Farm Life - 10. FAR Chapter 10

The following day while the McCulloch family were attending the funeral in Stranraer, I was making some calls on my mobile to make plans for some more sightseeing. Since we had interrupted our trip at Aberdeen, I decided that I would fly from Glasgow to Aberdeen, and resume my train journey from there to Inverness, which is only a 2 ¼ hour journey, where I would stay overnight and catch the next train to Glasgow.

Once there, I would have a look around, and stay another night, hopefully I can catch up with Preston while I am there, and the next day catch a train from Glasgow back to Edinburgh.

I then hoped to spend a six-days in Scandinavia as I had previously planned, before flying back to Heathrow, to catch a flight back home to Perth, Western Australia.

Two days later, I was saying a sad farewell to Preston and Rose, who had dropped me off at the Glasgow airport, “Don’t forget me will you, I know I won’t” Preston whispered to me as he gave me a tight hug and he kissed me on the cheek as we separated, and I made my way to the security gate, I didn’t want to turn around, as I my eyes were full of tears, as I presumed Preston’s are too.

Twelve days later, I had just passed the security gate at Heathrow, about to board my flight home to Australia, and while waiting to board, I sent a text message, “To my best friend Preston James McCulloch, I have enjoyed every moment of our time together, and I am sure that we will find a way to meet up again in the near future, take care my friend, Lewis Grantham”, once sent I turned off my phone just as the PA announced boarding of the Qantas flight from Heathrow to Perth.

I was so glad when the flight finally touched down at Perth, and after retrieving my luggage, and passing through customs and quarantine with no problems, I stepped out into the arrivals hall, and saw my whole family there waiting for me. I was so pleased to see them all that I started to cry, as they all rushed towards me, and we hugged for what seemed like hours. Once we had all climbed into the two vehicles, we headed north for home.

It was just after midnight when we arrived home, after Gran and Gramps, Mum and my siblings had exited, Dad drove me over to the cottage, where the veranda light had been left on for me, and once all my luggage was inside, Dad wished me a good night, and he headed back to the main homestead. Too tired to worry about my luggage, I went to my bedroom and collapsed onto my bed and fell asleep.

I woke up to the sound of scratching noises on my bedroom door, and I was sure that I had closed the front door, as I was thinking that maybe it was Ernie demanding some sweet treats, and I tied to go back to sleep but the scratching noise persisted, so I staggered out of bed, still dressed in my travelling clothes from the day before, and opened my bedroom door, and sure enough, it was Ernie the echidna and his tribe wanting to come in.

All I could do was just laugh, as Ernie waddled up to me and started sniff my bare feet, then I remembered that I had not taken off my shoes, so someone must have done that for me, this is when I started to hear giggling coming from the main room of my cottage. Stepping around the Echidna family, I walked into my lounge room to find the twins and Nicholas standing there, with big grins on their faces.

“Good afternoon big brother, and happy Australia Day” Nick said to me, and I thought about what he said for a moment before I realised that it was indeed January 26^th, Mum sent us over to check on you, and we found Ernie and his family at your front door” Nick added, as the twins placed some sweet treats on the floor, which brought the echidna family scurrying back into the main room.

“Mum said to get you up, to come and get some lunch” Edward and Samuel said before they took off back to the main homestead, “No rush bro, you may need to clean up as you look terrible” Nick said with an evil grin, and he too left, leaving the door slightly open so the echidna family could leave once they had finished their treats.

Once I had showered and changed into some fresh work clothes, I put on my boots and headed for the homestead, with no sign of the echidna family, I closed the door behind me, and I walked through the back door, kicking off my boots as I stepped inside the cool building, noticing that I was sweaty lots just from the short walk between the two buildings.

“About time”, Gramps muttered when he saw me, and I gave him a little smile as I sat down at my usual place at the large family table.

“Afternoon son, after lunch can you bring over all of your dirty laundry, so I can get it washed” Mum said to me as she was placing a large bowl of salad on the table, “Sure Mum, but I can do all my own washing” I replied, and she gave me a smile and headed back to the kitchen.

It was great to be back home again, and all my siblings had grown a lot since I last saw them, especially Gertrude, looking a young lady very much.

As we ate, Gramps and Dad filled me in on everything that had happened on the farm, while I had been away, and that included plans to turn the most southern section of the farm, into a hobby farm sub division, to fund improvements to the rest of the farm.

At 2300 acres in area, none of the internal fencing had been done since the big fire, so as to allow for the pasture to be re-established, they wanted to extend the community of Rivervale, by establishing another 62 hobby farms, all of them being 32 acres in area, and also an area of public community land of 220 acres, that will include a room for a golf course, a community recreation building, tennis courts and a bowling green, a similar setup to what is at Kilburn.

With the sale of the hobby farms, Gramps and Dad were hoping for reasonably good return, after paying for the sealing of the new streets, installation of power, water and telephone access to all 58 properties, and the establishing of a 500 - metre wide nature strip from the sand dunes to the back of the closest properties to the beach, which covers an area of 400 acres. A mixture of native trees and shrubs would be planted along this nature strip to ensure that, the shore line would remain protected.

