A Bit of Earth

One of the things I told myself I was absolutely going to do once I moved to Dalby, was grow an edible garden. Other things on the list included ‘learn the ukulele’ and ‘write a novel’, so I guess we can say it was a fairly ambitious list. But despite having bought then abandoned a ukulele and lol don’t even talk to me about a novel, I have in fact, been rather successful at cultivating a small garden. And yes, some of it is even edible.

Please don't look too hard at the sad basil on the left, the sad basil and I are working through its issues

I had a few rather disastrous attempts at it, and then suddenly I just got into the groove of it. Every time I go out there, something is a little greener, a little bigger, a little better. I water regularly, I re-pot as necessary and I am always adding little things to it. Unfortunately, my real estate agent is a ruiner of dreams, which means I can only keep things in pots, but despite this hurdle, I really have cultivated my own little corner of Dalby. I grow things I would like to grow, I try things that seem ok. It’s mine, and this one little thing makes me happier than I can possibly express.

I’ll try though, in blog form, no less.

There is a deep satisfaction in making something from nothing. I think it’s one of the reasons I like knitting so much. You start with string, essentially, and you weave that shit together in a complicated little knot over and over and the next thing you know you’ve got something functional. In my case, that’s always a scarf, because I haven’t quite progressed to anything more complicated than that, but shit it’s still something new that didn’t exist before. Writing is much the same. Pulling words out of your brain and twisting them into some kind of story, or even just a sentence… that is some amazing stuff right there. I’m doing it right now, every word I write did not exist in this particular order before I came along and put them here. Isn’t that a truly fantastic thing?

I figure I can just grow the plants *over* the ugly shit in the yard, and pretend its not there

Gardening is that fantastic sensation PLUS the feeling of helping something to grow. It’s not just making something; it’s making something live, it’s creating life, and it’s friggin awesome.  Knowing that I made this thing, and that it wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t applied myself, if I hadn’t tried hard, and persevered, gives me a really big sense of accomplishment. And I know that it’s just a little thing, I didn’t save a rainforest, or grow a whole human inside me or anything, but it’s empowering, it fills me up with a giant ball of happiness.

View out our back door

It’s funny actually, but I’m sure this is the feeling people have when they do make a whole human, except multiplied by about ten thousand. But to be honest, I’m just content with zucchini plants and flowers for now, lol babies seems too much. I’m full of joy and bouncing with happiness about a bunch of plants, can you imagine if I made a baby? I’d be hysterically jumping on the furniture. It seems too much, and I’m very content with my herb babies and my vege babies, and anyway, they are much cheaper to feed, and they don’t poop themselves… and if ants get on them I’m not the worst person ever.

And I won't be sent to jail when I hand pollinate this zucchini plant in Spring.

Identification Please

Totes relevant... read on.

For some reason, I started thinking about who I am today. I had this rather profound thought while waiting for a burger at The Northside Convenience and Take Away shop (home of Dalby’s best burger). Who am I? Or more specifically, how do I identify? With what groups am I most strongly linked?

Some people first and foremost identify with their nationality. Which I understand; being Australian is great, and I really love living in this country. But I don’t think I’m particularly patriotic, I don’t think we’re *better* than others or that we should keep our stuff and our culture all for ourselves. I’m certainly not opposed to our culture changing or becoming “less Australian” and I couldn’t give a shit about any of our sporting teams.

Others feel strongly about their gender. Men are real men, women are real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri are real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri (with compliments to Mr Adams). Whereas I see my femaleness as a fact, not a lifestyle. It’s just a thing. A thing that I’m ambivalent towards. I don’t particularly love being a lady or doing “lady’s things” but I have no desire to grow an extra appendage and start loving aforementioned sports teams and other such “man things”. I’m a girl, but it doesn’t define me.

I think probably I most strongly identify with being Gen Y, which is a weird thing to say I guess, given that it’s often thrown about like a dirty word. But I like being young and I like being into technology and I like knowing about new things and trying new things pretty much just because they are new. I am not ashamed by my addiction to social media or my inability to do anything without telling as many people as possible about it. These are things I am, actually, proud of.

I also identify strongly as a nerd. I like things (books, movies, shows etc), and lots of those things are considered nerdy. But more than that my like of those things isn’t a passing, “oh yes I saw that it was good”, it’s more like “OMG DID YOU GUYS SEE THE NEW EPISODE SEND HELP IT WAS THE BEST THING OF MY LIFE I’M GOING TO WATCH IT AGAIN”. So yeah, I’m a nerd. It’s a good thing to be.

I guess I feel like I’m floundering a bit at the moment, because while it’s great to be a Gen Y nerd, I feel like I have a lot more in me; a lot more things I could be.

I care about the fact that our world is still filled with bad things like slavery, poverty and disease. I don’t like how we farm animals, or how we treat our environment. I’d like to do things about these things, I’d like to identify as the kind of person who takes action in the face of such things.

I’d like to identify as a writer, I’d like to be brave and stop making excuses and discipline myself to write.

I’d like it if the job I did was something I could identify as, and be proud of. And I’m hoping that as I embark on a new adventure of studying next year that “primary school teacher” can be a thing that skyrockets itself to somewhere near the top of the “things I identify as” list.

I want to be the kind of person who gardens, who keeps animals, who writes, who eats healthily, whose actions make a difference, who is conscious of the environment and the world, who has fun, who makes people laugh, who loves.

I did some gardening today. So I’m on my way. 

Country/Girl: A Good Day

Plants, they're a thing.

