Rivers & Streams

First of all here is SG's Happy Stars quilt, all backed quilted & bound. It feels so good to have achieved a finished product! We are collecting him from pre school today, so I will give it to him when we bring him home. And this is a pic of Leo, lying on the bathroom tiles, which is one of his favourite spots in the hot weather. He has one of 'Daddy's' socks, which he likes to sneak, then carts them about with him. He must be growing out of his teenage stage, as he is not nearly as destructive now, & hasnt chewed any shoes for some time!

I have been remembering holidays spent with a favourite Aunt & Uncle. They moved about with their work on farms, before they got their own farm.

One house they lived in was situated above a wide river flat. There were Poplar trees down on the grassy flats, & in the spring, when they were budding with leaves, we would sometimes see deer come down to drink from the river, & graze on the lush green grass. They looked beautiful in the misty morning light, & would quite often return in the evening, for another graze.

If they got startled they would flee like lightning, & disappear into the bush above the river flats.

In the deer hunting season, my Uncle would go deer stalking with friends. I never really thought a great deal about it, it was something the men did in those days, but now, I would not approve at all. I can still see the antlers hanging in my Uncle's shed.

The farm was a sheep farm, & shearing time was always a busy time. The dogs would all be excited, & the sheep would be mustered & brought into the yards, ready to be shorn.

I loved the smell of the fleeces, & didnt particularly mind the smell of sheep manure either. The shearing shed was almost magical, with the smells & the shiny wood from all the lanolin of the fleeces. The sheep would all wait under the shearing shed, & then be chased up the races to the shearing posts. As the shearers finished their sheep, they would release them, & grab the next one. It was fast & furious, hot sweaty work, usually in hot weather, & the shearers usually wore black woollen singlets, & old lanolin coated pants, & sugar bag 'shoes' they made themselves, by sewing hessian sacking with twine, into mocassin type shoes.

The fleeco's would collect the fleeces & throw them onto a table, where they would take all the dirty & ragged edges from them & pass them on to be packed in the huge bales, where they would be pressed. It was amazing how many fleece it took to fill a bale. The fleeco's were often girls, & they were very skilled & quick at their job. When I was young I used to think I would like to be a fleeco, but I doubt I would have had the stamina!

The shearers lived in quarters on the farm, & had their own cook, for breakfast & tea, but usually it fell to the farmer's wife to provide 'smoko', which meant plenty of scone cooking & baking to be done. I cant recall, but I think the tea they drank at smoko time was brewed at the shed.

We were not encouraged to hang about the shearing sheds too much when we were young- partly so we didnt get underfoot & become nuisances, & partly because of the colourful language I suppose.

I used to have a friend who came to stay, & we would spend hours down at the creek, which ran quite close to the shearing sheds. We would build dams in the creek, & smear ourselves all over in mud, to try to deter the sandflies from biting us!

I remember one of the old Maori men who worked for my Uncle, was always amused to see L & I smeared black with mud, L, with her almost white hair, & me with blonde hair. I wonder if he thought we were aiming to look like Maori children.

We loved the smell of that creek, & the 'clean' running water it contained. It ran into the large river on the flat, & it was a very clear, shallow, wide river, with beautiful rounded river stones, & it made a lovely gurgling, almost chuckling, sound as it ran over the stones. I can still see the little trails of the green moss like growths on the stones, reaching out like green hair, or little feelers, as the current waved them to & fro, & streamed them out from the stones.

When my father was away at war, my mother & I lived with my Grandparents for a while, & they lived in a steep gorge, carved by a wide & sometimes swift river. The steep hills on the other side of the river, were bush covered & very forbidding looking. I was never allowed to go near the rive alone, but sometimes my Grandmother, or Grandfather would take me down to get some water. I was always enthralled by the river, & the wonderful stones, & the smell of it, which is so unique.

I think a river running gently over stones is one of the most relaxing of all sounds, & I defy anyone to remain tense in those surroundings. I also think the smell is a contributing factor in the relaxation & it seems sad to think so many rivers & streams are now so polluted.

Of course the rivers in flood were a different scene altogether, & the river below my Aunt & Uncle's house could flood when the rain was heavy, so much so, that it would cut access to the roads out, & they would be stranded for days sometimes. And all the grassy flats would be underwater.

That farm was magical to kids. It had trellises, covered in Kiwi fruit- which were known as Chinese Gooseberries in those days. There were lemon & orange trees which would be laden with fruit, & a wonderful Christmas Plum, from which we would pick buckets of plums for jam & preserving. And there was what had been a 'formal garden' planted by a former farmer's wife. It had gone to rack & riot, & there were thickets of bamboo, which were so much fun to play hide & seek amongst. And unruly Japonica- to be avoided, as the thorns were so vicious!

Looking back I know I had some wonderful times. Why do sad times leave such deep footprints in our hearts.

It is very odd, as I was writing this, I forgot where I was, & I felt transported back to the shearing shed, & the river flats. They were wonderful holidays.