Country Living Versus Suburban (part two)

Besides my inability to produce a decent summer crop which I’m blaming on the lack of quality soil here in the suburbs, the noise levels are another downside to suburban living.

And I’m meaning the noise coming from our side of the fence.

Despite repeatedly reminding Master Four that we’re not in the country now, his great lung capacity makes it challenging to keep the volume down.

We’ve had very kind neighbours over the years who are good liars. They claim to only hear the children and not me yelling over top but, like I say, they’re good liars.

We swapped this:

Besides the privacy, I miss the sound of sheep baaing, looking out to rolling green pastures, working by myself down in the orchard and coming home to find fresh produce on the doorstep from kind country folk.

But I don’t miss the travel.

When you’ve got young kids and you live in the country it seems you spend half your day in the car. Getting caught short of flour when you’re midway through baking a batch of cookies is a nuisance and you’d think twice about making that trip to the “offie” when, god forbid, you run out of your favourite drop.

for this.

For any shortcomings, there are definitely bonuses to living more central;  harbour views with stunning sunsets, being closer to the beaches and boat ramp and being able to walk everywhere. This means fewer deadlines of having to be in the car at certain times. Master Six can take himself off to school and have his friends over to play.

One thing I didn’t count on though was the door knockers. The morning after we moved in a couple of girls showed up at the ranchslider seeking sponsorship. They watched in amusement as I dodged boxes making my way over to them.

“Actually, I wouldn’t have a clue where my purse is,” I explained looking around at the carnage and pleased to have a valid excuse. “We only just moved in last night and everything’s a mess.”

“Yes, I can see that,” said Miss all-of-Nine, looking down her nose at my pig sty of a house. “I thought you must’ve been burgled or something.”

You’ve gotta love children’s honesty.

Anyway, the kids love it here. Miss Four told me last night she doesn’t ever want to get married. She wants to stay living in this house with us forever.

Country Living Versus Suburban

I’ve been weighing up the pros and cons of country living versus suburban of late.

Last year I tried my hand at growing an organic vege garden. I took great satisfaction in growing plants from seed and subsequently giving away the produce we couldn’t keep up with. Such was my pride, almost every poor visitor who came through our gates got dragged down to my patch on a “garden safari”.

And then we moved to town and the warm glow of garden-growing merriment diminished along with my plants.

It turned out it was nothing to do with my prowess but everything to do with the rich, volcanic Maungatapere soil and the content predators who were far too well-fed to bother themselves with the likes of my vege patch. (Come to think of it, the fussy birds never did eat the bread we fed them).

Now no sooner have my seedlings sprouted than they disappear overnight. According to the internet, it could be birds diving down swiping away the original corn seed and the rest of the plant with it. As for the courgette, broccoli, cauliflower and pea plants, well that is a mystery. But if it is slugs, I can’t be a***ed going out after dark with a bucket of soapy water and catching 100 an hour as some keen gardeners do. I’d much rather sit inside and watch The X Factor.

So after months of agonising, trialing different techniques and running inside to look up Google I’ve resorted to growing everything indoors for now.

While these grow I have formed a plan. As most of my Google answers seemed to be coming from the Yahoo site, I signed up and according to the feedback from my many ignorant questions I need to: scoop away the top soil and replace it with quality soil in case the broken egg shells I’d placed around my plants are trapping snail and slug eggs which are subsequently hatching; cover plants in netting and make a scarecrow. Another suggestion was feeding the birds but I’m not feeling very generous towards them at the moment so that’s not an option.

I also had a rather rude response to “Look it up yourself geek.” (I may be a gardening geek but I “reported” them for rudeness and their days of Yahoo are gone.)

So what does this have to do with kids and chaos? Well nothing, although Master Six takes great delight in sending his siblings and any other small visitors through the gates of mum’s garden while he races off to turn on the sprinkler system. Garden safari anyone?

Tune in next week for more country living versus suburban.

