In Time, Out of Place

by You Jin

  When the sheep had been sheared, the superintendent gave the wool a rank based on its quality. Graham told me that the best wool was that taken from a lamb about fifteen weeks old. It was supple, delicate, pretty and smooth, and was often used for making high-quality women’s undergarments. Other lower grades of wool were used for weaving rugs, sweaters, coats, gloves, socks, scarves, bags and many other sorts of things, such as decorative items or toys.

  New Zealand, famed throughout the world for its livestock farming, at the time had 6.5 billion sheep. Each year, they produced 3.5 million tons of wool, only keeping five per cent of it for domestic sales. The other ninety-five per cent went out to about forty countries in other parts of the world.

  “Over the past two or three years, with the Gulf War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the global economic downturn, the price of wool has been affected. Three years ago, it was priced at seven dollars per kilo. Now, it is only two dollars and fifty cents per kilo,” Graham said sadly.

  The sheep had no idea that their value had plunged. Each year, they just went on working hard at growing one layer after another of nice, thick wool.

  Nomadic Shepherds

  By then, having been hard at work for more than an hour, the workers were soaked with sweat and were obviously getting a little tired. Graham took out a basket he had brought from home. It was filled with all kinds of sandwiches, cakes, sweet butter rolls, and pots of tea and coffee.

  “Shearers expend a lot of energy each day, so I need to bring them plenty of food and drinks to replenish their resources,” Graham said. “Whilst they work here, I have to feed them at least five meals a day.”

  Seeing the workers gobble down the food and drinks, I thought, Making a living from shearing doesn’t only require a strong body, but also a strong mind. Otherwise, struggling with the sheep every minute and sweating whilst the lambs bleed would really kill the appetite. How could you force something down your throat in that condition?

  In many ways, the sheep shearers were like nomadic shepherds. The nomads stay where there is water; the shearers stay where there are sheep to be sheared. Wherever there is wool to shear, those workers will go. So during the course of the year, these workers hustle between the north island and the south, living very unsettled lives. When a job is finished, a bottle of beer, a pack of cigarettes, and a good meal become their greatest sources of pleasures in life.

  After the morning tea break, the workers took up their stations again, preparing to engage in another round of “life struggle”. Graham pulled my arm and said, “Come with me to feed the pigs.”

  God, this modern superman even raised pigs! When we had finished feeding them, Graham hurried out to the shearing house and released the hundreds of sheep that had just been sheared, letting them run freely towards the endless green pastures. In the distance, those naked sheep, each perfectly round and white, looked like pearls scattered across the land.

  “Look! These sheep are sheared, and now they’ll feel like they can fly.”

  As he spoke, a shadow of a smile hovered over his face. I suddenly felt that this fellow who loved sheep, reared sheep and lived with them every day was a really lucky man.

  A Day and a Night of Farm Life

  I HAVE ALWAYS had an interest in farm life, which is so hugely different from city life. The development of Australia’s livestock industry is renowned throughout the world, so on the afternoon that we flew from Melbourne to the southern island of Tasmania, we called a farm that was recommended by the tourist centre, expressing our interest in staying so that we could gain some understanding of farm life.

  The person on the other end of the line said politely, “I’m really sorry, but we already have guests. Maybe you can look for another place.”

  Aware of the rapidly growing darkness of the winter evening, I said, “We’ve come all the way from Singapore. Could you maybe recommend another farm…”

  Before I had finished, the other party cried out warmly, “Singapore? Oh, that’s really a nice place. I lived there for one whole year. OK, how about this? You come tomorrow and we’ll give up our bedroom for you. Maybe we can cook Chinese food together for dinner.”

  The next afternoon, we went to a shop run by an Italian family and bought two pounds of rice, a frozen chicken, and a bottle of soya sauce, then asked the friendly shopkeeper for a few cloves of garlic, an essential for Chinese cooking. When we’d finished, we loaded the rented car and set out to search for the farm based on the information we had.

