The Accidental Environmentalist

Dads, in my experience, seem to fall into one of two categories - the ones who rush out to buy the latest gadget as soon as it is available at the Apple store, bugger the expense; and the ones who will happily wait several years for their preferred brand of socks (Explorer) to go on sale (at $2 off).

My father falls squarely into the latter category.

As a teenager, my Dad's frugality was a sore point for myself and my brothers. We rolled our eyes at his home-made "security" system - silver-backed tape on the windows to fool the burgulars into thinking we actually had a security system - and derided him endlessly for taking his own snacks to the cinema (not even packaged snacks - apples and gladwrapped sultanas and almonds!). We begged him to buy some new clothes to replace his worn and mended overalls and paper-thin t-shirts. We refused to tell him how much a new pair of sneakers cost to avoid the outraged rant that would inevitably follow (as far as he was concerned, anyone who paid more than $10 for a pair of shoes was being ripped off).

It wasn't that he didn't have the money to spend. It wasn't that he was greedy and loved money; he wasn't miserly in that sense. It was just that he couldn't see the need for new things where old or existing things would suffice.

Naturally, we all reacted to this tight-arsedness in various ways. I became an avid bargain-hunter, who often lashed out on pretty, useless objects just for the joy of owning them. My middle bro became a model of generosity, a soft target for chuggers and friends who endlessly "forget" their wallets. And my youngest bro married a lovely girl who comes from a family where money is made to be enjoyed, who believe in buying the best quality that you can afford, and naturally he has swung over to that way of thinking.

My Dad never changed his position.

Over time, I've come to recognise the value in my Dad's frugality. I have even taken some lessons from him - I have no qualms about picking up items from a skip or hard rubbish collection, for instance. I will often make-do with whatever I have to hand, rather than replacing it with new. Buying anything over, say $100, causes me a little twinge of panic. Of course, I still buy stuff - but while my Dad taught me to wait for something to go on sale rather than pay full price (unless I really love it or it's shoes*), my WWOOFing experience taught me to question the impact of every purchase beyond the price tag.

Lately, I've come to see that my Dad has managed, unknowingly, to be what I like to call an Accidental Environmentalist. He's not motivated by some higher environmental or spiritual goal, he just doesn't like to spend money unnecessarily - and as a side-effect, without even trying, he's been saving the planet for fifty-nine years. His values are from a different era - the Great Depression, or post-War austerity, when everyone had to make-do and mend. A time before climate change and cheap long-haul flights; before shopping became our number 1 leisure activity; before the internet, even. Imagine that, kiddies.

At some point in the future, we are probably going to be forced to revert to a simpler, more localised way of living, because our current lifestyle is simply unsustainable. If this change occurs in his lifetime, my Dad will be in his element. People will be flocking to him for his words of wisdom; he will be a guru of frugal living.

"The best thing about them is they're already worn in!" (about dead man's pyjamas from the op-shop).
"I found this old hook at a construction site on the way home, it might come in handy" (twenty years later). 
"You can eat the whole apple, you know. Are you going to eat that core?"

My Dad, the unwilling eco-warrior. We should all be more like him.

*Shoes. My weakness. I have large size 10-11 feet; there are hardly any shoes in my size and never on sale, so I will happily fork over full price for a decent pair that fit me. Or a gorgeous pair that don't quite fit me. Sorry, Dad. And planet. I'll try harder.

Tales of Country Vic, Part 4: The Full On Hippy Experience

Whoa. Whoa. I just need a few minutes/days/weeks to process my last WWOOF experience.

I spent the last week or so with a bloke called Hamish who lives in Fryers Forest, Fryerstown (15 minutes from the thriving alternative township of Castlemaine), where he manages the forest and teaches Permaculture. He laughed off the suggestion that it was a "hippy commune" - but if that's not a hippy commune mate, I don't know what is. I guess the fact that most of the residents have jobs and cars makes them somewhat different from a 70's-style "drop out, tune in, turn on" hippy - but for a suburban gal like me it was still something of a mind-f*ck to live in a community that has been carefully designed and built by its residents in preparation for future environmental collapse; where all the houses are connected either physically (with windows and doors between individual homes) or by a radio intercom system; where 95% of food is grown, foraged or hunted; where nothing new is purchased if at all possible; where cupboards are scarily bare except for a few recycled jars of organic, locally sourced spices.

Pathetically, I think the empty pantry was the most unsettling part for my food-obsessed self. I can deal with composting toilets, piss-weak solar-powered-showers, and sleeping open to the elements, but an empty pantry?! Panic stations!

One of the most confronting moments for me was when I was on my own in the house one evening, and realised I would have to prepare my own dinner from what was available in the garden and the very sparse cupboard. After the initial hyperventilating fit, I built up the fire, par-boiled some diced potatoes and fried them up with some Cavolo Nero and silverbeet leaves, and sprinkled over some grated cheese and an array of fresh herbs. And you know what? It was fine. In fact, it was better than fine, it was good.

