I only have one sibling, but my parents also have a farm. The farm is like another sibling and just as expensive.
A farm is a world of its own. My mother grew up on a farm and used to talk about ‘the privilege of owning land’ and now i know what she means. I can also see how the privilege is so great that it cancels out the right. How it is impossible in indigenous terms to own land. You must only ever be custodians, because there is nothing submissive or logical about the land. In a way it’s kind of stubborn, like the weather.
Another cliche i can’t avoid when i think about the farm is appreciating the clean country air. I am affected by scent like a person is affected by a punch in the face. At our farm, the air is sweet and silky like it’s closer to heaven. When you arrive at the farm, you take big gulps of extraordinary air and feel lucky to be there. The horrible thing about feeling lucky is that you have more to lose. Anything that you are lucky to have can also be taken away. And so i gulp down the air like an orphan with a bowl of soup and feel very lucky at the same time as feeling very scared.
The farm is a walnut farm which is also pretty unlikely because who has a walnut farm? I would recommend it to anyone, except make sure you have complete control of the weather if you get a walnut farm. For sure, farmers have very weird lives because they are at the mercy of the elements, like stockbrokers. Our 3000 trees have survived years of drought. They have survived frost and a sprinkling of snow. But lately they have survived years of wet feet.
You know when you spill a bit of water on the floor in the kitchen and you’re just wearing socks (and maybe some jeans and a top) and you go away to do something else like file a bill that says electricity costs $316 for the last three months, and you think to yourself, be sure not to stand in that puddle when you come back. But when you were filing the bill, you were distracted by an old card you received from someone in Portugal and you worry that you’ll never go to Portugal and so you’ve forgotten about the puddle which never dries up and you step right in it and you have a wet sock? It is very unpleasant and you have to change into a fresh pair of socks straight away. Over the last couple of years, it has rained too much for our liking at the farm and so our poor trees have had wet, soggy feet for awhile. I would like to pluck them out of the ground and carefully dry off their roots and give them a little pedicure by the fire before putting them back in the ground with clean sheets.
But like most things dealing with chronic discomfort, the walnut trees have been very dignified. They have still been fruiting year after year. It’s amazing how trees are so busy even though they’re standing still. I don’t like to anthropomorphise, but there’s something called a female thing and there’s something called a male thing and they have to cross-polinate on the one tree and then grow a walnut. They grow these chunky avocado-green husks which are about a centimentre thick and rather like a safety helmet for the walnut inside. Depending on their age, the husk may open smooth as a roller door, or else, when the nut’s younger, shut up shop like there’s no one home. The broken husk gives out an earthy, acidic smell and stains your hands, but i quite like that. It’s like being rubber-stamped by the Earth.
We have 13 different species of walnuts including the black walnut which is best known for its timber. Another incredible thing about the farm is that our nuts taste out-of-this-world. The farm is certified organic but i had never tasted walnuts i liked until i tasted our walnuts. They taste a bit like maple syrup. They do of course look like the brain, which is another cool thing about the walnut.
The farm is divided in two, split by an active railway line which runs from Melbourne to Ballarat. When i first heard my parents were buying a piece of land which had a railway line running through it, i thought, ‘oh dear, how suburban.’ I thought, ‘that’s a bit crass and embarrassing, couldn’t they do any better?’ You can’t really blame me for this attitude because i was in year 10 at a small private school and i didn’t really know any better. Now i like the train. You hear it toot, you’re reassured that the world is still going on and you wonder where all the other carriages are.
I wasn’t really interested in the farm for many years. When my parents first bought the farm there was nothing on it except loads of rubbish. It took my parents and some friends and some workers literally two years to clear the land of all the rubbish. At this time in my life i was a bit relieved that the farm was there to give my parents something to do. An occupation to keep them busy and happy. Mind you, there was a lot of talk about the farm, which sometimes became annoying. I guess this was when the new baby was born. The new baby got lots of presents.
It is deeply moving and a bit overwhelming to see your parents transform a rubbish tip into what is like a small national park which runs a business of making organic walnut oil and walnuts. Once the big house was built, i might go up and sit in the kitchen while a lot of activity happened around me. There was a lot of banging when people came in from working outside, planting trees or mowing or moving rocks or building fences or putting in irrigation or building sheds or fixing equipment. There were loud voices and happy eyes and runny, red noses and more plans and counter plans and big fires and frothy beers held aloft and there were congratulations all round. There was more noise as hollow doors were closed against the cold and people settled into big chairs to peep around them and ask if help was needed in the kitchen or hold up a glass as someone might be passing by with a bottle of wine. There was another thunder clap of activity in the kitchen as oven trays and salad bowls and cake tins were landed onto bench tops and a cry goes out, ‘Who’s stolen my glass?’
Although it took awhile, the farm won me over. With its gently folding hill line and soft green waves, it is a living, breathing labour of love. There’s not just walnut trees, although they are the most spectacular, proudly standing in their rows ready to take a dance. There’s also the avenue of junipers, from which to make gin. There’s wattles and eucalypts and pine trees and young versions of the biggest trees on earth. An apple orchard and cherry trees. There’s Wellie’s tree and two dams and wild ducks and ibises and frogs and hares. There is so much life there that my parents enabled and i hope it will go on thriving long after we have all gone.