  It was a thirteen-hectare ranch situated in a small town called Cygnet. When we’d driven south for about an hour and a half from the capital, Hobart, we saw the sign and turned off onto a winding road. We made a few left and right turns before an adorable pink house with a milky white roof came into sight, standing on the slopes about halfway up the mountain.

  We followed the road lined with green grass and drove halfway up the mountain. As soon as we got out of the car, a balding man with rosy skin walked briskly down the slope, and called to us from some distance, “Are you Mr Lim? I’m John. Welcome!”

  When we approached, I noticed that his right arm was immobilised, hanging helplessly against his chest in a white sling. Noticing my inquiring look, he explained, “I was thrown from a horse a couple of days ago and hurt my arm. I had to stay in hospital a few days. I was just discharged last night.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he hurried on, “My wife is feeding the cows on the mountain. Would you like to go and see?”

  “Oh, of course!” I said, happily taking off my heels and changing into black boots. I followed him and jumped over a moderately high fence, where we climbed a fairly steep hill. The sun was disappearing at the end of the mountain. Myriad colourful clouds stained the sky, lovely and resplendent like newly dyed fabrics, fresh and bright. In all my life, before or since, I have never seen such a beautiful sunset. Whilst I was lost in the scene, I heard John say, “Oh, there’s my wife Elizabeth!”

  Following his gaze, I saw a woman walking out from the forest at the foot of the mountain. Her blonde-grey hair was pulled back in a blue scarf, and she carried a long bundle of hay in her stout arms. A plump cow followed closely behind, greedily chewing the hay the woman carried. She spoke coaxingly as she walked, “Oh, Lucy, you’ve eaten too much tonight!”

  Seeing us, she put down the hay and hurried toward us, warmly offering her hand and saying, “Welcome! Have a look around, and make yourself at home. John injured his arm, so all the work indoors and out is left to me. I’m afraid I really won’t have time to accompany you.”

  When she’d said this, she rushed on to continue caring for the other animals. I noticed that it was getting dark, so I went back with Risheng to start the dinner preparations.

  John had two daughters. Julie, the oldest, was sixteen, and very quiet and shy. The younger, Jenny, was fifteen. Her soft, long blonde hair often flew here and there as she spoke animatedly. She talked as if she’d always known us, and as if there was not the slightest sense of a barrier between us.

  As we got ready to cook a Chinese dinner for them, the two sisters jumped for joy. Because of our limited seasoning, we could only cook ginger chicken and—with the ham, smoked meat, eggs and peas—the fried rice that is so well loved by westerners. Remembering the little vegetable garden I had just seen outside, I asked Jenny whether we could stir-fry some vegetables. She happily agreed, picked up a basket, and went outside. A few moments later, she came back in with a basket full of perfectly white cauliflower, green snow peas, bright red tomatoes, and plump carrots, all so fresh you could smell them from across the room. She took them out from the basket one by one, placing them on the table. Pleased, she said, “I’m the one who grew many of the vegetables in the garden. All those on the table for dinner tonight were chosen and grown by me.”

  John, who had been standing quietly to one side the whole time, spoke up now. “Our main work is with livestock. Growing vegetables is just a sideline, so we can leave it
under Jenny’s care.”

  We chatted as we chopped, washed and cooked, taking two hours just to cook this simple meal. Although we lacked the appropriate seasoning, it was quite delicious. Elizabeth, who liked Chinese food but did not get to eat it often, was in good spirits that night. She took out a bottle of old wine she bought in Singapore twenty years earlier when she was teaching there, to share with us. The food and wine were both good, and we enjoyed a companionable, happy dinner together.

  After dinner, we sat before an old-fashioned fireplace, chatting in its warmth. Jenny kept going outside to bring in more firewood, tossing more logs onto the red brick hearth. Its flickering glow lit up the whole house, and chased away the shadows of the winter night.

  Elizabeth passed around the lemon tea she had brewed for us, her face showing contentment after a day of hard work. In one corner of the living room, there was a bookshelf laden with thick books. The titles covered topics ranging from literature to philosophy, astrology to gardening.

