Stanton

Pizza made in a wood fired oven is a heavenly treat, the thought of it all takes me back to the early 70′s when Pizza Hut cooks knew how to make a fabulous “thin and crispy”. This month, December will be a milestone for Stanton in that the kitchen is going to have an upgrade.

Stanton has never actually had a fitted kitchen in the engineering mode or in the culinary sense that we know and love. Mister Smeg and Monsieur Miele were never guests here.

Yes, over the years the house has witnessed the comings and goings of an assorted line up of fridges and the odd cooktop in the room downstairs we now use as an informal dining room, but nothing grand, imposing, or even inspirational.

We get by with a few benches that do their part as well as a stainless steel sink of 1980′s vintage that is an ageing reminder of washing up in the past. Until recent history two of the fireplaces still had attached swing out metal arms for holding up the rabbit stew.

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Curiously, the scene from the verandah reminds me of Northern NSW around Dorrigo. Poplars quickly bring it all back to focus but the thought still lingers.

It is raining. Has been on and off all day, just the drizzling type the birds love and you can tell by the noise they are making, unseen whistling in the Macrocarpas.

A group of plovers stroll across the newly mown lawn looking like they are determined to be somewhere on time. Down at the front dam the frogs seem to be in paradise; at least they are saying so.

It is a sea of green hue out there. Everything you get on the Dulux colour card of green is in front — framed against the shadow of tree and bough, but moving in the breeze. I didn’t believe native green had so much potential and could turn on such a show, particularly with help from many roses bursting from thin tendrils. Roses at Stanton have always taken on a pregnant air at this time of year; November.

To my right Back River winds unseen up towards Platform Peak the biggest of the Black hills now shrouded in swirling mist making it hard to tell where cloud and sky meet. It isn’t hot, about 17 deg, more of a NSW north coast winter lurking in a Tasmanian Spring.

It is a stretch at the moment to see the verandah shaded by hops that have recently been planted, just itching to climb up the strings onto the railing outside the main room. They will do this with great gusto around February emulating their colleagues at Bushy Park. We now have to be patient.

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It is Saturday morning. I wouldn’t say it is cold but warmth escapes me this day of light drizzling rain and lingering uncommitted fog. A minister once told me he delighted in finding the occasional wet Saturday so that he could relax and place words on paper, it made him more receptive to thought. Now that i’m doing it I get what he said a long time ago.

Time passing is what I’m thinking about now and I will write something about that on this, the remains of October. It seems easy to write about time at Stanton as the place drips in it. Not so much the sort of hurried schoolmother sort of progress through the day, more the passing of the seasons I’ve reflected on before.

It has now been nearly two years since Helen left Stanton to reside on the red hill above Bushy Park and her presence there is marked by a traditional stone piece, simple yet perfect made by master craftsmen, John McDiarmid & Sons of Sydney.

It is of Tasmanian sandstone and I’m sure it will look better as it ages. For almost a year only a bare Huon pine cross made by Stanton’s cabinet maker alerted any passing council worker to a nearby soul. There was no need to rush though, everything has unfolded as it should.

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I had been procrastinating for two years. The time had come and it was over in minutes when it did happen; the pine tree that had stood as a sentinel at the Stanton front fence was down.

Two pine trees grew up together after they were planted 70 metres from the house in 1919. An old man who once lived at Back River and walked past Stanton on his way to Back River school as a boy remembered seeing them as small trees. He is still alive, now in his early 90′s as when I last saw him he was the human equivalent of the other still standing pine; gnarled, solid, wizened and healthy. As things go around here both of them will follow the first tree into the next life, its inevitable but that’s ok.

The fallen tree as it turned out was senescent and a hazard to man and beast. At 27 metres it was making a big statement about its position here at Stanton and I am mildly smirkful (I like this strange word) when thinking about myself being a menace to the public at age 91. Still. I didn’t want him killing my neighbours in the night; one of whom is Nathan our cabinet maker. Another is new this month, freshly arrived from Kalgoorlie, WA. Do they have trees there?

My thoughts about the two old men of Stanton watching over its entrance are possibly incorrect but they make sense to me. Most of the trees here at Stanton are Macrocarpa but these two boys are Radiata, very different lads indeed. Moreover, the white cockatoos clamour about the Macrocarpa while the black cockatoos prefer to squark in the Radiata. Some things are perhaps black and white after all. I believe it would have been a great gesture if these two odd trees were planted here together during 1919 in remembrance of those men from the New Norfolk area who did not return from a war few people understood but clearly presented to all painful memories shared around a small country town. No one can explain why the trees are, or were together out in the open. I like my idea about it all.

