Richard's Sweet Rewards
Richard's Sweet Rewards
Authors note: Good friends Richard and Pat have very eventful lives and are active members of the Otway Agroforestry Network, having planted and pruned many gums on their own property. I see Richard as a man of action always living on the edge and afraid of nothing. Pat is just as courageous but likes to work methodically in the background. Together they make a remarkable couple who contribute significantly to their local community. This is their story.
The blurb
Richard has been out inspecting his property and stops at his shed to pick up some lining boards for the strawbale house he's building. His Landcruiser starts to roll down a very steep slope towards his house but he's not in it. This begins the amazing story which became the ride of his life.
The dry leaves and twigs under the ancient Mountain Ash cracked with each foot fall as the tall broad shouldered man strode out from beneath the leafy canopy. It was a summer morning and already the heat of the sun threatened a blistering hot day to follow. Richard shaded his eyes as he surveyed the rolling hills that were starting to show a colour change from the fresh welcome green of spring to the dry dull strawy yellow of the summer. The northerly breeze tugged at his shaggy bushy beard, greying now but he wouldn’t know himself without it, he’d had it so long. His greying hair was still as thick as it was forty years ago when he was teenager living in Lorne with a hunger for life, surfing and plenty of good food.
How his life had changed since those carefree surfing days. Now every day was an endless procession of physically demanding work and unfinished projects. He just loved thinking creatively and putting his mind to solving problems. Finishing off, now that was a different matter and just bloody tedious. But he did eventually finish things, ‘Thanks to Pat’ he thought. It was her quiet determination, thoroughness and creativeness. He knew they made a pretty formidable team. He had the ideas and muscle, and she made sure the projects got finished. Between them they had achieved so much since they had lost all their savings in the crippling Pyramid collapse of 1990.
He still loved the coast and got out fishing on his boat as often as he could, but today he was going nowhere. ‘He’d need to check the diesel in the fire fighting pump’, he thought automatically as he began to go through his mental check list.
Penny Royal was god’s own country and he loved it in all its seasons, even the threatening fire season. After all the really bad days were few and he was fit and prepared for just about anything. Now the cattle enterprise had been shut down there was one less thing to worry about if the day turned nasty, but he had been around long enough to be pretty sure that this wasn’t one of those days, but he would have to keep an eye on things all the same. You just never know what a naive ‘towny’ might get up to on a hot day.
His searching gaze picked up the lines of his forestry plantations. The trees were healthy, young, upright and the fresh growing tips were the colour of a red sunrise. Planting trees was a job he had no trouble finishing. It gave him such a good feeling, working up the soil, planting the fragile seedlings full of promise and watching them grow. It was a bit like playing god, because you could change the look of a place for the better and get some profit for your efforts later from the timber. If he and Pat didn’t he knew that the next people to own the property would.
How his life had changed since those carefree surfing days. Now every day was an endless procession of physically demanding work and unfinished projects. He just loved thinking creatively and putting his mind to solving problems. Finishing off, now that was a different matter and just bloody tedious. But he did eventually finish things, ‘Thanks to Pat’ he thought. It was her quiet determination, thoroughness and creativeness. He knew they made a pretty formidable team. He had the ideas and muscle, and she made sure the projects got finished. Between them they had achieved so much since they had lost all their savings in the crippling Pyramid collapse of 1990.
He still loved the coast and got out fishing on his boat as often as he could, but today he was going nowhere. ‘He’d need to check the diesel in the fire fighting pump’, he thought automatically as he began to go through his mental check list.
Penny Royal was god’s own country and he loved it in all its seasons, even the threatening fire season. After all the really bad days were few and he was fit and prepared for just about anything. Now the cattle enterprise had been shut down there was one less thing to worry about if the day turned nasty, but he had been around long enough to be pretty sure that this wasn’t one of those days, but he would have to keep an eye on things all the same. You just never know what a naive ‘towny’ might get up to on a hot day.
His searching gaze picked up the lines of his forestry plantations. The trees were healthy, young, upright and the fresh growing tips were the colour of a red sunrise. Planting trees was a job he had no trouble finishing. It gave him such a good feeling, working up the soil, planting the fragile seedlings full of promise and watching them grow. It was a bit like playing god, because you could change the look of a place for the better and get some profit for your efforts later from the timber. If he and Pat didn’t he knew that the next people to own the property would.
