Author: Hilary Burden

I like to think of summer berries as the jewels of a garden: the blueberry is like a purple pearl, harvested in clusters; redcurrants catch and filter the light like rubies; raspberries are like magnificent garnets. And strawberries? They are the diamonds of summer. If you follow the seasons, the strawberry arrives first, although you would never know this simply by shopping the supermarket aisles. The weight of a winter’s harvest – sturdy swedes, cumbersome pumpkin and the inevitable potato – give way to lighter treasures that go with lying in long grass, cloud watching, picnics and summer towels billowing like sails on a verandah.

Instead of a job for itinerants, picking fruit should be on the school curriculum. It is another one of life’s simple pleasures: to pass the day in the angle of the sun’s rays; to learn when nature’s gems are ripe for picking; and to know that tasting fruit as it naturally tastes cannot be replicated by science.

Those two wild strawberry plants I bought from Salamanca Market in Hobart four years ago are now 50, self-seeded without much care from me. Their delicate white flowers are as pretty as their fruit and it is all I can do to stop myself from cutting off a few stems before they turn into berries. Now that the strawberry farm is open again in Hillwood,  I’ll fossick with the families on bended knee for my daily platter. Then, when the wild blackberries come into their own, I know I’ll be one of the foragers staking out their bush on the roadside, worthy of at least a bucket at the end of an idle hour.

Published in Country Style, December 2013

A red lace bra is about as far away from the country as you can get: the epitome of decoration, of display, of boudoir. When your focus is on the things that need to be done outside yourself – like this year’s harvest, planting seeds, or nurturing livestock – a red bra seems irrelevant by comparison. It’s certainly not the first thing you reach for when you get up in the morning.  However, after a recent trip to Sydney, I’ve changed my mind. At least, ‘Pamela’ changed it for me. Usually I visit the 7^th floor lingerie department at David Jones, and, while glancing at the flimsier things in my peripheral vision, leave with the usual bundle of comfortable, cotton Bonds in sensible shades of beige. This time I met my match: a woman of a certain age and build who convinced me not only to check my bra size, but also to try on a bra more suited to Rihanna than life in rural Karoola. The décor seemed all chandeliers and mirrors as I tried on Pamela’s choice of the “Selma Dancing” bra in ‘Hortensia’, a sort of pomegranate red. And here’s the thing. A bra has never fitted me better: more like a swimsuit with lift than underwear.  It came home with me wrapped in tissue paper but has since dug up a vegetable patch, taken down a paling fence, and cleared the boundary of blackberries. No one would ever have guessed that I was not dancing but gardening with Selma.  That’s her, hanging with the cherry blossoms at the Nuns’ House.

There are certain days in a country year that deserve celebration. These days are not quite the same as birthdays but the sense of joy can feel the same. Like when the swallows return from their winter migration north, and when the flowers of the sweet pea seeds you planted on St Patrick’s Day start emerging from bright green cocoons exactly six months later. Or when, in these parts at least, the tomato seedlings get planted out – never before Launceston Show Day when frosts no longer threaten.  Shearing day is an especially happy time-marker. Jack and Kerouac, my paddock companions, wear winter on their backs until the shearer comes. Their puffa jacket fleece quadruples their size until Ian drops by with his mobile shears, trouser braces, and brevity of wit, proclaiming, “Yes, they’re ready!” We have corralled the two alpaca in a corner of their paddock with just one rope. Jack sees him approaching and slumps to his haunches in knowing submission because by now he judges that all the airs and prancing that Kerouac effects is just dumb bravery. The shearer always comes. They will get laid on their backs, legs tied to a rack so they lay still, and that fleece will furl back in ethereal strands more like a cloud close up than thick creamy dollops of wool. Jack will stay silent and Kerouac will scream, kick and froth at the mouth and be placated by Ian in his weird alpaca language until I approach with old sacks and stuff them with a year’s worth of seasons waiting to be spun.

Published in Country Style, November 2013

Unless you are a professional gardener it’s essential not to turn gardening into work because of what it can teach you about life. It’s tempting to get out there to dig, plant, prune, mow and go mad with weeding. But if you don’t resist the urge to garden like there is no tomorrow then you are missing the point of gardening. Enjoying being in the garden should come first not what you have to do in it. By concentrating too much on getting things done you will think the garden into being rather than letting it show you. I know that if I wasn’t sitting on the tree seat around the golden elm at the Nuns’ House now – if I was doing instead of being – I wouldn’t hear the wattle birds scrapping, or the river flowing in the valley with recent rains, or the rustle of the wind in the gum trees, or notice the contrast of the colours in this Tasmanian light… all life’s joys that will be here when we are gone.

Working in the garden is a joy that helps you take the pulse of life itself.  I know that if I had gone out with a list to cut back that shrub or plant that bed out, the day would not have satisfied in the way that it has just by walking outside and following my nose. So, after sitting under the gracious space of the golden elm, I made a path, burnt some dead scrub, decided to take down a fence, pruned the dead wood off the apple trees – none of which were on my to-do list but that have all got done today just by being.

Published in Country Style, October 2013

“You never regret a walk,” my friend Kath said. I recall more or less the exact spot on the Bridport walking track that she said this, as the gentle gradient continued upwards through thickening forest on a sparkling midwinter’s day and she was reminded of a walk she had once made in Rwanda. I still cherish the feel of the breeze that afternoon: how, as we reached the she-oak forest, its searching tendrils seemed to feel inside our lungs and open us up; how our conversation came with walking and found its own trail; and, how our eyes rarely met but didn’t need to because our hearts spoke in tune with our steps and their breaths. That brisk July day, cheeks like Red Delicious, we walked the world in our conversation. Country walks aren’t like bush walks where often the aim is to “bag a peak” or circumnavigate a lake. Nor are they like a daily walk intended to raise the heart level to a certain beat per minute.  Walking in the country is a way of spending time with someone while doing something that’s not too strenuous. Because it’s gentle, different thoughts pass through you as you share the turning of the day: light thoughts that ramble. Not intended to impress they seem more heartfelt because of that. And as you stop to find the way across a fence, meander across a paddock, stop to smell the air, hear a bird, or spot a view that you simply have to share… you realize you never regret a walk and especially with a friend.

 Published in Country Style, July 2013