French Cuisine

Today's story number 6 tells of the day Becky sold our house in the city and bought a hobby farm out in the country.  She loved animals and with that love, she brought her little flock of 80 skeleton sheep back from the brink of becoming dog tucker.  

French Cuisine

For something to do one sunny Saturday afternoon, Becky and I decided to take the car for a run out into the country. 

Down a narrow gravel road, some considerable distance from the city, Becky pointed to a ‘Private Sale’ sign, attached to a roadside fence.  “I haven’t seen this one listed in the Herald?”  Becky said putting her hand on my arm.     “How about we stop and have a wee look, eh.  What do you reckon?”  

“What do you want to have a look for?” I asked, applying the brakes, two hundred metres past the gate.

“I just liked the look of the place, that’s all.  It’s so peaceful looking.  Let’s go back.  Please.”

Finding a place wide enough to turn around,

we drove in over a cattle stop and parked by the weatherboard farmhouse, two hundred metres down a gravel drive.

            “The sign on the fence doesn’t say how much land goes with it?” I said, closing the picket gate and kicking a stone lying on the lawn, nudging it back onto the gravel drive. 

            “Pity nobody’s home,” Becky mumbled.   “Do you suppose they would mind if we had a wander around?  We could leave a note on the door.  They may give us a phone call?”

I looked at Becky.  “Why do you want them to give us a call, you’re not going to buy the place. . . .  Or are you?”

“Well . . . We could sell our place in town and buy this . . . couldn’t we?”

“Blowed if I know, you’re the one with all the ideas.  So, you tell me.  Anyway, what are you going to do with it?”

 “Oh, I haven’t thought that far ahead.   Depending on the amount of land, we could run a few sheep; maybe there’d be room for some chooks, too?”

“Yeah, I suppose you could at that.” I said scratching the lobe of my ear.  “But then, I would have thirty kilometres to travel to and from work each day.    It could be a little far to walk?”

“Mmmm,” was all Becky could say.

            Later that week, Becky received a reply to her message on the door.  She said she was going for another look the next day.  Obviously she had fallen in love with that little lifestyle block.  

            In a matter of weeks, our lives were turned upside down.  What with selling our place in the city and signing this and that for the little block in the country.  I was glad when all the rigmarole had been attended to.  Anyway, Becky was now happy as a cat with two tails, she’d bought a farm.

            Later, when all the signed and sealed bits were done with, Becky began telling me she had plotted our respective positions on this thirty acre block. She had already appointed herself chief musterer, stock controller and sheep breeder.  

            At the time, to me it seemed a bit odd, not that I am very bright at anytime.  But we didn’t seem to have any sheep to breed from, let alone muster.

Broaching that small matter with the chief, she responded with.   “All in time,   my good man…., all in good time.”

You will have to read the book for a few more laughs.