Twelve weeks into marriage with Sandra at the tender young age of 25, her mother unexpectedly passed away. Memories from the past become hazy with time, but not that day. My mother, who was always a bit fickle, retired from work around the same time and moved to far northern Queensland. No doubts the beaches are nicer up there on that tropical coast. She was younger than I am now. What limited familial support we had, evaporated without a trace.
The 1990’s were a hard time to be young, what with unemployment at 10%. Around the time we were married, I’d finally managed to be done with the corporate debt collection stuff, and earn the professional title I’d been working towards at night time University classes. Being young and inexperienced, plus due to the horrid economy, there was a lot of pressure which made for a serious power imbalance. The boss ripped into me for taking time off during month end because I’d been up all night at the hospital with Sandra and her mum in their final moments together. It was the first and only time I ever broke down and cried at work. Despair is deep pit.
The guy was a monster, and despair can flip to anger. Life is too short, so I quit. With no support to fall back on other than our own resources, we hustled. That’s what the kids call it nowadays. If fixing up old houses, working full time, both studying part time wasn’t enough, we were booked in to do a census collector round each. We needed the mad cash. Something had to give due to the sudden unexpected circumstances. We quit one of the census rounds, and did the remaining one together.
Grief is a funny thing, not in a good way, and everyone experiences it differently. The round included a public housing tower for the elderly. It was maybe twenty stories, and in our shocked state of mind, we went from door to door meeting people who were doing it as tough as we were. A few were cheeky. Some were cheery. Others ill and infirm with the skinny guy wearing the going out hoodie and a wicked sharp scythe hovering in the background. One guy we didn’t collect the form from because he’d died, you could smell the decomposition. Many folks just wanted to talk, and so we listened and heard stories about life on the margins.
I still had to get another job, and quickly. Never an ideal scenario. The banksters mortgage demanded it’s share. At the next job, I explained away the previous disaster by just being honest about the situation. They were nicer people, and sometimes even made a profit, but not always. It was a financially precarious time and I’d race down to the bank so as to be the first to cash my pay-cheque, as you could do in those days. My trust went as deep as their alarmingly low bank balance. Still, all cashed on time, just.
My boss was a real old school super chill character who’d earned his title via the apprenticeship path way back in the day. He’d even gained his CPA qualification due to the previous work experience and paying $50, which I reckon was a top notch investment. Once completing the part time degree, my experience was different for I had to do another five part time subjects and show three years of relevant work to earn the same CPA title. He was a relaxed guy, never stressed out, which probably didn’t describe me at the time! He lived in a pretty nice house in a swish area too, whereas my housing experience was that I was just happy if I didn’t fall through the rotten floors (soon to be repaired and replaced).
So we worked, hustled, studied and repaired old houses for financial gain. By 2008, we were dog tired and getting too old to have kids. The instability, constant grind and lack of support just killed that option. It was too risky if anything went wrong. Some cheeky scamps, possibly from large and supportive families, have said some not very nice things to us about this over the years. Empathy is in short supply these days, but mind you, it is hard not to also notice that the birthrate in this country is declining as it is everywhere in the western world.
I feel for the younger folks, and also the elderly living on the margins. It’s hard to get by nowadays, what with the extraordinary cost of keeping a roof over one’s head. The median house price across the nation is a cool AU$1.1 million (or US$770k). The median rental is around AU$724/week which annualises to AU$37,648/year (or US$26,353/year). That’s a lot, and probably unaffordable on unemployment benefits or the aged pension.
Rentals are usually for twelve months too in Australia, then you’re possibly chucked back out into the market with its historically low vacancy rates. Turns out, our politicians are pursuing policies which apply artificial pressure on demand for housing via unchecked immigration, then that is combined with a restrictive supply for dwellings. I can attest to that, because we built this house from scratch ourselves using our own labour, and I did all the paperwork – that system is nuts.
