Friday, March 29, 2024

FROM THE RIDGE: Busy time building futures and houses

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A column of a more personal nature this week, I think. This year is a big one for our family.
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We have just hosted my niece Dana and her new husband Jack’s wedding.

Dana’s mum, my sister Susanna, and Glen were married here at the farm nearly 40 years ago.

Glen died suddenly two years ago just as Dana and Jack were about to announce their engagement – a very traumatic time for them and our wider family.

Dana was keen to be married where her parents had tied the knot and, of course, we were pleased to be able to do this for her and their family – a great incentive to tidy the place up as well.

We’d slowly worked our way through Dana’s list of requests over time with an increasing amount of activity in the weeks leading up to the big event.

Dana liked the idea of a bridge for guests to walk across from the car park and a jetty out into the dam in front of the house beside where the ceremony was to be. For good measure I even installed a fountain, which turned out to be a great hit.

Jane has been incredibly busy with her garden and by the day of the wedding it looked magnificent.

I’d been watching that Cyclone Oma develop north of Vanuatu 10-12 days before the wedding day and we had a plan B given it was a marquee wedding but a couple of days out it looked like we would get lucky with the weather and we did.

It was a fantastic day and though the sadness of Glen not being there was with us all, we celebrated two young folk committing to spend their lives together with elegance and gusto.

In six weeks we go to Winton where our eldest son Jason is to marry Rosa.

No jetties to be built or trees felled and cleaned up for us. We just have to get all of us down there.

But it is certainly a family gathering and event we are greatly looking forward too.

A month after that we are hosting my 60th birthday, which seemed like a good idea last year given a few funerals of mates including Glen that we’d attended. At the time of the invites we didn’t know we would be having a wedding a month earlier but the date and venue are set and we shall gird our loins and have another friends and family get-together, which should be fun.

And running parallel with all of this we are building a house at a local beach.

Jane has always been keen to do something like this and my standard response is that it would be cheaper to hire a digger, dig a hole and throw money in it. Anyway, we couldn’t afford it. I was emphatic we wouldn’t be doing any such thing but the aforementioned funerals gave me second thoughts.

The rest of the family agreed that though a departure from our plan, it is an excellent project for this time in our lives.

Last year we had a modest forestry harvest of trees I’d planted myself and done half the pruning before handing over to the experts so the rest was done on time.

That windfall has allowed us to go ahead with the build and a future harvest in a couple of years should help pay off what is still owing. Anyone who has built in recent times will know how ridiculously expensive it is. Three thousand harvested trees will make hundreds of houses to help pay for one.

However, the house is made from several of the trees I planted all those years ago, which is very satisfying.

I’d like to be more involved with the building but I’m just too busy here so we have left that in the capable hands of Rod and Dylan who are just starting to put the roof on.

If you help on only one day make sure it is helping put up the frames. Over just two exciting hours Jason and I felt like we had contributed greatly to the build. Hardly to be seen since.

So, 2019 is a busy year for us but one we are already enjoying very much.

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