Busy times, and when I see others now with something similar, I’m reminded how great those times were but also pleased that the busyness, the constant vigilance required and the turmoil are well behind us.
One of my greatest pleasures was taking all three out on the two-wheeler with two sitting in front and the youngest in the backpack.
I had been an impatient man and children taught me patience, as one couldn’t just zoom out the door and jump onto the bike, but instead had to get them appropriately dressed, mediate on who was going to wear which hat, find various small gumboots scattered in all directions, tuck a muesli bar or a little raisin packet into each small pocket if it was going to be a while on the farm and then be prepared to stop and look at things like dead birds, hunt for fossils in the creeks and spend some time retracing our wheel marks looking for the gumboots that had fallen off but had gone unnoticed by their owner. The latter to much amusement from my passengers.
I once wrote a column about finding a small gumboot out on the farm that had been bleached sunny side up and had obviously lain there for many years. I cradled it lovingly and took it home to show Jane this treasure from the past. I stood on the doorstep with tears in my eyes, she took one look at it and told me it wasn’t one of ours and shut the door. I felt devastated that what I thought was a link to those treasured memories of days not that long past wasn’t at all.
I was never sure she was right though, and that gumboot is still somewhere in the workshop and will no doubt be thrown out along with all my other accrued treasures after I die.
That column might be nearly 20 years in the past, but I still have people reminding me of it or saying they cut it out and still have it given it was a good summing up of the pleasure and privilege we have with children in our place of work growing up in a wonderful environment.
On the wet days, when they couldn’t come out on the farm, it would be both heartbreaking and amusing to see three small boys smearing goodness knows what over the bay window, some with tears watching me drive away on my bike.
No one before or since has ever cried at my departure. Perhaps my mother a couple of times.
Then we didn’t yet have a four-wheeler and were still thrashing around on a three-wheeler, which was even more inappropriate to carry three small boys and myself around the farm.
I watch the little kids in the district tucked inside their parent’s side-by-sides and it looks a much better option in terms of safety; drier and warmer, and more space and comfort than what we used to put up with and it’s definitely what I would use now.
However, nothing is 100% safe as we know from past incidents, so over the summer and holidays that stretch in front of us, make sure your small charges are kept safe and sound out there on our farms.
