The many gardens of my life

Living in Sydney has also drastically changed how I buy and manage food. At home, I was lucky enough to have a Dad who loved turning through the Aldi catalogue, searching for bargains that might appear. But now, shopping and cooking just for myself, I started almost buying food every two days - to take advantage of freshness and crisp flavours in my fruit and vegetables. There is a sweet little grocery minutes from my flat in Annandale, and here I purchase most of my food. It reminds me of the little corner store that I used to visit when I was a young child in Burrawang. You would walk into the store, and be overpowered by the odour of garlic that was creatively shaped into a hanging arrangement at the entrance. There would be fresh sunflowers to your left, dahlias to your right. Straight ahead was the cashier, with a slight grimace on his face. He later became our local postman when the store closed down because there were just not enough customers. From these experiences, I came to really appreciate knowing the name of the person whom I was purchasing my products. I knew the name of the owner of my new grocery, Paul. Good old Paul, with his strong Italian arms, silver stubble and hearty laugh. He wasn’t just selling me bargains, he was sharing with me his story.

I worked on an organic fruit and vegetable farm for about four months from November to Feburary over last summer. From Monday to Thursday, I would wake up at 5.45am to be at work at 6.30am. The beauties of living outside of Sydney traffic. I might  have taken the bends a bit too fast whilst singing along to my 'get me awake, I am half asleep' song, Hold on by Winston Philips, but it made the morning drive all the more exhilarating. The drive from Burrawang to Wildes Meadow is magical in the mornings, something a blog post cannot begin to describe.

My favourite lyrics (the chorus) from the song are as follows,

Someday somebody's gonna make you wanna turn around and say goodbye!

Til then baby, are you gonna let them hold you down and make you cry,

Don’t you know, things will change, things will go your way,

If you hold on baby,

Hold on for one more day.

Besides, the only things alive on the Illawarra highway at that time of morning was myself and a wombat or two. One morning, I happened to pass a meditating wombat, slowing making its way across the road. I politely stopped to let the cute little guy pass. He gave me a look, as to say, 'I'm gonna make you wait all day'. Cheeky. Anyway, he didn't and so I continued on my trip to work. The irony of that little meeting lies in the fact that wombats are in fact incredibly fast, capable of reaching a speed of up to 40 km/h when they need to. When I reached work, I would slather on sunscreen even though it was still dark, and pull on my gumboots. No matter how pleasant the weather was, it would always be wet underfoot. It was here that I got the nickname 'Weed Queen'. I love weeding: I find it very therapeutic.

One of my fondest memories of the farm was the day that I received my HSC result. It was a Thursday, so as usual, I was there at 6.30am. I had woken up at 5am that morning to see if the Board of Studies had been kind to me, and uploaded the ATARs early. They hadn't. I had to wait until nine am. Out on the farm, they had no reception and besides, at that point in my life, I did not yet own a phone, so as I weeded between corn heads, all I could think about was a four numbers and a dot. Lucky for me, I had an understanding boss, who allowed me to put together the times of my morning tea and lunch break so that I had an hour to drive into Bowral from Wildes Meadow to get my ATAR. Ceremoniously, I went to my principal's office to get my result. My hands had never been so shaky as I typed away at his computer keys. But in the end, I was happy! I still have the photo of myself with my principal, and from the mud on my cheek, you would know where I had been. I made it back within the hour, and continued weeding for the rest of the afternoon.

Some of my most treasured moments were had just looking at the long stretches of kale, kohlrabi, cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli plantations. They were so beautiful in the famous Robertson mist. There were many set rules on the farm.

One of the most interesting things about the farm was the wide variety of occupations that were represented amongst the workers. There was me, a student who had recently completed high school, an ex-engineer, an ex-computer consultant, an ex-youth minister, ex-Quantas baggage attendant and ex-mechanic. There was only one actual horticulturist on the farm, (even the owner was an ex-accountant and the manager an ex-nurse!) It made me think of all the people who study one degree, and think that they are going to live a life centred around that choice. The truth is, that is often an unlikely course of events in this day and age.

The farm was also a great place to just think. I do a lot of that.