How should we be?

Saturday I’m at a working bee in the Strzeleckis above Korumburra on Boonwurrung country.

The sideways rain from the south-west stops just in time for proceedings to get underway. 

We’re at Tarnuk, the nine acres of former cow pasture where CERES’ elders Gil and Meredith (Mem) Freeman and son, Rhys, spent the past thirty years creating the microclimates and microbial communities to grow a mind-boggling diversity of bushfoods, exotic fruits and flowering plants amongst the chickens, geese, native birds, frogs, bats, wombats and wallabies. 

Present and pulling on gloves are sons, granddaughters, neighbours and grown kids, new friends, old friends and some really old friends who have been attending each other’s working bees for more than fifty years. 

When Gil Freeman died last March, this group was drawn together around Mem and her sons to help plan Tarnuk’s next thirty years.

There is a deep feeling that more people should experience, make use of, regenerate and learn from this very special place.

A previous meeting and ongoing discussion have pulled together pieces and possibilities but so far nothing has formed up and hardened into anything concrete. 

Uncertainty after such a long time of knowing what’s next brings a sense of unease and more stuck thinking.

We get out of our analytical brains digging several cubic metres of rich composted soil out of a chook run, wheelbarrowing it down the hill to fill the newly raised garden beds below.

The chooks, still locked in their coop, urgently cluck beseeching us to be let at the fat worms being turned up in the dark moist 85% cacao soil. 

A chorus of frogs floats up from the dam below and as we find our rhythm the crimson rosellas, wattlebirds and scrubwrens fall back into theirs. 

Lunchtime is called to the relief of aching lower backs; steaming vegetable soup is ladled into bowls, chunks of butter spread onto homemade bread, cups of tea brewed and handed out.

Over lunch, in lieu of the earnest and funny thank you speech Gil would have given, Mem reads Mary Oliver poems that remind us not to forget that we are also animals.

There’s a moment of quiet.

The sideways rain holds off for the rest of the day.  Garden beds are finished ready for spring planting, a ute-load of firewood is cut from a fallen cider gum and a tray of Landcare trees and shrubs are planted and guarded at the bottom of the hill near Duck Hut. 

The group says its goodbyes until the next gathering in a month or so.  The answer to what’s next here will inevitably come, as always suggested by the land itself. 

Later, I’ll find a line in Mem’s book A Garden of Useful Plants and smile – how somewhere in their thirty years at Tarnuk the ever-pressing question of What should we do? transformed to the gentle invitation, How should we be?

Have a great week.

Chris

Cooking for a good gut

If you’ve ever tried to “eat for gut health” and felt overwhelmed this workshop is for you.

In her hands-on style, chef Melanie Leeson shares simple, practical ways to build meals that support digestion without overcomplicating things.

Drawing on experience of improving her own gut health, Melanie focuses on approachable cooking rather than strict rules or rigid frameworks.

If you’re keen to go along use this code  MINDGUTAUG$10OFF  and get $10 off.

Saturday, August 30 at CERES – find out more here.