Cow Pooling

So who went and bought a cow this week? Or were you like me and renewed your vow to become more vegetarian?

If you watched Sunday last week you’ll know what I’m talking about. Mind you it’s been all through the news ever since so you’d have to live in a bubble not to have heard of “cow pooling” by now. This is when consumers buy shares in a cow and have it home- killed to save on costs of buying meat over the counter. I suppose it makes sense if it’s done in the right way but it was the graphics that put me off. The unsuspecting victim used for the sake of the story was called “Miss Moo”. I watched in horror as she blinked at the camera and switched her tail oblivious to her fate as the gun barrel took aim. The next frame was of her insides strung up and being butchered while the reporter gleefully added up how many meals of t bone, rump and eye fillet would fill the freezer.

What’s that you say? I should take a cement pill and harden up?

Yes, it’s all part of life and death but I like to pretend that meat is man-made – it’s the only way I can eat it – and avoid graphics such as those on Sunday at all costs.

But, although I was looking away for most of it, I was too lazy to leave the room so heard all the gory details.

Spinach and Ricotta Canelloni

As a result, it’s now meat-free Mondays in our house and a scrumptious dish of spinach and ricotta cannelloni was served up the following night. It’s only one night a week so far until I discover new vegetarian meals (depending on how this goes down with other members of the family who like their traditional meat and veg).

All this talk of meat reminded me of the day in January we purchased three weaner calves (solely for the purpose of keeping the grass down, I like to think) which the children promptly named Milkshake, Chocolate and James.

“They’re called weaner calves because they’ve just been weaned,” I explained more to myself than anybody else that night as we sat down to a meal of wiener schnitzel.

At that point my fork suspended in mid air as the penny dropped and I stared down at the crumbed meat on my plate.

“You don’t think … this is actually weaner calf … do you?”

I took the silence as a polite acknowledgment of my ignorance.

I’d lost my appetite so pushed the meal aside and later Googled it instead but ended up more confused than ever:

“Wiener schnitzel is a classic Austrian dish traditionally made of veal,” one site read.

“In Germany Wiener refers to the city of Vienna while a schnitzel is a cutlet,” it went on.

So Wiener wasn’t the German spelling of the word weaner as I had suspected after all. But just what exactly was veal? A quick search revealed that “Veal is the meat of young cattle (calves).”

My head was starting to hurt at this point so I shut down the window and watched Desperate Housewives instead.

From what I could deduce, although what I had on my plate was, indeed, not too dissimilar to the ‘babies’ we’d brought home that day, the same-sounding name was purely coincidental (unless Vienna was named after a cow). The wiener sausage/hotdog is different again but I did learn from another site that wiener is therefore a slang name used for a similar-shaped appendage.

So in the meantime, I’ve been keeping my distance from our ever-fattening cows down the paddock (who certainly won’t be ending up in my freezer) and trying to forget their names.

The Country

 The trucks and utes crawl through the gates and everyone turns in unison.

They are checking out what’s on board the trailers – the days goods – to be sold at the Maungakaramea Sale Yards.

In the beating sun, farmers hang lazily over the rails of pens inspecting the contents – pigs, ewes, lambs, steers, heifers and bulls, are among those going to new homes today. But sometimes there are chickens, ducks, rabbits, cattle dogs and once, I’m told, even a cat.

Amongst the 100-odd crowd, sitting atop his mobile scooter, is the man responsible for its origins – Murdoch Ross. He is constantly surrounded by a small crowd with others stopping by to pay their regards.

I am there with the children to buy three weaner calves to help keep the grass down in the paddock.

We’re townies and I’m sure everybody knows it.

After introducing myself to Murdoch, he kindly offers his help, should we need it. But friends of my dad have taken us under their wings to help with all things rural and they are here.

My dad would have known most of these farmers, and Murdoch. Until recently, he was the co-owner of a business centered around the farming industry which he started more than 30 years ago from a shed at our home. Obviously the farming gene eluded me and the sad irony strikes me, yet again, that he held the answers to the many questions I now have.

