I dont think I can conquer the technology to post a visual picture scoop,
But my daughter bought me back a beautifully floral high-country tequila from the DF. Im having a little sip now, and in the mood to paint you a picture.
My grass laying spot is under an old paddock teak. Its on the highest point of my place, a place the lightening knows about it. The teak is a twisted half-tree. when they grew straight and broad, they used to make dance floors from the them. yellow and hard and as springy as ****. it sits alone on a plateau about 20 drop punts long and about 5 wide.
I call it my high country. My top paddock. Up the top. Even though its less than a kilometre from my house, which sits bang in between the high country and the flat below, when you're up there, you cant see a house or a road. It feels like you're alone and you can do what you want. I talk to myself and the black cockatoos up there. sometimes I take a rifle in case I see a dog or a cat, but I mostly see them when I haven't taken a rifle. It feels good to walk around the farm, or lay in the grass with a shooting iron beside you. like a cowboy. when the kids were small, we'd ride up there on a horse and a donkey and a motorbike and take a blanket and a billy and light a fire and watch the sun set a second time.
theres the remnants of another time up there. decaying implements of a tough and simple life make their way downhill like rusty glaciers. old tanks. old pumps. old discs and linkages from plows. The old dairy clover still grows in a patch.
The grass is thick now. knee high. It was dirt and cow **** a few months ago but then it rained. now its thick grass with all sorts of mushrooms pushing through.
From my laying spot, I can look out to the North over some forested hills. some of them burnt in November, some of them didnt. West is another farm over the other side of a valley that runs north-south. to the south, if you look hard, you can see the lights of town at night. but I never seem to look south really. and East is a macadamia orchard on the deep rich soil of the Plateau. I dont look that way much. I dont like macadamia orchards much. they are damp and dark underneath and you cant see out. I like seeing out. into the distance where I see storms and stars and sometimes in the autumn, the most absurdly clear blue sky. sometimes in Autumn, the clouds line up in ripples, like the sand in the shallow water at the beach. yeah Autumn is my favourite time for laying.
some times I dont mean to lay down. I go for a walk or to do a job. and its so quiet and warm and clear, I get kind of hypnotised. I'll start off sitting and thinking and the afternoon sun acts like a sedative and ill lay back and go to sleep. I sometimes wake up with calfs licking my boots. Ive never, ever been woken up by a person.
nobody really goes up the top except me. theres a 200m heart pounding incline, which doesn't really relent, and that puts my family off. and theres too many rocks to ride a motorbike fast. I take a tractor or a ute up there sometimes if I need to do a job, but I like to walk.
It does feel like my office, except no-one ever knocks on the door or walks past and looks in. nobody has ever asked me to do pointless, useless **** up there. I cant hear anybody, or rarely anything. I feel like can do whatever I want up there. you'de like it.
I'll tell you about the creek flats down below, some other time.