Now the Toyota Landcruiser was on the move again up the gravel road, past Mikes and on toward their latest project, the straw-bale house. It had been a hard slog getting it built, but now that they were in, it was all worth it. What he found satisfying was that with the thick straw bale walls and the double glazed north facing windows, they rarely needed a fire even on cold winter days. Ironical really, seeing they had so much fire wood falling off the old Messmates, Manna Gums and Apple Box trees. Those bloody holiday cottages soaked up most of the wood that he cut every autumn and that was back breaking work that he could do without.
The gravel chuckled as he pulled up outside his big tin shed on the hill above the straw-bale house. He’d pick up some more Black Wattle boards to line the pantry walls and be back for one of Pats great lunches. This was particularly pleasing since these boards were locally milled from some of his own Black Wattle trees. With the diesel engine idling, he was loading the last of the boards onto the roof of the Landcruiser when he had the odd feeling that the ground was moving. It was that sort of double take you feel when something unexpected moves in your field of vision and your head can’t quite work it out.
His stomach lurched with the sickening realisation that the handbrake had slipped and the Landcruiser was rolling forward down the gravel track toward their straw bale house. He had never been much of a runner but he began sprinting in its wake yelling to Pat, to anyone, but he knew he was on his own. The hopelessness he felt sucked the sound from his larynx and now his dodgy knees were screaming but he wasn’t listening. With five years of sacrifice and hard work at stake he gave the last ten meters all he could, reached the running board and scrambled on. ‘Thank god the window was down’, he thought as he reached through and grabbed the steering wheel.
Anyone watching would have been transfixed by the sight of the four-wheel drive vehicle, shedding its load of timber, careering down a steep gravel path, with a tall man hanging onto the side for dear life. Like a rider on a bucking horse in a rodeo side show ducking the flailing lining boards as they slid off the roof to the ground behind him. The destiny of this madcap event seemed to be heading towards its unescapable conclusion and all Richard could think was ‘Pats going to be pretty angry if I put a big hole in the roof’. It must have been all the upper body strength that surfing had given him, because somehow the lurching vehicle miraculously followed the impossible curved path of the gravel driveway like a crazy stunt car on two wheels, missing the rendered straw-bale wall by a bee’s breath, while slicing the down pipe cleanly from its wall bracket.
Pat was cleaning the window, deep in thought about their next camping trip to the Kimberly’s, when her jaw dropped at the vision of the screaming machine whizzing past. Clunk went the down pipe and whoosh went the water from the pipe as back pressure from the water tank pushed water two meters into the air like a geyser from an artisan well.
The gravel chuckled as he pulled up outside his big tin shed on the hill above the straw-bale house. He’d pick up some more Black Wattle boards to line the pantry walls and be back for one of Pats great lunches. This was particularly pleasing since these boards were locally milled from some of his own Black Wattle trees. With the diesel engine idling, he was loading the last of the boards onto the roof of the Landcruiser when he had the odd feeling that the ground was moving. It was that sort of double take you feel when something unexpected moves in your field of vision and your head can’t quite work it out.
His stomach lurched with the sickening realisation that the handbrake had slipped and the Landcruiser was rolling forward down the gravel track toward their straw bale house. He had never been much of a runner but he began sprinting in its wake yelling to Pat, to anyone, but he knew he was on his own. The hopelessness he felt sucked the sound from his larynx and now his dodgy knees were screaming but he wasn’t listening. With five years of sacrifice and hard work at stake he gave the last ten meters all he could, reached the running board and scrambled on. ‘Thank god the window was down’, he thought as he reached through and grabbed the steering wheel.
Anyone watching would have been transfixed by the sight of the four-wheel drive vehicle, shedding its load of timber, careering down a steep gravel path, with a tall man hanging onto the side for dear life. Like a rider on a bucking horse in a rodeo side show ducking the flailing lining boards as they slid off the roof to the ground behind him. The destiny of this madcap event seemed to be heading towards its unescapable conclusion and all Richard could think was ‘Pats going to be pretty angry if I put a big hole in the roof’. It must have been all the upper body strength that surfing had given him, because somehow the lurching vehicle miraculously followed the impossible curved path of the gravel driveway like a crazy stunt car on two wheels, missing the rendered straw-bale wall by a bee’s breath, while slicing the down pipe cleanly from its wall bracket.
Pat was cleaning the window, deep in thought about their next camping trip to the Kimberly’s, when her jaw dropped at the vision of the screaming machine whizzing past. Clunk went the down pipe and whoosh went the water from the pipe as back pressure from the water tank pushed water two meters into the air like a geyser from an artisan well.