The children have named their calves the night before. Cade’s is James, after the train (?), Jai’s is Chocolate and someone came up with the great idea to name Jayla’s Milkshake - which she latched onto - before they realised these are not dairy cows.

I am not willing to disclose who that person was. But like I say, we’re townies.

And we are learning.

After an hour of sifting through the stock, the auctions begin at midday.

With all the rain – and therefore grass – sheep and cows are in hot demand. Not like the droughts of recent summers. It’s not just animals being auctioned today either – sacks of wool and all sorts of random paraphernalia are being snapped up.

Things are moving along swiftly but the kids are now tired and, frankly, embarrassing me.

I leave the bidding to dad’s mate Roger. He’s a farmer from way back and knows his stuff.

Roger rolls up to our place 30 minutes later with our new babies – actually I do know they’re Friesian Hereford Steers - and they are shown into their paddock.

Cade claims the one with the eye patch.

“Why don’t you call him Pirate?” I suggest.

“Why don’t you call them Mince, Chop and Steak more like,” adds Roger with a chuckle.

I shudder, then take a photo of the kids with their new “pets” which I later show to a few family members.

“Make sure you don’t name them,” cautions one. “Else they’ll never make it to the freezer.”

Oops, too late. I fill him in on their new names.

“Possibly Barbi, Roast and Hangi may have been easier all round. Never mind, I'll happily come for a “Milkshake” on the spit in a couple a years,” he jokes.

As Roger’s wife Teresa says, the life and death aspect of farming gets easier with time.

Anyway, it hasn’t put me off. Next time, I’ve decided I’m buying chickens so have been scrounging around the property for timbre and netting for the coop which hubby doesn’t yet know he’s building. Cade has also put in an order for a pig.

I’m not thinking about what will become of our new calves, or the chickens and pig – I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Heading for greener pasture.

Townies take on the Maungatapere

Brace yourself Maungatapere, your peace is about to be shattered for we are coming to town!

It’s a long and complicated story but the simplified version is that, without anywhere permanent lined up to go, we listed our house and it sold for asking price before the Property Guide even came out.

When the real estate agent came around, beaming, to tell us, we sat there like stunned mullets before eventually accepting. It would’ve been rude not to really.

Our lovely home has been good to us for the past nine years. It’s seen hens’ parties, baby showers, kids’ birthdays and of course many a bbq and party BC (before children). It’s also where I brought my babies home to from the hospital, where we blearily trapsed up and down the hall all night whether it was to carry out a tandem feed, deal with a night terror or to stuff a dummy back in a mouth. Did I just say that? Let me re-phrase: to place a dummy back in a baby’s mouth for the 30^th time that night. (Obviously this method wasn’t working – I wouldn’t advise it – but that’s an entirely different topic.)

I look at the nursery I so lovingly decorated with my first baby bump and wonder if it will all be painted over and torn down. Not knowing whether we were having a boy or a girl, I painted the bottom half yellow and the top, bright blue punctuated with stars, moons and suns. I wasn’t sure at the time how it would sit with the older “Pepe”, however, Cadeyn, now five, asked me if he could take it all with him.

But the multi-levels, harbour views and extensive decking is no longer required for our lifestyle. We need space.

So although it is on the market, my late father’s lovely new lifestyle property is the perfect, albeit, temporary solution. We have become townie farmers “working the land” over recent months and we love it. There’s fruit to pick, a new black lamb down the paddock and the kids could spend all day on their dad’s lap mowing the orchard on the ride-on.

With two weeks to go I really ought to begin the packing.

But first I need to stop procrastinating and finish packing up the place we are moving into. This is something I have been chipping away at for the last few months but how do you reduce one’s whole life practically into a box? Obviously this has been slow going.

When this, sadly, has to sell, whether we end up buying in the country or not, the kids will still end up having had a taste of the good life.