  “Who’s the bookworm?” Risheng asked playfully. “Julie or Jenny?”

  “Oh, those were bought when John and I were teaching,” Elizabeth said, adjusting the round black-rimmed glasses sitting on her nose. She smiled and explained, “After we got married, we moved to Holland to teach language classes. Though it was good money, it was depressing. You’re from the city, so you know how mentally draining the pressures of urban life can be. Nine years ago, we thought long and hard, and finally decided to give up teaching and move back to the countryside and earn our living raising livestock. Although we won’t ever get rich doing this, and our house is much simpler than it was in Holland, still, after each day of work, we sit in front of the fire and wait for the next day to come. It is a lovely, satisfying feeling.”

  “How did you make the huge transition from mental to manual labour?”

  She sipped her tea slowly, and said, “My father used to have a big farm. When I was small, I often followed him out to work and saw how he cared for the animals, so I was not only pretty familiar with farming, but I actually liked it too.”

  They worked seven days every week, and the hours each day were long. With this sort of “all work, no play” lifestyle, didn’t it get monotonous?

  “Oh,” she said, laughing, “my work is my play. All the animals are my friends, and the joy I get out of being with them every day is boundless. Right now, we have over a hundred sheep, more than thirty cows, and a lot of pigs and chickens. These animals all have different habits and personalities, and I name each one. Seeing them from the time they are born, then watching them grow up—from thin to fat, from weak to strong—my feeling for them is like a mother raising her young. There’s nothing more comforting…”

  Quietly following the conversation to this point, John suddenly laughed and said, “Every time we sell a cow or sheep, she mopes about for several days, like a mother who’s just seen her daughter married off.”

  Everyone in the room laughed. Whilst we were laughing, she looked at the clock, then suddenly scrambled up and said, “Oh, I almost forgot to feed Charlie and Robert!”

  Charlie and Robert were two newborn lambs. The ewe that had borne them was weak and did not produce enough milk, so Elizabeth was bottle-feeding them with milk collected from other ewes. Once every three hours, day and night.

  I stood up and looked out the window just in time to see her in the cutting wind, bottle in hand, squatting in the shed that had specially been built for the lambs and patiently feeding them. This really was a special, amazing sort of love.

  They needed to be at their labour early the next morning, so we said goodnight as soon as the clock struck ten. Walking from the spring-like warmth of the sitting room to our bedroom that didn’t have a heater, I felt my whole body freezing one inch at a time. Rushing to get into the bed, which did not even have an electric blanket, I instructed Risheng to wake me every two hours, just to make sure I hadn’t frozen to death.

  “There’s a piece of ginger in my handbag,” I said. “If you call me and I don’t wake up, hurry and brew some ginger beer for me.”

  I guess heaven really does look after good people. I fell asleep in the cold weather, and also managed to wake from it.

  I opened the curtains to look out at the morning scene. The view outside the window stopped my breath for several seconds. The entire field, which had been green the previous night, was white with frost. It sparkled like silver in the morning sun. Ah! I looked at the thermometer on the wall. It was five degrees below zero!

  Walking out of the house, we found that John’s whole family was already up. Rosy-faced, John sat at the kitchen table enjoying his morning tea. His daughters were toasting bread.

  “Hey, did you know that we haven’t had frost here for two or three years!” John said, laughing. “You brought the frost with you!”

  When we sat down, Jenny handed me two pieces of toasted bread, dark and crispy. John said, “Help yourself. This was made by Elizabeth. We’re far from town here, and it’s not easy to go back and forth, and things are expensive there too. In order to save a little money and a little trouble, she does everything she possibly can, herself.” He pointed to the butter, jam and juice, and continued, “Like these things. And the laundry detergent and soap for bathing are all homemade.”

  When we had finished our simple breakfast, I went outside and found that Elizabeth was squatting on the “white silk” ground, holding a pail in one hand and milking a cow with the other. She murmured, “Nancy, it really was cold last night, wasn’t it? That’s a good girl, let me milk you, then you can have your breakfast.”