Richard was now set on clearing the wire fence at the bottom of their vegetable garden, and beyond that he could see the beautiful straight white trunks of the Shining Gums that he and Pat had so painstakingly pruned to add value to their timber. These were his only hope and now his greatest regret.
The careering vehicle, engine screaming, was now heading at breakneck speed toward the stand of trees and all Richard could think of was ‘my beautiful trees, what will the other members of the Otway Agroforestry Network and the students I’ve mentored think when they hear’. His fingers were now locked around the steering wheel and even though his head was saying ‘jump you fool’, the rest of him didn’t seem to know how to let go. A combination of shock, extreme stress and adrenaline seemed to be convincing him that he could save the day, yet the cool logic that is intended to preserve us in extreme dangers of this kind was determined to be heard.
It’s the trees or the deep gully beyond he thought but both of these destinations were seriously dangerous he knew. ‘It has to be the trees’ he thought, and so it was as he released his grip and fell to the soft grass at the edge of the Shining Gums. He had the presence of mind to roll clear, finally sitting, his whole body aching from the immense effort of arm wrestling with a bucking, lurching steel beast.
It happened in slow motion as the vehicle drove head on into the grove of trees hitting two saplings simultaneously. The trees were young and supple, so instead of snapping off at the base or standing firm on impact, they simply bent over like native grasses in a strong wind. Where it struck, the protective bark split revealing the wet, smooth, slippery surface of the sapwood beneath. The Landcruiser, with its wheels on either side, rode along the tree trunks as if they were tram tracks, sliding up to about six meters, peeling the bark from the trees as if they were giant bananas, knocking off a few upper branches and then sliding back to the ground, landing as softly as a feral cat as it came to rest.
Richard shook his head. He couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed. ‘Where’s my bloody camera when I need it’ he thought incredulously. No one is going to believe me when I tell them, but one thing he knew for certain was that he now knew of another good reason to form prune the lower branches off his eucalypts. The Shining Gums had become glistening gums with their loose bark hanging like two stiff trouser legs behind the smooth trunks. Seeing his vehicle sitting quietly at rest beneath those naked trees, he could indeed only think of his good luck and the sweet rewards of living in Penny Royal growing trees. Always practical he thought ‘I’ll ask Rowan to mill those two trees and I’ll make a coffee table from them so I never forget today and the ride of my life’.
The careering vehicle, engine screaming, was now heading at breakneck speed toward the stand of trees and all Richard could think of was ‘my beautiful trees, what will the other members of the Otway Agroforestry Network and the students I’ve mentored think when they hear’. His fingers were now locked around the steering wheel and even though his head was saying ‘jump you fool’, the rest of him didn’t seem to know how to let go. A combination of shock, extreme stress and adrenaline seemed to be convincing him that he could save the day, yet the cool logic that is intended to preserve us in extreme dangers of this kind was determined to be heard.
It’s the trees or the deep gully beyond he thought but both of these destinations were seriously dangerous he knew. ‘It has to be the trees’ he thought, and so it was as he released his grip and fell to the soft grass at the edge of the Shining Gums. He had the presence of mind to roll clear, finally sitting, his whole body aching from the immense effort of arm wrestling with a bucking, lurching steel beast.
It happened in slow motion as the vehicle drove head on into the grove of trees hitting two saplings simultaneously. The trees were young and supple, so instead of snapping off at the base or standing firm on impact, they simply bent over like native grasses in a strong wind. Where it struck, the protective bark split revealing the wet, smooth, slippery surface of the sapwood beneath. The Landcruiser, with its wheels on either side, rode along the tree trunks as if they were tram tracks, sliding up to about six meters, peeling the bark from the trees as if they were giant bananas, knocking off a few upper branches and then sliding back to the ground, landing as softly as a feral cat as it came to rest.
Richard shook his head. He couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed. ‘Where’s my bloody camera when I need it’ he thought incredulously. No one is going to believe me when I tell them, but one thing he knew for certain was that he now knew of another good reason to form prune the lower branches off his eucalypts. The Shining Gums had become glistening gums with their loose bark hanging like two stiff trouser legs behind the smooth trunks. Seeing his vehicle sitting quietly at rest beneath those naked trees, he could indeed only think of his good luck and the sweet rewards of living in Penny Royal growing trees. Always practical he thought ‘I’ll ask Rowan to mill those two trees and I’ll make a coffee table from them so I never forget today and the ride of my life’.