Stanton

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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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 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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Autumn at Stanton seems to start when the clocks go back to their right time and then the light changes again to more sombre shades. It is still dark when shift workers start the 7am shift.

Stanton does not have to do the early starts anymore, it can wait for another hour. The clouds now try and do the grey linen look but Autumn is a magic time of the year at Stanton … things are changing.

There is a discreet tussle between wanting to stay indoors a little longer or choosing to venture forth to the golden hues outside. Mind and body are active now.
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March at Stanton is quiet, warm and moving slowly along a known path. the weeks between the hot month of February and the cooling Autumn of April go quickly without much to report.

Grass is growing prolifically everywhere and most things around the house have a green tinge it seems. Sam’s bones do as well, the one or two he remembers and thus finds while on a tour of the garden go down a treat.

Growing new grass, dead heading roses, and planting bulbs are the jobs to do but the main activity at Stanton is doing nothing at all for the time being as winter has been thought about already.
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February at Stanton is hot with drying winds coming from the North West. The ground is dry and brown though the black faced sheep standing in the field on every early morn appreciate the dewey coolness. later they seem to sit and talk under the low Macrocarpa boughs blending in with the shadows- Stantons silent sentinels.

Sam is under the potato vine doing the same thing. he lost his eye to sun cancer and he is not a silly pooch. Pete must be having a day off but I seem to hear him telling me to go to the orchard and pick up the fallen fruit so the orchard is hygenic. he would probably tell me to water the trees deeply, if he were here so I will do the right thing. The apple trees flourish as a green belt in an ocean of khaki and it is easy to be drawn towards the trees as a sort of curious fruit squeezer(nectarines beware)

Stanton has a goodly variety of apples by the way. the problem is no one here knows much about the subject so a bucket of assorteds went to the coffee shop for some local opinions. We at Stanton have been Baristas at the local coffee shop for years now and do we know our beans… but not our apples it seems.
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It is mid-January at Stanton and a pleasant 25 degrees . at 11:30am. A slight breeze is rustling the trees and nothing much is moving apart from dozens of butterflies zipping around the post and rail fence a few metres from the house. Occasionally a duck splashes on the bottom dam but it is only hal way interested in swimming today.

Sam is asleep under his potato vine bush while his former life interest — black-faced sheep hunker down under a huge Macrocarpa tree, but this is not Footrot Flats. Even the local tiger snake is not interested in playing. It is not preciously hot and curiously the sun does beckon one to venture forth from the shade, fronds from the willow slapping at face and ears urging a quicker departure.

The only sounds heard are a tractor cutting grass in a nearby paddock and birdsong coming from the Macrocarpa line not in opposition to each other, just there. The roses are out and so are the dandelions.
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