A little lesson for me there in "what you think you need vs. what you actually need".

It was interesting to monitor my emotional response over the course of my week "outside the system"; from initially a little shell-shocked, to intrigued and wanting to absorb as much information as possible, to feeling hopeful for a greener, powered-down, local-community-based future, to eventually feeling a bit overwhelmed and tired of feeling bad about my current lifestyle and life choices. I guess it takes a particular strength of character to reject the casually abundant (and ridiculously wasteful) lifestyle on offer to the average affluent-Western-middle-class-white-dude.

It was eye-opening to say the least, and I have a huge amount of respect for people like Hamish who have the self-discipline and vision to live like that. Then again, it's a pretty exclusive movement whose more hardcore members have a certain piousness that's a little hard to stomach. I came away thinking I want to make positive changes in my life in order to live in a more sustainable way, but removing myself from the system altogether? Not for me, not right now.

So what changes can I realistically make? Well, I can read up on possible future scenarios. I can buy less and make sure what I do buy is made to last. I can check where my food comes from and source local produce. I can be active in my local community. I can grow stuff (I can grow stuff!). Gardening is magic, I am fast learning.

But first, I need a garden. My banana passionfruit seedlings need to have somewhere to grow and spread and bear fruit. Project next: home (of some description), with some land (of some description), with a local community (of some description).

Oh, and paid work (of some description).

Tales of Country Vic, Part 3: That's more like it!

After the back breaking job of digging up a septic tank with my third hosts (after which the wife took pity on me and gave me some very easy watering and seed planting to do), I was fortunate enough to have two fantastic experiences with my next couple of stays.

First up was Rain, Hayne and Shine in Bittern, just a few stops out from the end of the Frankston line (on the diesel train). Sue, Ian and their staff look after all sorts of donated and reared animals and do "mobile farm" visits, as well as the farm itself being open to visitors 364 days of the year. Their home was a warm and happy place where the WWOOFers are treated as an extended, international family - which included two Swedish sisters and two Korean boys practising their English while I was there.

And the animals... oh, the animals! Travelling as I am at the tail-end of an incredibly bountiful and wet Spring, the country is bursting with life and growth, and the farm was no exception. It was brimming with gorgeous creatures who were used to being handled by lots of grubby little hands, so it was absolute heaven for me - bottle feeding calves and lambs, playing with the hilarious and nibbly kids (the cheekiest of whom I seriously thought about sneaking home in my Samsonite), catching silky chooks, holding tiny fluffy bunnies, feeding a baby magpie whose mother had abandoned it (probably because she couldn't take any more of it's unceasing demands for a constant supply of worms and crushed snails), and walking the dingoes. Yes, dingoes. As in, the ones that ate Meryl Streep's bay-bey.

After a quick break back at home, I was off again - this time to French Island, a short ferry ride from Stony Point (or Cowes on Philip Island). After a little hiccup with the ferry - Melbourne transport have helpfully arranged to have the ferry leave just a few minutes prior to the train arriving, so that you can watch it sail away from the comfort of the jetty - I arrived and was welcomed by my hosts, two amazing, pioneering and inspirational women in their late fifties who run a farm where they keep llamas and alpacas and grow olives.

French Island is such an interesting place. First of all, the population is around 90 (90!!), with 70% of the island being National Parkland. Secondly, even though it is a couple of hours from Melbourne city, it feels like a very remote outpost - there is no power and no water; in fact no council and no police. I guess that might make some people nervous, but I enjoyed the slightly lawless feel of the place and the self-sufficient, adventurous and community-minded spirit of the people who live there.

The farmhouse I stayed at runs on solar and wind power, with diesel generators for back-up in Autumn, and they have a composting toilet which, for the record, was cleaner and less smelly than a conventional flush toilet. Every day there are fresh eggs from the hens, fresh unpasturised milk from the jersey cow down the road, and fresh food direct from the garden. They wake early, work hard but at a managable pace, eat well, care for their animals beautifully, are active in their community, and live their lives mindfully.

Jane and Alison showed me that a "life well lived" can be crafted and nurtured and made, with nothing more than good intentions, careful thought and a bit of work.

Definitely worth putting up with the mosquitoes/charging bulls for.

Tales of Country Vic, Part 2: The Dark Side

So, as described below, my first two WWOOFing adventures went like a dream; lovely people who welcomed me into their homes, gave me some nice-to-pleasantly-grubby jobs, with lots of time off.

My third WWOOF experience was with a Swiss/Australian family with four kids under 8. All adorable as heck, from affectionate, smiley baby Tya all the way up to the pretty, imperious Yaysia. They lived on a big, sloping property in a magical, leafy, mountainy, rivery spot, with no TV and a hand-made pizza oven. It was a deliberately child-centric household - and as a direct result (I believe) of being listened to and considered equally important as their parents, the children were well-behaved, clever, and utterly secure in themselves. It was idyllic.

