After I drop off all the recycling, I pay $11 to hand over the modest amount of trashy trash to the processors who grind it up and bury it. It’s the same price for one bag or a small truck-load. We use canvas or cotton shopping bags to reduce the eternal plastics. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and now most other Australians are doing it also, as new state laws have banned single-use plastic and the big stores are encouraging you to re-use the heavy plastic shopping bags or the even tougher fibre bags that they sell you. All the big stores now have a plastic recycling bin into which all the ‘soft’ plastics are put. A huge company in another state takes the plastic and turns it into playground equipment, benches and other handy items.

We have no mail delivery, so we rent a post box in the nearest small town, about five kilometres (three miles) away. This is an LPO, a licenced post office, run from the premises of a private citizen who is trained by and supplied by Australia Post, rather like a fast-food franchisee. The postmistress knows everyone and hears most of the local news, so she’s my go-to source for information.

There’s also a small general store, which sells a bit of just about everything—food, hardware, fishing tackle, and animal feed. They have recently got their liquor licence and offer a variety of local wines, beers, ciders, and saffron gin—if you haven’t ever tried that, you are missing an exotic treat. They have a couple of petrol pumps which provide the gasoline to keep local cars running, and they sell bottled natural gas for our stoves and barbecues. They also dispense useful advice about who is the best window cleaner or carpenter or electrician to call. Small local stores perforce charge more per item than big chain stores, but when you factor in the extra cost in time and transport costs, the prices come out very close to even.

The nearest bakery is an hour’s round trip from here. I could buy commercial bread at the local grocery store, but I prefer to make my own. Bulk flour is available from several whole food stores in the big towns, and with that and my sourdough starter I manage to keep us in toast, sandwiches, and bread crumbs with very little effort. Few things make a house smell nicer than freshly-baked bread.

There's a dedicated band of volunteer firemen and women who take care of putting out fires; the local community provides some of their costs and local taxes help with some of the rest. Most private properties have a dam (pond) usually made by a local excavating contractor, which supplies water for gardens and also to helps put out fires when needed. Dams are havens for frogs and provide water for wildlife such as the wallabies, adorable but pesky marsupials that look like kid-sized kangaroos. Our dam has two huge clumps of water lilies and is home to wild ducks occasionally. There is an extensive network of piping leading from the dam to various places in the yard and gardens—it’s not potable water, but it’s alright for watering plants and washing cars.

We pay land taxes to the local council every year, which pays for the roads and library we use and the schools and other services that we don't use or don't have access to—as well as those services that don’t happen often enough, such as roadside maintenance. The land between our property line and the edge of the road (“the verge”) belongs to the local council, and you’d expect they’d take care of it. No doubt one day they will turn up and do something on our verge, but as we live at the extreme and least populated part of the local government area, we have given up waiting for them. Several times during the growing season I go out with the mower and whipper-snipper and pruning shears and deal with the grass and weeds myself. Neighbours who own sheep, goats, alpacas or ponies often tether them on their verges to do the mowing for them.

Mown grass is caught in the hopper of the mower and most of it is tossed over the fence for the wild wallabies to eat. Branches, bark and other tree detritus are piled up and every so often run through a big mulcher. The mulch comes in handy around the yard either to lighten up the heavy garden soil or protect a young tree, or spread along the fence line to suffocate weeds.

Like other rural people, we try to get the most out of any trip to a major town. Any time I have an appointment in the capital or one of the two other large towns within an hour’s drive, I have a list of things to do. Library, bank, post office, pharmacy, large grocery store for major shopping items, news agent for an occasional magazine, bakery for a treat, and so on. When you are paying $1.59 for a litre of gasoline, you wring every bit of value out of any trip. (That’s about five American dollars a gallon, folks! And if you think that’s bad, our son who lives in New Zealand is paying $2.12 a litre!)

The point of the foregoing is to illustrate that people who opt for a rural life need to be willing to take care of some of their own needs rather than expect "Da Gummint" to do it all. You can’t live the same life in the country that you do in the city. Presumably if you have moved to the country, it’s because you want that lifestyle—and are willing to accept the changes and challenges that come with it. If you aren’t, then stay in Quaker Heights or Nottinghill and make the most of that, but don’t try and have it all.

If you have $700K to spend on a house, you should be willing and able to cough up another couple of thousand to install a rainwater catchment system and a split wastewater system—grey water for reuse in the yard and garden, and septic treatment for the toilets. Pay the bit extra for a dual flush toilet. Install an efficient shower head, and get the most efficient household machinery you can afford—washers, refrigerators, etc. Recycle as much as you can, even if it takes some extra time and effort. Being rich enough to build a $700,000 house does not entitle anyone to be an irresponsible consumer or to demand the government take care of every want.

Strong towns require strong citizens: people who learn to take control of their lives and do for themselves things that are doable. Our great-grandparents were tough survivors who did a great deal for themselves before there were so many services done for them. Should we be emulating them before we forget how? It’s something to think about.

One last word before I go and pull more of those weeds Dave warned me about: when local elections come along, find and support good candidates—or be a good candidate.

© K. R. W. Treanor, July 2018. All photos by the author.

This essay is printed here with permission and is not available for republication.