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Kathy Prokhovnik

~ Sydney snaps: what's behind what's around you

Kathy Prokhovnik

Category Archives: At the farm

The farm

20 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by kathyprokhovnik in At the farm

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community

In 2002 I bought a farm with two other people. Nine hundred acres of beauty. One failed friendship, one wedding and hundreds of phone calls later, we had permission from the local council to establish a community with eight houses. A further five years after that, on September 7, 2012, I sat at my desk, in my new house, for the first time. The farm project had started for me with a vision of a desk, with a large window and a large view outside. The vision hadn’t included the years of negotiation and discussion, of obstructive agencies and files that go ‘missing’. It hadn’t included the turmoil and heat of decision-making. But on September 7, 2012, at my desk, as I had imagined, there was an eagle high up in the sky, drifting on the air currents. The wind had been blowing, gusting all day but had finally calmed, and the eagle was gliding without being buffeted around. The trees were almost still, with the occasional shake a reminder of the day’s wildness.

Now that dream is over. Our share in the farm is sold, and someone else will be living in our house. They will see the bluewrens and the firetails. They will see frogs on the windows and snakes in the garden. They will hear wallabies at night, and watch the kookaburras ring the house, on gutters and fenceposts, at the right time of year. I hope they fill the birdbath with water, and let the swallows roost under the eaves.

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Music in the house

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by kathyprokhovnik in At the farm

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13 December, 2013

Outside the house in the bright heat of the day, the birds are like a chorus forming a ring around me. Chirruping notes rise above the background of bellbirds and cicadas, cascading. Inside the house, Arvo Part on the CD player, runs in melancholy beauty. The two sets of music fill the air.

At the end of the day, the catbird is the last bird squawking. The hills mould into outlines, only the tall white trunks of the trees at the forest’s edge standing out. There’s a last burst of light when the sun’s pink rays reflect off the foaming cloud.

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