Picnic! Bush Style

So, a farming family from the parish invited the pastor of the church where I am here in West Wyalong and myself to what they called a 'Bar-bee in the bush' yesterday. After the late morning Mass, we unwound a bit, changed into casual clothes and headed out of town about 15 miles to the family farm.

Pulling up at the house, Les W., the patriarch of the clan, greeted us at the picket fence surrounding the classically Australian farm house. He was carrying a large platter. "For the meat." He informed us as we got out of the car. "Why don't you just jump back in and follow me out to where we're cooking." Which we did. Across several more miles of farmland that is bearing just a stubble of green from last weeks rains. We ended up in a small stand of Eucalyptus trees (which the locals also call gum trees here.) There, we found a gargantuan picnic table, groaning under the weight of various covered picnicky things, some chairs and a swinging bench arranged in a large semi-circle and about 3 large fire pits with stone rings around them which had lots of...objects buried in the smoldering ashes of each one.

As soon as we got out of the car, we were greeted by the Australian national bird, the fly. In a great swarm. Flies, I have discovered are ubiquitous in Australia and while they appear in numbers that stagger the imagination, and they ARE annoying, they are not as numerous as parts of Southwest Asia I have been in. The other notable quality of the Australia fly is that it is slow. And stupid. So, for the rest of the afternoon, the fly was our constant companion, especially when eating the sweet things at the end of the day... No more will I mention them, because if I did, it is all I would have left to say in this post...fly fly, flyity fly fly. You get the idea.

Already out at the sight were Les' daughter-in-law, Katrina and son Chris. Soon others arrived, with their kids in tow. After about 45 minutes we had a crowd of about 20-25 people gathered, including all the toddlers running about. One of the late arrivals was John. John is the sacristan at the parish, flew missions against the Japanese during World War II and has spent lots of time what Australians call 'up North' indicating the far reaches of the Northern territory where 'going bush' is not an option, but the general mode of living. John pulled up, immediately dug into the boot of his car (what North Americans call the trunk) and produced what looked like, to the untrained eye, two cans, one larger, one smaller. These were not, in fact, old cans, they turned out to be an elaborate and highly efficient heating system for boiling large quantities of water, needed for that staff of life for nearly all of those children descended from that tree known as British Empire, 'tea.' John made 'bush tea.' Heating the kettle with Eucalyptus twigs and using tea bags, but throwing in Eucalyptus leaves as well, and, I suspect, other arcane bush ingredients that I am likely happier not knowing what they are. It will suffice to say that you could tan leather with the tea which was produced. And yet, it did have a certain appeal.

Before the tea though, came the parade of food which began to rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the various fire pits. Everything except the desserts had been cooked in them. Two massive Dutch ovens appeared which yielded the tenderest of mutton and pork, two small cast iron pots with handles were excavated which contained peas and carrots, respectively. Seemingly hundreds of large silver nuggets were produced from deep within the ash, some of which were fire-roasted potatoes, some kumera (an antipodal name for a sweet potato-like tuber), and some produced pumpkin (another staple of the diet here which has received little penetration into the North American diet, for the most part.)

The whole affair was kind of like being on the set of "Crocodile Dundee's Thanksgiving Special." Food. Food. More food. Then came what I have taken to calling The Parade of Desserts. With this many women around who are stay at home moms, the number of deserts was staggering. And they all wanted to know 'Father's Opinion' of their dessert. The apple pie was very nice, a touch of apricot and perhaps a little lemon just adding a bit of tartness. The trifle was not to be trifled with. The sponge cake with strawberries, kiwi fruit and cream was delightful, the home made Cherry Ripe, I thought was the punctuation mark in the Parade turned out to be merely a comma, rather than a full stop and was excellent. Reeling at this point, I turned to a cup of John's Bush Tea for a respite, only to be confronted with a huge slice of his birthday cake (we sang "Happy Birthday" in the shade of the gum tree.) At this point, I was ready to lapse into both a mutton and sugar coma.

The setting was truly idyllic, other than the aforementioned pests. A low winter sun, but a warm day, in this tiny clearing in the middle of nowhere. A family of generations of farmers doing what generations of farmers have done for their guests. Food that was as uniquely prepared as it was delicious. Exotic birds, mostly parrots, singing and calling in the bush. Not a snake or funnel web spider to be found. It was quiet in its own, far-from everything way. At least as quiet as an event like this laden with 10 small kids can be. But they were bush kids doing busy things, swinging from trees, playing with toy tractors, etc.

As we were getting ready to go, Jared, the eldest son, and I were standing watching the sun slink toward the horizon in the shade of that mammoth gum tree.

"I love this place." He said. "It's groiyt, idn't it?"

I nodded my agreement.

"People can say all they want about the bush, but sometimes, when I've been out on the farm all day, and I'm on my way back to the house, I stop here in the ute. I just get out, walk around for a minute, say a quick prayer of thanks for this place and head on back to the house."

I nodded again, understanding that there could be no greater compliment he could pay to the Creator, and that nothing could be more heart-felt and appropriate than that simple prayer of thanks. I'd be happy to eat with the flies like that any time.

(I took a number of pictures which, once I regain access to broadband, I will append to this post.)