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Jan sat next to me on the wooden wall. He was every thing a Dutch wine maker should be; tall, handsome, articulate, knowledgeable and he was a friend of Ashleigh.

Jan was a guest at Stanton a few years ago. He said that we were all blessed living in the Derwent Valley as we do. The air is different and the light picks out the green on the hills blending it with the purple sky. He lives in Sydney so I listened attentively.

We were at the Two Metre Tall Real Ale farm bar on one of those winter Saturdays where it is chilly but clear, then moving to a change of mood later on … it reminded me of the conviviality of the Trout Inn near Oxford, UK on an English winter’s day.

Everyone was at the brewery including Jan. He said he liked winter in Europe as it was a busy time with much to prepare for the new seasons ahead; the reward for effort being veggies and vines that actually work and give you something back.

He spoke like a farmer. I don’t think he is going to be a full time wine export manager in Sydney’s CBD for a great length of time. I’m glad such fellows as Jan and Ashleigh inhabit our world as talking to them provides me with mind flavour in a sometimes routine week.

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Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

The house named Stanton at the Back River, near New Norfolk, Tasmania has certainly taken hold of the souls who live in this place and we do accept this nurturing, motherly building as fate would have it.

The people who have stayed or called at Stanton have chosen to come here because they were in my mind drawn to it, enticed by the place which is all of a home, a business and a piece of Australia’s history.

To everyone, from the first guest to the final special person who stayed here, you had our heart from the time you said “Hello”.

But now I am saying goodbye and closing Stanton as a Bed and Breakfast. I cannot do it all and I have to accept this for now. Its fate, I presume.

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July is midwinter at Stanton and with it comes not snow and some sort of damp purgatory, but enticing crisp clear mornings brought about after the sun has finished burning off the fog.

The trees tell you it is winter though and the fires are going day and night, the tell tale spirals of smoke from chimneys, and the art work that goes into stacking firewood.

Firewood is never just stacked, it is sculpted, particularly in Maydena.

Winter has the most blissful pasttime to be enjoyed by all. Sleeping. The uninterrupted, sound sleeping to be done in a warm doona-laden bed is just magic, particularly if it is windy and raining outside. If sleep does not come easy then try an old house in winter.

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It is with sadness that I announce to everyone who has stayed at Stanton the recent death of Sam the one-eyed sheepdog.

Sam was a working sheepdog at Stanton all his life (16 years) and his life here was not all that pleasant until Helen (the other Stanton legend) came along and brought him in from the cold. These two were inseparable and if they can be together now I would wish it be so.

Sam had the sort of personality many adult humans only aspire to and he will be sadly missed, but he is still here at Stanton under the potato vine near the house.

How many guests have taken photographs of Sam is not known, but I am glad you did this and keep them with my warmest regards. If you have one of Sam and wish to share it with us all then please add it to the Stanton web site

Goodbye Sam and thank you.

It is cold. Snow is on the hills down to the 600 metre level and fog wraps itself around hollow and contour alike.

Sometimes the cold fog just gives it to you, nature in the face, take it or leave it. This is winter doing what it does best.

Winter in Tasmania is about looks. The look tells you what you may be in for and what you will get if it does become real. The night, before it snows seems warmer than the day before, mist swirling close to the ground telling all what is going to happen on the morrow.

Weather in Tasmania is different than that on the North Island. It is a constantly changing entity season by season, day by day, guiding a way of life and such a life is spent observing weather that changes hour by hour.

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Curiously May arrives at Stanton’s door looking a lot like spring, only drier. Many of Spring’s jobs can be attempted now and two of these on the Stanton work calendar have been done on time. The chicken shed is still a construction site but developing slowly.

The orchard has been pruned the stems now bare and prickly like a school boys haircut. The resultant prunings collected, heaped and burnt in a larger field fire adding to a simple yet exhilirating country pleasure, that of the open air, cold night bonfire under the stars.

May at Stanton starts always with an illumination of the pine trees on the first day of May. Each year a bonfire worthy into a Lord of the Rings script is constructed and lit to highlight a certain person’s pagan birthday inclinations and to bring friends together with a red wine in a rural atmosphere.
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