Keeping your cool is a great quality...especially during harvest!

10pm Nov 18^th 2013

I arrive home from my final yoga graduation weekend to find the same washing hanging on the line and a very empty house. It is dry, quiet and still. The distant rumble of machinery and constant booming of trucks along the long road is the sound of harvest. A big full moon rises from the horizon and lifts slowly into the sky. Howard calls and reminds me to lock up the chooks. I run out with the torch, regretting the decision to have bare feet when I see the centipede.

It’s a warm night. The house phone rings. Our neighbor Jo calls to let us know our new calves are out on the main road in the dark.  I call Howard with another job. He is close to home but not close to bed yet. After delivering a load of wheat to the Bribbaree silos he looks for the cows, this will keep him busy until well after 10pm.

This morning I was drinking a hot chocolate as the heavy rain fell across Sydney. The winter clothes where back out and the umbrellas where turning inside out in the wind exposing squinting faces and blustered hair styles. Tonight I am cross about centipedes and foxes, cows who have been in my garden and washing dried to a crisp. I feel like I have experienced winter and summer in one day. Sydney and the farm seem like worlds apart today, even though it was just a 5 hour drive back home from the wonderful graduation weekend.

I can hear Howard kicking his boots off. Brooke sleeps soundly in her bed. I have a good book to start called ‘The Restful Mind’ by Gyalwa Dokhampa and I take it to bed. Continued below...

I have all the tools I need to embrace harvest with a great attitude and choice. After all I am a fully qualified yoga teacher now! Calm as a cucumber..I just need a good sleep first.

9am Nov 19^th 2013

I have packed Howards lunch for the day, together with the triple chocolate fudge fresh out of the oven. After a great sleep I am ready for a trip to town, restocking the cupboards and meeting a few private yoga clients. On return, the house will need lots of attention and tomorrow will be a big bookwork day.

The primary school just called and our youngest daughter has hurt her mouth on the bus trip to town.  I will head in earlier and pick her up. Howard calls and I need to sign some paperwork. He is heading over now with Ben...There is never a dull moment at this time of the year and you have to be ready to think on your feet, be flexible, adaptable and find quick solutions. My friend lives down the road and had a brown snake under the clothesline with her last week. She ran inside and gave me a call. Nothing that a cool drink on your mate’s front verandah couldn’t fix.

We are all challenged at times and keeping your cool is a great quality. It helps to keep everything in perspective. Imagine what the families in the Philippines are going through after the typhoon on November 8^th. A storm may threaten to damage our crops here in Australia but it will not usually threaten our health and safety.

I wrap up Howards warm fudge and pour hot water into his flask. The fresh ham sandwiches are packed and I think about what we could have for dinner tonight. How wonderful to be able to work, to be giving something a try and to be so directly in contact with the environment. Things may not work out exactly as we hoped at all times but in the big scheme of things, life couldn’t be better!!

*More on the Dru graduation and my yoga practice next blog..