We share meals from time to time but their efforts in the galley are far superior to anything that I dish up. As I sat down to pen these lines Juanita appeared on my doorstep in search of timber that could be used to stake up her tomato bushes. Funny how people always know that woodworkers have lots of handy things, so it would stand to reason that I would have tomato stakes in my workshop. I must admit to be honoured that this lady, now famous all over the country, would seek some stakes from me, a humble diocesan retiree. Anyway the stakes were provided without any fuss.
Juanita’s gardening efforts reminded me of my own long ago in my early teens. In the backyard of our home in Lakes Creek, Rockhampton, my “Imperial” lettuce and strawberries were acclaimed as being of the best. The secret lay in the soil. The plots were first dug out, horse manure was piled in and the soil returned. After that it was easy and there was no problem in selling the lettuce to the local convenience store. The strawberries were consumed at home. I eventually grew out of gardening in favour of more exciting teenage pursuits. Some seven years later gardening caught up with me again in the leisure hours at Banyo Seminary.
The veggie garden there occupied a ploughed field and many of us freedom impaired students found a kind of peace growing vegetables. One of my close collaborators at the time was John Butcher, now a priest in the Cairns Diocese and suffering from Parkinson’s. John was a born farmer and managed to bring the best out in us who had not the green fingers. For the watering of the plants we had a sleigh towed by tractor that carried buckets of water bailed from a man-made pond.
Priestly ordination put an end to our work in the vegetable patch but it was carried on for a few years by those who followed. These days that bit of dirt is deserted and, like the fields of the Anzacs in France, lies unwanted and barren.
In spite of all this gardening activity, there was none of it in the days of my parochial ministry. However there was a brief interlude in the short period of my ministry as Bursar on the seminary staff. I had a yen to plough and grow things. John Maher (cf. Swag Autumn 2010, p 27) instructed me how to drive a tractor, how to plough, how to plant sorghum. John was then a student whose family background was farming on the Darling Downs. The result was a large paddock of sorghum that eventually reached about two/three metres in height. What to do next? We had no harvesting machines. The only solution was to let the seminary dairy herd have their chop, and they loved it. And that was the end of my gardening activity.
And here is another gardening anecdote! My paternal grandfather was first a boozer and then from the age of seventy, no more booze and a most loveable grandad. At one stage of his early wayward life, he put his marriage at stake.
Fortunately his wife was a forgiver and a reconciler. He was an Anglican of sorts but disliked all clergymen except me. Our relationship was one of love and respect. His last days were spent in the Catholic Nursing Home, Bethany, in Rockhampton. Following his death the family asked that his funeral rites be conducted in the Nursing Home’s chapel. So it happened and the celebrant by request, was the late Bishop of Rockhampton, Bernard Wallace. Grandfather Bliss in his earlier days was a boxer and a cyclist. His trade was coopering and as boss cooper was foreman over three of his sons including my father. He loved to tell yarns. As a youngster he was reared in the suburb of Toowong in Brisbane. One day he was shooting wild ducks on a waterway near his home and adjacent to a Chinese market garden. He discharged his shotgun into a bushy area near the gardens and immediately there was a loud cry. Grandfather tracked down the owner of that yelp and there in a shanty was a Chinese man picking shotgun pellets, with a pen knife, from the backside of another Chinese. Grandfather apologised but would roar with laughter when he related the story..
The year 2006 was my last year of fulltime ministry in the parish of Sts. Peter and Paul at Bulimba, Brisbane. There was an African Tulip tree alongside the presbytery. It was nuisance value and needed to get the chop. The tree feller was a true professional and trimmed the thing down to a stump. He then proceeded to dispatch this stump but his chain saw screamed in protest. There embedded in that stump was a metre long piece of RSJ steel. Investigation revealed that one of the priests back in the 1920’s planted the tree and used this piece of iron as a stake to support it. As the tree grew it wrapped itself around the iron stake and lay hidden until the Makita found it. The lesson?? Beware of African Tulips, when attacked they crave revenge.
Harry Bliss