“Is it very far from your house?”

“Yeah, it’s right on the edge of town, probably about as far from my place as you can get. About a 5 minute drive”

Small town living is still such a new experience to me, but sometimes I do catch myself saying stuff like this, without any trace of humour in my voice. Perspective changes when you move somewhere like Dalby. Once I thought Toowoomba was a tiny, hole of a place, and now it seems like a massive city. Driving through it takes aaaaaaaaaages. Beautifully, I know this must mean that there are people living in even smaller towns who think Dalby is way too big and I have met people who consider those of us that live in town to be ‘townies’, not real country people like those who live on properties in the region.

I am obviously not a real country person, because I’m so new, but I really am loving the small town life. Yesterday was a really good day, let me step you through it.

7:45am – I drag myself out of bed at the earliest time I’ve had to in a long while. Ah, unemployment, you sexy beast. It is way too cold to be alive.

8am – I eat a delicious warm breakfast of porridge with berries and, of course, a cup of tea. This has become so routine for me I find myself going to sleep actually excited about my breakfast in the morning. It’s so delicious. And this is huge for me considering I spent many years not being able to stomach anything before about 10am.

8:15am – I doll myself up all corporate like

8:45am – I leave the house for a job interview. It’s nice and close so I walk.

9am – Job interview. I’ve already been interviewed by this company, and I’m not 100% sure what to expect here.

9:15am – I realise he is offering me a job. Not the job I applied for but one I have absolutely no experience in. He says I have the right attitude/temperament for it and would like to train me. I am chuffed but stunned and ask him if I can think about it, he is more than happy to oblige.

9:30am I am home already and spend some time contemplating the position I have been offered. I also call my mum and drink some tea. I spend some time cultivating my tea tumblr and interacting with humans I know on the internet.

11:30am I call my Nana. We talk for more than an hour about all sorts of things, but specifically we discuss gardening in great detail. She is a master. I describe my little yard to her and she gives me advice on what I can do with it. She spends some time trying to convince me to take furniture from her even though we live quite far away from each other and none of it would fit in my house.

12:45pm – I contemplate the special dinner I might make for my friends when they come up this weekend and write a shopping list.

1pm – At the mall in town, I discover the GLORIOUS news that the deli now sells sushi. It is a brand I know to be actually good. This is the only sushi in town, and I am so excited I order a sandwich instead. The sandwich has Brie on it and I am so excited about the sushi I text my mum to let her know. She calls me again and we have a brief chat.

1:15pm – I look for some people I need to interview for the ABC Open workshops I am doing. There are 2 people in particular I see all the time who I think would be really interesting to talk to. Of course they are nowhere in sight.

1:30pm – I go grocery shopping. Riveting stuff here, people. Oh, also I buy a crotchet needle and some yarn because I’m AWESOME.

2:30 pm – Deciding to take some of my Nana’s advice, I go to the giant Mitre 10 and buy some dirt and a trowel. One of the ladies who works there is super rude for no reason, and this is so out of character with pretty much everyone I’ve ever met here that I am stunned and outraged. They don’t sell plants, but the nice man at the counter tells me where the landscaping place is.

2:40pm – Driving around town to all these little places, I get a sudden and overwhelming rush of love for Dalby. The sun is shining, everyone (except that Mitre 10 lady) is lovely and helpful. The streets are wide and everything is close together. I’m running all these errands and they’re all within spitting distance of each other. I don’t even care that I accidentally scraped my car with the trowel.

2:45pm – THE LANDSCAPING PLACE IS AMAZING. It is beautiful and full of lovely plants and garden things and house things and I want to spend FOREVER there. I manage to only spend about 20 minutes there, and pick out some great little plants that are on sale. I tell the guy I will probably see him again soon because I’ll kill the plants and he encourages me to try not to.

3:15pm – sitting in my backyard, happy as a kid in dirt. Because I am, in fact, a kid in dirt. I pot all my new little plants in pots I stole from my mother’s garden last time I was in Brisbane. I make a little corner of the garden come alive with herbs and lavender and things. There’s a strawberry plant too but I don’t have a lot of hope for that one, it’d be too good to be true to have my own strawberries.

3:45pm – I get the old, ugly hose working and water everything. I also clean the outside walls a bit and fill a plastic bag with crap the last tenant left in the yard; cigarette butts and broken pegs and things. I decide not to despair about just how much crap there is and take it one plastic bag at a time. If I chip at it for a few weeks it should be nice again soon.

4pm – I shower all the dirt off me and contemplate that job some more.

4:30pm – I potter on the internet again.

4:55pm – I get a call from another place I have been interviewed at. He asks me to come in for a THIRD time tomorrow morning at 8:30 and I agree hurriedly before really finding out why.  SPOILER – it’s to offer me the job, which I totally just accepted! Hooray! 

5pm – I wash the dishes and Boyfriend gets home. I regale him with my excellent day (while wearing soap sud gloves) and make him come and stare at herbs, which he says look great.

6pm – I make Shepherd’s Pie while Boyfriend plans his lessons.

7pm – We eat Shepherd’s Pie. Delicious. It’s excellent ABC TV night so we watch Doctor Who (Are you my mummy?), Randling, Seven Dwarves (such a great documentary, I love it) and Laid (although at this point Boyfriend has gone back to planning).

10:30pm – We go to bed and I spend half an hour half sleepily convincing myself that the interview the next day is actually a race and if I get there after the other final applicant (there was no other final applicant in the end of course) then I’ll lose the race and they’ll give me a silver medal but no job.