What happens when two city people move out to a farm. Chaos and laughter form part of each day, as we tend to sheep, goats and chickens with no previous experience. This is a monthly column I write for the Toodyay Herald Newspaper to encourage others to embrace a tree change.

Peace and quiet, that’s what we came for. A tree change and a move away from the suburban maelstrom and a beautiful ocean that once formed part of our daily walk. But now we’re older and seem to be less tolerant of the noise and hubbub of city living. Perhaps, at last, our move to Toodyay is the answer to life’s daily frustrations. No more hoons leaving donuts on the road, no more tailgating teenagers, no more neighbors with screen doors that slam in the wind; no more kids playing footy in the garden next door and flattening the petunias and frightening the cat. No more door to door collectors, who always seem to call when you’re in the middle of preparing dinner or washing your hair. No more parties that last all night with the thump, thump, thump of the base disturbing your sleep and no more car doors slamming, cars that always seem to have eight doors, even when only two occupants are climbing in. It is our first evening here and we sit on the back verandah and survey our ten acres stretching down to Malkup brook; the hill beyond rises filling the frame of our vision with a wonderful selection of vegetation and trees. Pink tinged clouds match the flock of galahs that swarm past and land in a large gum tree on the south side of the property. Squawking and screaming, they frighten the cat, who runs from the paddock travelling at the speed of a leopard, past us and into the kitchen and under the table. I can hear the frogs honking in the pond, honk….honk…..honk…. They’ve been at it all day and I imagine when darkness comes, both the galahs and the frogs will sleep. Our first morning on the land and my husband checks the water tanks and is horrified to find they are almost empty. Thank goodness I prayed for rain before we moved. The frogs didn’t go to bed, they just honked all night and the galahs which were last to settle down for the night were first up again this morning, still squawking and screaming their way around the paddock. There’s a heavy mist in the valley and as the sun rises from behind the hill, the mist rises to meet it; they meet on the crest of the hill and then fifteen minutes later a thick fog blocks the view. The packing boxes provide an obstacle course that must be dealt with and the dark blue, aquamarine and pea green walls of the kitchen and living area, that looked so trendy and cute when framing the previous owner’s shabby chic furniture, look dreadfully flashy after two days. It’s our third day and we’ve found a bush of cherry tomatoes growing in a garden bed at the rear of the house; they’re very ripe and need to be picked before they become sludge. My husband and protector decides he will use them to make tomato chilli sauce and we pick four kilos. After the sauce is made we take the torch and walk around the property and discover three more cherry tomato bushes ready to be harvested and an orchard more than ready to be harvested with oranges ripe and ready to be squeezed. I am delighted to find that we have oranges, mandarins, nectarines, plums, apples and peaches and for the first time in my life I am looking forward to making some jam. No television for us tonight, there’s work to be done. Fifteen oranges yield two litres of fresh juice and while he’s squeezing away, I’m making my first jars of fig jam. The insects in the country are much bigger than in the city and there are definitely more of them. We are high on the land and our lights in the evening attract every moth and flying creature from miles around. A soldier ant, at least two inches long has just strolled under the kitchen table and the cat is stalking it. I manage to prevent them meeting face to face just before he gets his nose bitten. In the morning, the kangaroo droppings on the lawn now have to be picked up along with the dog droppings and the foxes have been around and stolen some of our neighbour’s chickens. What’s that in the bag? I ask my husband who slips in the door with a large plastic bag filled with something bloody and red. “Kangaroo meat.” he replies. “Not on my stove you don’t”. He takes it outside to cook on the barbecue and the only member of the household who will eat it in all its toughness, is the dog, but then she’s been known to eat anything, including the cat’s deposits. Despite cutting the meat up into bite sized pieces for the cat, he refuses to touch it and my husband who has tasted a small piece, now feels queasy. “If the cat won’t eat it then there’s something wrong with it,” he says and the dog looks at him appreciatively as he throws another chunk in the bowl. It’s beginning to rain, just what I prayed for. Thunder and lightning and a torrential deluge worthy of any tropical country, which becomes heavier and my husband tramps through the mud to check that the liquid gold is going into the rainwater tank. The gutters begin to overflow and all I can think is what a waste of valuable water. I want to grab every bucket in the house and run around catching every drop. Never before have I been so conscious of the need for water and how important it is not to waste this valuable resource. I begrudge every drop that goes down the plughole when having a shower or washing the dishes. The deluge runs down the slope to the house and just before we experience the joy of having an indoor wading pool it veers off to the right along the veranda in a gushing torrent and makes its way down to the shed. Now all of the boxes that have yet to be unpacked are soggy bottomed and unable to be lifted. The galahs have got the cat on the run. He thought he was safe, hiding in the bushes, waiting for the blue wrens or the scarlet robins to appear when suddenly from a gum tree in the next paddock a flock of galahs took aim and dive bombed him. Cat cowered, galahs screamed and I’m sure I saw the blue wren laughing as he sat and watched the scene from the handle of the spade. Being a cat is dangerous business in the country and our cat is more cowardly than curious. I am disappointed that the blue wrens look nothing like the vivid colours of the illustration in our bird book and a neighbour tells me that he is going through the eclipse. I’m too embarrassed to ask what this means; fortunately she spares me by explaining that they lose their colours for a period, which is the eclipse and then regain them when the new plumage comes. When we first arrived there were five frogs in the pond, yesterday’s count, after a scorching day of 42.4 degrees revealed ten of them sitting around the edge of the pond and it looks like one of them is heavily pregnant. They’re mostly a quiet bunch except for the big male who doesn’t know when to stop honking. I creep up to watch them and move just a little too quickly; the sound of plop, splash, plops tell me that they won’t come out again for quite a few hours and I am disappointed. My grand-daughter rings me from Sydney, “but Grandma – you just have to have a cow and sheep,” she implores and finally we settle on the chance that we’ll acquire some hens and goats to begin with. The thought of being responsible for other animals besides the cat and the dog, worries me a little – what if they get sick? There’s a lot to learn but I’m having fun during the process and hopefully in spite of all the farm things needing attention, I’ll find time to continue with my book.