Urban Farmer

Tag : Down Waistcoats

YES, I admit it: I once stole public property. And yes, I admit it,I was quite prepared to use my 2½-year-old daughter as a humanshield to stop moustachioed gunmen from blowing my kneecaps off.But do I regret it? Not for one minute.
Do I take responsibility for my actions? Of course not. Why?Because it's Peter Cundall's fault. Yes, he of the many-pocketedwaistcoats and unintelligible Yorkshire accent. Cundall is theintellectual author of my misdeeds. He is my eminence gris, myvegetable svengali.
It all began when I read Cundall's recent comments about how thereis a depression coming, and that one way to survive is to grow yourown veggies. When Cundall talks, gardeners everywhere turn up theirhearing aids to listen. As did I.
And what I realised was this: if we were to survive the loomingfiscal apocalypse, our urban farm needed more crop space. Wealready had three beds, with about 17 square metres undercultivation. By Cundall's reckoning - and let's face it, when hasthis man ever been wrong? - I needed another planter bed.
I determined right away to steal - sorry, glean - the timber. Thegood thing about Australia's otherwise completely insane renovationobsession is that there is always some perfectly usable timberbeing thrown out in skips. All I had to do was keep an eye out.
Filling the bed with soil was more complex. Luckily, however, Ilive just around the corner from a horse-riding school whose ownerhas no objection to me carting away the manure, piles of which Icompost into the rich peaty soil.
By a strange quirk of fate, the riding school is right next to arifle association and firing range. Generally I try to avoidjudging people based on their hobbies - except when that hobbyinvolves high-powered firearms, and especially when the peopleholding those firearms have moustaches. That's just a little toomuch like Ivan Milat for my liking.
Anyway, there I was on my way to the horse club when, in the busheson the roadside, I noticed a large pile of timber sleepers. Thesleepers were perfectly proportioned for my veggie bed, and so Iimmediately determined to help myself to four of them - beforenoticing that they happened to be right opposite the rifleassociation's clubhouse.
Would I be shot for stealing the timber? I felt fairly sure theanswer to this question would be no, especially since the woodseemed to be serving no purpose. But just to be sure, I headed backhome for some insurance - my daughter, Rosey. No one could shoot mein her presence, surely.
I came back twice, stashing sleepers in the back of my car, all thewhile Rosey looking on approvingly through the car window. I got afew strange stares, but I did not get gunned down. Which is good,because I'll need all the strength I can muster to build thebloomin' bed.