Life in the Land Down Under: Ruth, Malcolm and Kangaroo Poo

Malcolm takes two steps for each of mine but he’s quick and he’s setting the pace for our long afternoon walk. He is a foot or so shorter than me but if the length of his straight white beard could be added to his height, I’d be looking up at him. We walk along Doctor’s Gully where there is lots of evidence of the gold mining industry that populated the town – and so many others in Australia. Malcolm points to a mound covered in overgrowth and tells me to scramble up and have a look. When I get up there, I can see an old tunnel leading into the side of the hill! I want to explore more, but Malcolm and his trusty pup are waiting for me to continue our walk.

Ruth gives me a tour of her garden. She is growing all sorts of fruits veggies, flowers and herbs. As we walk down the sloping hill she takes me over to a bending tree. “Just so you can see how crazy I am…I’ll show you this” she says. She puts her ear to the tree and listens. I’m not quite sure what for until I give it a try. I can hear the sap running inside the tree. Gurgling almost like a brook. I don’t know why I’ve never heard this sound before since, crazily I suppose, I’ve definitely put my ear up to a tree or two in my time as well. My environmental science/forest ecology side began asking why it was that I could hear this sound but there was something so magical about it that I decided I don’t really need to know.

Ruth is a talker. She is a story-teller. Her stories are creative but loopy and tangential. I’m often left wondering what exactly she is talking about. But her kindness and generosity outweigh the cluttered airspace. Ruth has an old ukulele that some other wwoofers left when they didn’t want to lug it around any longer. When she saw the enthusiasm Kat and I had for the instruments strewn around, she decided it was time the Ukulele moved on and she gave it to Kat. She simply saw it as an obvious gesture and Kat – my uke playing, hat knitting, traveling, German librarian friend – was thrilled!

We filled our days in Hepburn Springs with little bits of work (collecting firewood, painting, weeding, collecting kangaroo and goat poo for fertilizer, weed-whacking) a lot of eating (I felt like a hobbit eating breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and late-night snacks) and wandering about the town.

As my last wwoof hosts (At least for now) I couldn’t have asked for better people. Ruth taught me lots about permaculture, lent me more books than I ever could have read in 1 week, and truly appreciated our company. Every wwoof host is different and many of them keep journals or photos to remember each of their wwoofers. Ruth and Malcolm have a giant tool collection. Each wwoofer paints the handle of a tool. While we’re working, Ruth tells us the stories of each of the tools and the wwoofers who painted them.

Kat and my tools

They had Vermont maple syrup in their cupboard! They didn't know what to do with it, so I made pancakes :)

Ruth gardens by the moon cycles. We collected some wood that had been cut on March 1st but her moon calendar says that wood cut on this date won't burn. We'll have to wait and see!