My first day, and the father of this little Swiss-Oz clan gives me my first project: find the septic tank. OK, I say, I like digging. It's in this vicinity, he says, pointing to where the plumber has spray-painted a patch of violets bright pink. Alright, I say, undaunted. About half a metre down. No problem.

First, I relocate the violets. Easy-peasy. Dig them up in neat square patches, gentle with the roots, carry them down to a new designated spot halfway down the slope. Under the soft soil of the violet patch, I hit clay. Hard-packed, typical Victorian-style clay, the kind I used to eat as a baby while my parents sweated over their own back garden. No worries, I think, and put my back into it. Then I hit the rocks.

Lord, the rocks. Have you ever tried digging up a patch of clay that is filled with rocks? With a shovel? It's virtually impossible. I struggle on fruitlessly for several hours.

I need a pick, I tell the owner, when he returns briefly from his job of pruning branches that are overhanging the spa. Nup, he replies. I can't have you going through the tank. You'll just have to find the edges of the rocks and dig them out. OK. I'm not defeated yet, I am working up a good sweat but I still have some energy. So I try to find the edges of the rocks that I keep hitting every time I try to jam the shovel into the ground, but it's pretty hard because this ground is basically 80% rock; if there are edges down there, they are obscured by more rocks.

So I keep relocating more violets, making the hole wider and wider, and slowly, incredibly slowly, I manage to dig out some rocks, smaller fist-sized ones at first, then I keep widening the hole until I find the edges of some of the bigger rocks. By this time I am trembling from the constant jarring of the spade handle that vibrates up my shoulder, and I have to stop regularly to catch my breath. Sweat is pouring off me. Determined (pig-headededly so), I keep going, angry with the rocks now as I am with the owner for palming off this sh*t job. There is a lot of internal swearing as Fyn has decided he is king of the growing mound of dirt and rocks piled next to me, and babbles away happily unaware of my struggles.

I manage to unearth half of one rock that is the size of a basketball - and the rest of it is still lodged in the clay. I slam the shovel into the clay around it again and again, trying to find a bit that gives. There is none. I go wider. The rock reveals itself to be the size of two basketballs. I collapse on the swing set, heart pounding, face red. The owner comes up and asks me if I could use a break. I look at him, unable to speak, and nod.

"Why don't you and Sofia (the Finnish au pair who is also staying with them) go and collect the logs I cut last weekend down the back of the property, and bring them up to the wood shed."

Sofia and I spend the rest of the afternoon lugging barrowfuls of logs uphill. We take it in turns to heave the barrow, but the other person still needs to pull it from the front as it is so heavy it is splitting under the weight.

I know how it feels.

* * * * *

There is one saving grace at the end of this sorry tale: this man; this man whose vague, hippy, work-shy ways are seriously starting to grate on me, this man who nearly breaks my back by working me so hard on my first day, spends his weekdays working at the Cadbury factory.

After carting twelve loads of wood, I stagger into the lounge room, where his wife looks a little stunned at my appearance and tells me I look shattered. I am too tired to reply, so I just smile weakly and collapse into the nearest chair with a groan, legs trembling and back aching.

Without a word, she hurries into the kitchen to collect the box of chocolate that they keep for WWOOFers, brimming with Time Outs and Crunchies, and places it next to my chair.

Tales of country Vic

Well. What an amazing few weeks it's been so far. I've only been on two WWOOF assignments, but I am absolutely loving everything about it - the change of pace, the change of scenery, the new experiences and people, the scratches on my arms and the dirt under my fingernails.

I've planted Bok Choy seedlings, heaved a barrow, laid down a big area of wet newspapers and mulch ready for planting, washed dogs, baked bread and cleared weeds up to my waist. I've taken a V-Line train. I've squashed wolf spiders and eyeballed a croc (leering from behind a thick pane of glass, mind you).

I've met some great characters - young Sam, the inspiration for my first written piece for the creative writing class I'm doing. Elvis the growling rooster. Nettie, the woman with a thousand lives and a heart of gold; and her two grown boys who brought me flowers from the roadside (sweethearts, both of them). Marshmallow the newborn calf with the cutest pink nose you've ever seen. Brucey the overenthusiastic border collie. And Screech the cockatoo who thought he was a cat, sidling up to you and resting his head on your leg until you stroked the downy feathers under his crest.

The warmth and generosity of the people I've stayed with has been a pleasant surprise, but the beauty of the Victorian countryside has left me open-mouthed. Where have I been all these years? After heavy rainfalls all over the state last night, on the train journey home I looked out of the window and actually caught my breath at the sight of the trees rising out of the vast pools of still, muddy water.

I have seen some beautiful sights on my travels, but this was something else entirely, something that pulled at my heart and said you belong here. It only took 7.5 years away for me to realise it.