Country Living – Cementing dreams

By crikey we’ve had some rain! And to be honest, the farm feels like one big “bog hole”. Not that I’m complaining about the rain. I would harvest every last drop if I could. It’s just the annoying little by-products of it that get my knickers in a twist. When you start wishing somebody would invent 4WD gumboots you know its wet! It’s usually around about this point that my selfish (non-profit making) thoughts jump into my head and I get a nasty little urge to grab the farm cheque book.

Here’s the thing … I have this recurring dream that one day I will be able to walk from the house to the clothesline and to the garage wearing a full blown pair of sheepskin slippers and make it safely back inside without a trace of mud on them. But hey, I can’t see that happening any time soon. Unfortunately for me, farm houses with their drainage and paving issues come a very frustrating last on the “farm works” priority list.

This quagmire that I have surrounding my house takes its frustrations out on all things footwear. I just can’t remember living in the city and having a “death shoe” box, but it’s what I have here. A hideous box stuffed under my house of shoes caked in mud, stained and warped that calls at me, for a jar of vanish and a scrubbing brush! For neither love nor money can I seem to get it through to my kids’ heads not to wear “going out” shoes on the farm! My weekly grocery list always seems to include bread, milk and shoes. Uuugghh!

Then there is my stupid covered alcove out the back to take boots off, 2.5m x 2.5m of sheer gumboot and shoe cluttered hell. Last weekend I counted 15 sets of shoes jammed into that space. Getting out the back door in a pair of heels can be a most treacherous affair, especially after a couple of wines. But it’s not all bad or muddy, I do have blue metal mixed in with it all, and for the vertically challenged this can be a bonus. Mixed with mud and stuck to the bottom of your shoes, you can instantly become an inch taller (although you do need to find a sharp object to eventually scrape it off).

So, with all these drainage problems, is it any wonder I get “concrete and paving” envy? Is it strange that I find myself driving to the city and drooling over driveways and shoe-free front doors? Or my sinister urge to hijack concrete trucks? Nope, I think not. So, to my girlfriend in one of the other farm houses, I say “sista” our dreams of drainage and paths are free my friend and maybe, just maybe, one day I might follow through with that threat, grab the cheque book and dart out and buy a cement factory.