Dad and Gramps had also started establishing a nature strip along the entire western boundary of the property, but only 250 metres wide, and this would be fenced off to stop any stock from destroying the trees and shrubs that will be planted there, similar nature strip was also planned for along the southern boundary of the property, to provide privacy and weather protection from the hobby farms that border our southern boundary.

I was informed that plans for the subdivision of the land and establishing more hobby farms, recreation space and nature strips, had been submitted to the local council, and had already been approved, and Dad had already had a surveying company do all the surveying according to the plans, with marker pegs put into place, to divide the new hobby farms.

After lunch, Dad took me for a drive to show me where the hobby farms would be, and that it would be an extension of the Rivervale community, and he showed me where all the nature strips would be located. I suggested to Dad that we have an access road established between the existing western boundary, and the nature strip, that will also act as a firebreak, and Dad agreed with my suggestion, to narrow the nature strip by 25 metres, to allow room for the access road and firebreak for the full length of the western boundary.

By the time, we had arrived back, it was time for afternoon tea, and Mum reminded me about my dirty washing, so I headed over to the cottage to do just that, what I came across when I opened the door, was a mess everywhere. I was thinking that it was the twins that had caused the mess, when I saw a group of thorny creatures scuttle out of the cottage, and I slammed the door behind them.

I spent the next hour cleaning up the pots and pans, that they had scattered around the kitchen floor, the ruined lounge room cushions that are in pieces all over the lounge room floor, and the flour, sugar and pasta that was all over the kitchen floor, after they had somehow managed to open the pantry door and get into the bottom shelf of food.

I took some photos of the mess, including of the small flour covered footprints of Ernie and his family, as they exited the cottage, before I started the clean-up, and I sent some of them to Preston, with a little side note.

“Family of Echidnas decided to raid my cottage this afternoon, after they were accidentally locked inside, little terrors made a huge mess for me to clean-up”, and after I sent the message I quickly looked at the time and worked out the time difference and was relieved to know it was breakfast time in Scotland.

As I had just finished cleaning-up, and was gathering my dirty laundry, I received a reply text from Preston, “LOL, are all echidnas that friendly that they will enter your cottage?” I smiled as I read the text and sent a reply, “No just this family of echidnas, I rescued Ernie after the fire, and nursed him back to good health, he brings his family to my cottage for sweet snacks every now and then, and I must have accidentally locked them inside when they visited earlier today” and after sending the text I headed over to the main homestead to deal with my washing.

As sorted the clothes in order of colours and fabrics, Mum entered the laundry, “What took you so long to get your laundry dear?” she asked me and knowing that it would be better to show her the pictures than try to explain, I pulled out my phone and showed her the first photo, and she started to giggle, and headed off with my phone in hand.

Soon I could hear more laughter coming from the house, and after starting the washing machine I walked into the lounge room, to find Mum, Dad, Gran and Gramps looking at the photos and laughing.

‘So not funny” I said, and I stormed off out of the house and I went for a walk down the main laneway heading west. After half an hour of walking I started to get tired, so I turned around and headed back to my cottage, I checked that there was no sign of echidnas indoors, before closing the door and I went to my bedroom and promptly fell asleep.

When I woke up, it was dark, and once I had lit the lantern, I looked at my bedside clock, which read nearly 10pm, it was then that I noticed my phone was on the bed side table. I sat up and stretched and yawned, before heading to the bathroom to relieve myself and to wash my face, then went to the kitchen, where I found a plate on the table, and a note next to it. “Jet lag must have caught up with you, so I left your dinner here for you to eat when you wake up, good night, see you in the morning, Love Mum”.

After I had eaten, and rinsed the plate, I stripped down to my boxers, and returned to bed, and I soon fell asleep once more. When I woke next time, it was just after dawn, so I started up the stove in the kitchen, and while waiting for the water to heat up, I finished unpacking my luggage, and stored the suitcase away, before heading to the bathroom for a long hot shower.

Once I was washed, dressed and feeling more refreshed, I headed over to the main homestead for breakfast, but I was surprised to see that everyone was still asleep, so I quietly started to get breakfast going.

By the time, I had the eggs and bacon out of the frying pan, toast, cooked and buttered, and I had started on my second cup of tea, Gran and Gramps made an appearance, soon followed by Mum and Dad, and seeing that everything was in order, Dad and gramps sat down, while Mum went to get the younger members of the family out of bed, and Gran tried to take over what I was doing but I insisted that she sit down.

Once we had all eaten, Dad instructed the twins to go and collect the eggs from the chook yard, and Nick and Gert to clear the table and do the washing up, once all my siblings had gone, I noticed four set of eyes all looking at me.

“Son, we are sorry at the way we behaved yesterday, it’s not very often you see a group of wild animals causing such havoc, it was more of laughing at them instead of at you for having to clean it all up” Dad said to me, and Gramps and Gran were nodding their heads in agreement, while Mum walked up to me and gave me a hug.

For the next week, Nick spent a lot of his time with me as I settled into a routine of working on the farm, we went to a tree nursery in the northern suburbs, and purchased 800 trees and shrubs, and using the trench ripper on the back of the tractor, we began to plant all of the trees and shrubs on the western boundary, followed by watering them all, using the fires fighting unit towed on the back of the land rover.