tales of country living

I came across Fiona Stocker’s book Apple Island Wife in my local bookstore and nearly bought it, until I realised (again) that I’m saving up money and trying to downsize my material possessions (more on this in my most recent life update blog post *coming soon*. But in brief: I hope to leave Australia to reunite with my partner, who lives in Canada, within the next couple of months). Instead I looked it up at my local library to see if they had a copy, which to my absolute ecstatic surprise they did. And after some mishap with not scanning the book to borrow (what a sentence… “scanning” it, we are definitely living in a modern world folks) before the library closed (even though I’d been in there for an hour already), I was able to put it on hold and pick it up the next time I visited the library.

That was almost a week ago. I decided to finally crack it open last night after binge watching some Little House on the Prairies- not recommended by the way, the binge watching, not the TV show; the TV show is great, I’m enjoying it very much- and realising that even though I wish to hear more about people’s storied of living a rural life, I would prefer do it off-screen.

I’m getting to this point where I’m accepting that a lot of my blog content will touch on aspects of living with digital technology. I mean how can I not? It’s everywhere: as I’ve mentioned it’s at the library; when you want to borrow books you go up to a screen, tap, scan your plastic library card, scan your books and (a recent upgrade at my local library) have the option to get sent the receipt to your email rather than print it on paper. It’s also on public transport. Hospitals. Schools. Bedrooms. Toilets. Agriculture. Hospitality. In the Arts, Literature, Engineering, Child-care. It is literally everywhere. In forms of screens, devices, little robotic pieces, watches.

So, while I was watching Laura and Mary Ingalls writing their homework on ‘tablet papers’ (I have no clue what this means… when I see the word “tablet” I think of a digital device you give children to shut them up. I’m pretty sure the Ingalls sisters were using what some of us would call these days “old fashioned” writing tools), or walking kilometres to and from school everyday, or their father working his butt off to support his family, and their mother being a strong example of a compassionate human being, I pull myself back to my own life and realise how easy it is to get lost in other people’s stories while watching it on screens.

Because truth be told, it’s quite ironic to be watching people living in the country when I myself live in the country and have animals to look after and poop to shovel and garden beds to mulch/weed/plant/harvest and tomatoes to turn into relish (as in the condiment). True, this isn’t my house or my animals or my plants (I’m doing work exchange with some friends who live in a small country village of about 100 people), but it’s my life in this moment.

However, I do enjoy reading people’s stories in discovering their interest with living life more grounded and immersed in nature. This is the third story I’ve come across who writes about their journey with living rurally in my home state in Australia. I haven’t shared where I live before, and I prefer not share my current location, but I have to say I’ve been enjoying hearing stories of people living with the land as part of their life in a place I’m familiar with. It helps connect me to this country. To this state. Because Australia has amazing offerings, and I’m only slowly realising this.

We have vast landscapes, from the desert, to the tropics, to down south with a more temperate climate. Each place has it’s share of joys and hardships. Although a lot more people are moving to Tasmania due to the rise in the temperatures up north of Australia. People are realising how beautiful and abundant this land can be. My hope is that people treat it with respect and mindfulness from the beginning, rather than taking, taking, taking until we’ve realised we’ve actually been destroying the land in our efforts of satisfying our desires.

In her book Natural Farming, Pat Coleby shares some history of Australia, but in the lens of the soil. The earth. She mentions how:

"Research in our great inland dry areas confirms that they were once covered in primeval forest."

(Natural Farming Pat Coleby)

For those who don’t know, most of the Australian population lives on the edges of the country. The dry, hot and desert parts of the centre, and some of the north, makes for hard living. She touches on the health of the soil, and how the early settlers worked the ground to the point where it became deficient in magnesium and calcium. Which in turn means the food we grow can be deficient in these minerals and nutrients. Something Pat mentions in the book is the Law of Returns, where

“whatever is taken from the land has to be put back- either by good framing, or by applications of manure, compost and rock dust.”

(Natural Farming Pat Coleby)

So that is my hope: that when people move to ‘idyllic’ Tasmania they help look after the soil, whether or not they are a farmer, homesteader, business owner or city dweller. I hope people don’t forget that Tasmania is perhaps ‘idyllic’ because it hasn’t had as much population activity (therefore the land not needing to meet the high demands of dense population and modern living) as the other parts of the county. In saying that, I also recognise that people struggle living here because the island life can be isolating. It is the paradox of living in rural areas; you wish for a quiet and peaceful life, and yet you may crave the social life of a highly populated area.

I told my partner recently how I too am becoming more attracted, and perhaps yearn for, a life with the land. I crave the silent refuge it provides from man made noise (such as machinery or traffic). He mentioned how funny it is that humans crave this peaceful and quiet living, so we find a place that supports this, then we make it noisy. We continue moving to quiet places, only to make them “noisier” once again. A continuous cycle of the human conditioning; of hearing the deep calling to be immersed with the natural environment that supports our lives, and yet we have, in some ways, lost the skills to do this is a harmonious way. We arrive with the absorbed notions of what a productive and fulfilling life looks like, then feel the desire to leave when we realise it requires a shift of the internal world, and not just the physical.

A friend shares in her book The Flamboyant Farmer her own journey of feeling this yearning, hearing a certain calling, following it, having big ideas and dreams, only to arrive and realise she has been alchemised by the life of the land. Because this life can grind us. And we bear our teeth and say we must work harder and push ourselves further, and that is the only way forward.

What would happen, if we instead said “I allow myself to be shaped by this land”?

Where would we be as the human species if we allowed ourselves to be shaped with nature, rather than feeling like we must control her or be the dominant in the relationship?

Who would we be if we lived in mutuality with the environment around us?