  The cow she called Nancy was standing calmly, a good-natured expression of comfort and peace written all over her face after having been pacified.

  I walked closer. Looking up, Elizabeth said excitedly, “A lamb was born in the cold last night. It’s black and very pretty. I’ll bring you to see it in a while.”

  The snow-white milk gradually filled the grey pail. She patted the cow and said gently, “Nancy, you go for a walk and I’ll feed you breakfast soon.”

  “Does it understand what you say?” I asked in amazement.

  “Ah.” Her blue eyes sparkled with laughter. “Going for a walk after milking is her habit. Whether she understands or not, she likes for me to talk to her. Look at her. Even though she is not pretty, she is particular about her choice of a mate. She doesn’t like any of the bulls we keep. She always runs to the pen next door. Late last year, she bred with a bull next door and had a calf. It has a white and brown coat that is really adorable.”

  As she spoke, she carefully poured the milk into a bottle.

  “Come, let me show you the new lamb.”

  I huffed and puffed as I followed her up a longish path to a field with grass as soft as a mattress, and there I saw the little black lamb. The frost covering the grass was as thin as cicada wings, and was slowly melting. The baby lamb was wet from head to foot. It leaned against its mother, which was pure white, watching us with little eyes that didn’t show the least bit of fear.

  Elizabeth walked gently to its side and stuck the bottle into its mouth, saying, “There, dear. Drink up, and you’ll soon be big and strong.”

  The hungry little lamb sucked greedily. Its mother, on the other hand, angrily and helplessly stomped her front hoof at its side. Maternal love is a wonderful thing. Nearly all animals on earth know it instinctively. However, she wasn’t very bright and thought we wanted to snatch her young, not realising that we actually had the best of intentions.

  When she had finished feeding the lamb, Elizabeth put the bottle away and started to run. Startled and uncertain what was going on, I ran behind her. As we raced along, I asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “If I don’t run, it will think I am its mother and stick to me!” Without looking back, she kept running.

  I looked over my shoulder and sure enough, saw the little lamb, chasing us innocently with uncertain steps. I thought of the Chinese expression, Whoever feed
s me is my mother, and could not help but laugh out loud.

  Lambs are docile by nature and like to gather in flocks. Whenever someone stepped into the fold, they would run away so, though I tried many times to take a “group photo” with them, it wouldn’t work. But as I walked halfway up the mountain, I was surprised to see Jenny cuddling and playing with a fluffy lamb.

  “How come this one is not afraid of people?” I asked.

  Jenny kissed the lamb on the mouth, then replied, “This one was weak when it was little, so we had to separate it from the other lambs and feed it cow’s milk by hand. We raised it until now. It doesn’t know it’s a lamb. When it sees the other lambs, it gets frightened and runs away. Maybe it thinks it’s one of us.”

  Whilst we were chatting happily, Elizabeth took another pail and went to feed the pigs. In my mind, pigs were always fat with short legs—dirty, ugly creatures. But these pigs before me now were completely different from any I had ever seen before. Their bodies were long and their stomachs flat and, to protect them from the cold, they had a coat of fur two inches long. Their coats were white or brown, or with black and brown patches. I thought, If you shaved the coat of one of these pigs, you would have enough to make a beautiful handbag!

  “At first, we raised these pigs so we would not need to go to the market and buy pork, but after raising them for so long, we couldn’t bear to eat them.”

  When we had finished feeding the pigs, I followed her, and strenuously jumped over a few waist-high fences. We climbed up a slope, leaving me breathless for a whole ten minutes, and entered a dark wooded area. As the forest thickened, we came to a small thatched cottage. Inside, it was full of bundles of hay, stacked up high. Elizabeth and her older daughter Julie deftly lifted the hay, loading it onto a wooden pallet. Then, one in front and one at the back, they carried the hay to a “corral”. The so-called “corral” was not a typical tiny space enclosed by a fence, but was a large field surrounded by barbed wire, making it a natural gigantic cattle pen.