her eye over the legend of Kingston John. He ducks his head into his Mum when Sahi tells him that she hears lots of stories about him at our Saturday morning writers group.

It is obvious that we all go back and peer thru the windows of the Mazda 3. It is obvious that we ring and inquire further and still more obvious that the man should turn up five minutes later with keys and the service record. Info is sought and given, seats are sat in and a drive around the block is had.

Kingston and I explore down the hill a little way. We discover a rusting hulk with a cacti and a tree growing out of it. It is on its roof in much the same position Jess found herself in a few weeks ago when she slid across a wet road one evening then back into a bank followed by a roll or two, that part she doesn’t remember. The windows shattered except the front one ,the engine was still running and she dangled upside down having a close encounter with her mortality.

     On closer inspection the wreck becomes  a very old truck judging by the door handle we discover.

Even metal returns to the earth.

A copper pulls up in his blue highway car and puts out the orange cones. Kingston watches the process of waving and  testing. At one point Mac and Elio the seller seek rego information from the copper.

Negotiations take place and  Greg shakes Elios hand. The deal is done.

Everyone is surprised.

 what happens now? it is lunchtime so we decide to meet up again in Moruya for a bite to eat.

We are  following the steps of a dance, a dance that choregraphed six seven eight  people to a hill in a beachside town on a cool morning to buy a car.

John opts for  the scenic route via Kianga and Dalmeny. Mac follows. Baranguba Island ( Montague to some) is a mystical outline on a pale blue washed  sea. The chunky rocky outcrops along the coast catch the white white spray that wave up and crash down.

Jess was lucky very lucky. She  managed to contort her body out of the seatbelt and climb out thru a window. Three men were running down the road one on the phone and one stepped up with first aid training. The police the ambulance the firies arrived. Her aunty came gathered her up and took her home. Her body battered  bruised and whole.

Like a stone thrown into the dam the after effects rippled out thru family and friends, a moment to pause and attend, to become present to be grateful to remember something perhaps.

Toasted sandwiches arrived the cool wind sweeping around us at our outdoor table where we run into  activist law student mother Lisa on her lunch break. She will be admitted to the bar this winter. And then offer herself up pro bono to the greenie’ s saving the planet one tree one marine park one koala at a time.

We check out her new ultra cool soft blacktopped BMW car. She says, I turned 50 last year,Dad died in August Mum in October and my partner told me he loved someone else. So fuck them all I bought myself a beamer.

There was no more to eat. The debrief wound down.

Another round of hugs and kisses and we all departed for our homes.