farmdoc's blog post number 166

My friends Janet and Annie, who live in Deloraine, own a shack on a few acres near Mole Creek. Last Tuesday as I was settling down to breakfast, the phone rang. Janet breathlessly explained she’d arranged to help unload a truck delivering building materials to the shack, but her car battery was flat. Within 45 seconds I was on my way. The truck arrived 10 minutes after I did, and the unloading was easy. But when the driver went to turn the truck – still heavily loaded with goods for other deliveries – around, it sank into mushy grass. Yes, we've had a lot of rain lately. The usual tricks like putting boards behind the wheels failed because the truck was too heavy and too bogged. So I drove off seeking a tractor. Luckily Sally, a local dairy farmer, was driving hers along the road nearby, and when I explained the situation she unhesitatingly followed me to the bogged truck. Though her tractor’s a 2WD, being big it easily pulled the truck out. I was delighted to help Janet and to return her June favour to me. Last Tuesday’s quote on Farmdoc’s Blog was from Samuel Taylor Coleridge (pictured): ‘Who boasts to have won a multitude of friends has never had one ’. I have few friends. I try to be a good friend to each of them.

farmdoc's blog post number 46

I once read that films are of two types – those you disappear into, and those you grow out of. Lars and the Real Girl, which sweetheart Vivienne and I watched last Sunday, is definitely in the latter category. In it, because of their affection for Lars, members of his small community play along with, and perhaps enter into, his delusion. Mole Creek, where I live, is a small community. Some families have been Mole Creekians for generations, and they exude a perceptible air of xenophobia. Maybe they resent the newcomers’ values and aspirations. I don’t know. But though a member of Mole Creek’s Fire Brigade and Progress Association, I don’t feel part of the community here. That’s okay because my priorities are elsewhere: living a decent, respectful and productive life; and being a loving, available and dependable relative and friend. I view friendship as a mutually participative process. In other words, unless my expressions of friendship are substantially reciprocated, then it’s not a friendship. Last Friday, when I was in Melbourne, some trees fell and blocked my Mole Creek driveway. Sharon – my sharefarmer and neighbour – phoned her friend Harvey who brought his chainsaw, and together they worked for a couple of hours to clear the driveway for me. That’s what friendship and community are about, eh Lars.