We were recently offered a chance to have a night away at a friends farmhouse in the country around 40 minutes away from our house. They rent it our to paying customers but they were between guests and knew that we didn’t go away over Christmas, so they were kind enough to offer the place to us. We only had a night before our obligations required us to be back at home but we jumped at the chance.
Our friends are very resourceful country people and they would always rather recycle or ‘up cycle’ when possible and when time and money allows it, they plan to move onto the land and live from it. At the moment, they have around 100 acres and 30 sheep on the farm and a small farmhouse that they have extensively renovated.
It’s a lovely place and you can imagine the generations of families who have lived there. At one time, it was used as a rural post office and you can still see the ceramic insulators on one of the outhouses (above) where the telegraph line ran into the homestead.
There’s plenty of room and we found the paddock without the sheep and set up a small target for the small boy and we plinked away with his air rifle. In the past we have taken home several rabbits for the pot, but the grass was so long, we couldn’t see them this time!
I love the history of the place and the sense of peace that being there brings to you when you sit outside on the seats and watch the sun come up with a cup of tea.
The land also has a swimming hole, that their kids use extensively in the summer months and delicious yabbies (freshwater crayfish) live in the creek just waiting to be caught. A decaying copse of pines that had outlived themselves had to be cut down when they first bought the property in order to put up usable fences and that meant that they have a long lasting supply of firewood for the winter months. It was still a fire ban when we were there, so we didn’t need a fire, but it would be lovely to be there in mid winter in front of it holding a glass of red – or in my case, clutching a bottle of it…
Small boy seen above enjoying the sofa!
Very nice Jerry.