The Holiday

The Holiday

How An Old Owl Changed My Father

Donald Bambrick

Another year almost over.

My father was getting on in years, so I grabbed my family and made the three days road trip to see him for the holiday season. He had pestered me for ages to bring my children to see him, so we upped and went to him. Since divorce, we had taken turns to have them for the holidays. I also felt a little guilty for not visiting more often since the death of my mother.

Now, three days sounds a long time, but in fact, we stopped and touristed on the way. Quite a few little stop-over places, so my family was not too bored by the trip. One really long day would have done it, but we made it a mini holiday on the way.

Finally, towards the end of the third day, we turned off the main road and onto the dirt road that led to home. Another half an our and we pulled up at the old family farm. The last house on the road.

Dad had inherited it off his father, who had inherited it off his.

My father opened the screen door and came out. My first thought was how much greyer he was, but it looked good on him. He seemed to be well and came to the car quite easily. A good day for his “Rhumatiz”.

The old house looked to be in reasonable shape, but some paint would not have been wasted on a few places. All in all, not too bad.

Of course, we all had big hugs from him. He was almost a bear of a man, tall and heavy set, but not obese or anything. My three children remembered him, and gave as good as they could with the hugging, although dad was gentle with them.

He and I had our traditional bear hug competition. I lost, again. I think I need to go to a Gym.

Mind you, he was quite a lot bigger than me, so I just put it down to his size.

Then it was time to unload the car and get inside to freshen up before dinner. I could smell delicious cooking smells already.

Dinner was his world-famous slow-cooked stew and thickly sliced home-made sourdough bread. A little meat and almost all vegetables. Herbs and Thai curry, with rice to thicken it. It sure reminded me of my appetite. I could find turnips, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, beans, mushrooms, potato, and onion amongst it all, as well as chunks of meat. With the chunky bread, it was very filling.

My children babbled over each other to tell “Poppy” all the things and places we had gone to on the way. I know dad had been to plenty of them. He had taken my siblings and myself to most of them way back in the day. He pretended wonderment at each new place mentioned. He and I exchanged smiles over them.

I had managed to play travel games over the last half of the day, and soon, thankfully, the children were yawning. Poppy had to go upstairs and read them a story, and in half an hour, they had all drifted off to dream land. A little more time doing dishes, and it was time for a sit down in the old lounge room.

Dad turned on the radio and we chatted while listening to a station that played “Golden Oldies.” Mind you, they were not that old when I was young, but I supposed the years were catching up on me too.

Dads’ property was relatively small compared to those of a few neighbours, but quite large for one older man to maintain. He had over 100 hectares, but still called them Hectacres. The metric change was slowly catching up to him, but old habits and so on. He had let an adjoining neighbour lease most of his land, long term, on condition of installing a good solid fence around his five Hectares house yard, to keep grazing animals out, and no clearing of land, or sport shooting. That was a new side to dad.

Possibly around ten PM, and I couldn’t stop my yawning, and I was sent to bed.

Morning came with that delightful cacophony of wildlife sounds that rural living has. Birds greeting the day or having a singing competition, a tractor in the distance, and the unmistakable sound of wood being split on a chopping block.

I thought about laying in, but I knew there would be a kettle on the wood stove, and cookies on the bake. Also, porridge. So long since I had enjoyed porridge. I decided it was time to get up.

Yesterday had been “Town” day, and dad was going through the weeks-worth of papers and magazines he subscribed to. What surprised me was some of the bird watching journals.

When I mentioned it, he went to a small cupboard and poked around for a few minutes, then returned with an older issue. Opening it up, he showed me a story he had sent in, along with photos. I suppose he had become bored, and taken up photography to pass the time. What also surprised me was the quality and clarity of some of the photos. Several of an owl, and some of them were captured in flight. They were very good.

He pointed to them. “The barn out the back probably should have been demolished after the last big storm, but there are Barn Owls in there. The barn started leaning badly, but I shored it up so it looks drunk, but is still standing.”

He showed me his camera and zoom lens. An expensive looking digital Canon, with a long lens. We would have gone on with the conversation, but we could hear children stomping down the old wooden stairway, and them chattering.

So, breakfast was organised. Warm porridge, coffee, orange juice, or milk, as desired, and freshly baked biscuits. Cream and strawberry jam with the biscuits, or on freshly baked, thickly sliced sourdough bread.

The starving horde was finally sated. Then it was time for the tour.

First up it was feed the farm animals and let the chickens out of their coop and into the larger grassed run, and collect the eggs. My littlest solemnly carried the basket back to the house as if carrying the most fragile vase or something. I think she was amazed at actually seeing where eggs came from, rather than a carton from a fridge.

To my surprise, the old farm land-rover still went. It was an old mines vehicle, and had been a troop carrier, but the top had been removed, although the seats for crew were still there. He still drove it to town once a week for his needs. Or the occasional market when his citrus trees, and other fruits were in season. He also had a considerable pumpkin patch too. I think the local law turned a blind eye. It ran well and the brakes worked, so we did the tour.

He had kept a good section of the stream that ran though his land within his house yard. I noticed a lot of small trees planted evenly along it and through his yard. I mentioned it. “Good for the birds, and lots of opportunities to photograph them. I’ve been reading about so much land being cleared and habitat being destroyed, so I thought I might grow some for wildlife. Nicely spaced trees break the wind, give insect eating birds somewhere to roost while they search for food, and grasses give the occasional duck some seed feed. I have even seen quite a few frogs and lizards too, but they are hard to photograph. My bird photo count is up to 37 species, and some are threatened migratory birds too!” I wasn’t sure if he was proud or boasting, or maybe both. These were not the topics I remembered talking about when I was young. Farm income was strong in those conversations.

Then it was back to the badly leaning barn. It did look drunk.

Inside though, I could see the props against leaning posts, and a few hand winches attempting to slowly right the old shed. In the middle of the floor were a few bales of straw. I asked if we were going to mulch trees or a garden later.

“No,” he replied. “That straw is owl food.” He pointed upwards.

“Ever since I can remember”, he said, “there has been a barn owl, or several, in this old barn. Maybe even Granddad, the children and grandchildren.”

I looked and along some rafters, and I could see sleeping owls perched in different places. My children were very excited to see them.

“These are the owls I photographed. Mice live in the old straw and the owls stop them breeding up too much. Straw gives the mice some shelter, but the owls get enough in here and out in the wild to keep themselves alive. A sort of balance between owl and mouse exists with neither becoming too overpopulated. When the storm came and the barn took on that lean, the owls disappeared. Maybe they thought it was a goner too. But while I was inside contemplating what to do with everything inside, a really old looking owl flew back in. it perched up high and I looked at it, and it looked at me. I figured he was old and needed a home too, and so I did what I could to stabilise the barn. Another big storm, and likely it will not survive. Maybe I need to build another newer and stronger barn against that day.”

Dad had once been one of those who preached that you had to get rid of trees to make money off the land. Now, he seemed to have completely changed track. Keeping an old barn just because some owls were there seemed so out of his character.

I noticed some new timber stacked in a pile, with wire and hessian rolled up nearby, and sheets of roofing iron. I asked about that.

It seemed that since he had begun posting his photos, people had started asking if they could come to photograph birds.

Dad was going to build some photographer “Hides.” He just had to decide where the best locations were for seeing as many types of bird as possible. Even a few bed and breakfast stays with a rustic flavour to them. Making money from nature.

I was amazed. A Barn Owl had converted my old-fashioned farming father into a conservationist.

I looked up to the sleeping owls and silently said to them, “Great work. “