The Country – An Insider

Into the bowl went the two eggs from Francine’s chooks, a stick of butter from last Sunday’s farmers’ market and the sugar. Next came mixing them until they were light and fluffy. These steps were a part of Carol. When she finished mixing, Carol set down her spoon and gazed out the window.

The storm clouds she had seen gathering at dawn had finally opened their gates. The slow pitter-patter of rain at noon was now gushing down. Carol saw from her window how the entire world responded to the rain, answering its call.

Her rosemary bush, once dying of thirst, reached towards the sky. It drank up every one of the thousand drops that poured from above. She liked to think if the rain had come any later the rosemary bush would have uprooted itself and gone searching for water itself.

Her roses perhaps had seen better days, but in the grey skies, the scarlet hue and deep green thorns called for attention in the picturesque painting that was her farm. Back in the city, rain meant traffic jams and squelching shoes. Here, it took on a whole new meaning. Rain was a part of life itself - with it came growth. Her flowers would bloom brighter because of it and her neighbour’s wheat crop would thrive. Out here the weather was a cycle, it pushed and pulled at the world around it but in the end, at her home, the farm, earth, and sky were one. Living in a beautiful unison of growing.

Carol felt that she too was a part of this cycle, playing a role in the ebb and flow of the seasons in the countryside. She spent the summer tending to her garden and dealing with the beehives that popped up around her. The autumn was spent collecting auburn leaves from the trees, and laying them by the various ponds, so that the tadpoles had a home to hide in as they hopped into the world as frogs. It was when the world was tinged with warmth and the smell of petrichor danced across the wind. Wintertime was spent shivering while helping her neighbours round up their livestock. And spring, the seasons’ magnum opus. The flowers around her bloomed and filled the world with a prismatic display of colours. The air became perfumed with the rich smells of bergamot, hydrangea and thyme.

Of course, farm life wasn’t always an idealistic dream, but the give and take gave every effort a reward: a day spent setting up a fence was met with a night collapsed comfortably in bed, a couple of hours spent driving into town was met with open arms and invitations to tea in rocking chairs.

Carol returned to her cake, now sifting and folding in the flour, slowly turning the gifts of this world into a delight. The memories of first making this cake as a little girl were evoked whenever she saw how the flour puffed up in little clouds as she sifted it.

There was a calm here in the countryside; Carol had felt it ever since she was young. Even in the rain, the calm was palpable. Here, the rain had a song. The rain came with a melody that wasn’t drowned out by passing cars and the hubbub of city life. Here the song carried across hills, valleys, and mountains, like a symphony of nature’s gifts.

She poured out the batter into her Mum’s favourite tin and slid it into the oven.

All that was left was setting the timer for 30 minutes.

By Riley Landau (Year 11)