Young folks are over worked, in debt and facing constant uncertainty. It’s a very unsexy combination to which our leaders seem oblivious. And into that gap steps the three decade old party from the political margins: One Nation. Over in the far west of this continent on Saturday, they won a by-election for an outer suburban area, and that outcome was unprecedented. The swing went against the sitting state government, and the voters (being Australia, voting is compulsory) served up a resounding thump. Hard to ignore the message. It’s been suggested elsewhere that oppositions don’t win elections, government lose them. Hmm.
Anyway, the message will probably be ignored, after all the policies of this moment were set in motion three decades ago. It’s hard to change course, and possibly admit that mistakes were made. There have been winners and losers in the arrangements, and would they change places and spend time in different shoes? My gut feeling suggests that sooner or later, there’ll be little choice in the matter. I speak with millennials and Gen Z who are loaded down with debt and have to hustle. I’ve seen how the elderly on the margins live, and note that the towers are now being torn down. There’s a lot of anger, frustration, uncertainty, and not enough babies.
Midweek, was remarkably wet. A drain which collects water running down the driveway and then pipes it into the drainage basin with the nice tree fern, has oozed water continuously for almost a week. It’s very wet despite all this loose talk of an impending Super El Niño.
Prior to the rain arriving we were able to do a day of forest clean up work. You know the drill, we collect all of the strewn forest litter and burn it off. Rocks are removed from the ground, and then the area is a given a solid mow with the Japanese heavy duty mower. It’s a beast of a machine.
Part of that days work involved cutting up two downed trees into about six foot lengths. They’ll be turned into firewood chunks over the next month.
The trees had been on the ground for a few years, but the cores had not yet begun to rot. It’s super dense and heavy hardwood.
Being on the ground, the timber was filthy, and that is very hard on any chainsaw. In Australia, there is a general preference to use semi-chisel chains which have a cutting profile which is more resilient to staying sharp, but cuts at a slower speed. Any dirt will quickly blunt the cutting teeth on most chains.
It’s funny what items you discover lurking in the forest. And on the day a golf ball was found.
I felt like an archaeologist in the far distant future uncovering an ancient artefact. Everyone would accept that it was a religious device of unknown purposes dedicated to the ‘Rocket’ god worshipped way back in the day. Apparently men once travelled to and walked upon the moon’s surface long ago.
On Friday once the area dried up a bit, we were able to do another day of forest clean up with the usual bonfire. You know the rest…
Near to that area was a huge fallen tree. Massive, with the roots and soil sticking up high above the ground.
Underneath the stump an enterprising wombat had excavated a hole. Unfortunately the ground water table is rather high at the moment, and the hole had filled with water. I believe the wombat would have been clever enough to have decamped in a timely manner, and they usually maintain several different burrows.
Also in that area, the deer may have ring-barked a rare (for this area) native cherry ballart tree (Exocarpos cupressiformis). It’s completely unrelated to the usual cherry species, but does produce edible fruit. I’m very annoyed with the deer, and if they are not careful they may experience my extreme displeasure.
Observant folks will note the forest detritus behind me on the ground in the above photo. That’s pretty typical of what we are dealing with. It’s a massive fire hazard, especially the really fine fuels. That stuff burns hot. Here is a close up image of the deer scraping:
On Sunday, with a bit of free time on my hands, and Sandra elsewhere, I dropped to the ground a very dangerous tree limb which had become stuck higher up in the fork of a tree. Sooner or later it was going to fall, so better for it to be done in a controlled manner. There were a few exciting moments, and I ran away when the limb finally crashed to the ground. A blokes’ gotta know when to run!
The heavy limb had fallen out of the much larger tree looming slightly uphill. It was stuck a long way up in the tree fork.
The early fruit trees are beginning to produce blossoms. And interestingly, the European honey bees are out and about doing their thing, but I also noticed common house flies (and other insects) going from flower to flower. Hope it is a good season for fruit. I like this next photo, and made it available as a high-resolution image (which can be clicked on and downloaded for greater detail). The fruit tree is a Plumcott (plum / apricot hybrid). It’s never produced fruit, but may one day, maybe…
We do trees big around here!
The earliest apricot began producing blossoms a few days ago.
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 11am is 15’C (59’F). So far for this year there has been 886.0mm (34.9 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 866.2mm (34.1 inches)
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