Gerolstein is a
beautiful place. And Wendy and I have made it even more beautiful than it was
when I first bought it, what was it? Thirteen, fourteen years ago. But it has
been against great odds.
When I arrived, not long after, the aftershocks were still going on,
there were cracks in the houses, antiques smashed (though, lord knows how, not
my Picasso ceramics), trees broken apart on the sliding riverbank, and some of the
ground had taken on a different shape. But we fixed it. At a cost. The
Earthquake commission has never reimbursed me in spite of promises.
The second quake,
the devastating one, happened in February, while I was chair-bound following a
stroke a week previously. Devastating as it was for Christchurch, it did less
physical harm to us out at Gerolstein. Wendy cleaned this one up alone, while I
lay in my LaZboy. Oh, surely that was enough sorrow for one little town …
No. For us, there
was worse to come. And once again I was in Berlin, and Wendy had to face events
alone. A great storm broke out, in the middle of the night … and in the
shattered, sleepless morning she was presented with devastation. Where there
had been an acre and a half of glorious gum forest, fifty metres from her
house, where a thousand little birds used to gather nightly for a dusk chorus,
now there was a huge heap of roots and crowns … the beautiful forest had been
all but eliminated. Hundreds of trees … gone.
Well, not gone. But
lying down. Six horse yards backing on to the forest were nothing but a pile of
wooden rubble. Dozens and dozens of huge trees, some with boles big enough to
put two arms around had smashed down through the fences and gates and lay there
… and that was just the beginning. Everywhere trees had been blown over. Wendy,
Jan and Rose went to work with a will and chainsaws and cut up the huge trees
which had crashed on to my rose gardens – how they missed the house, both
houses, all the buildings, I will never know …
Come summer, and
my return to New Zealand, we tried to get someone to come and clear the worst
of the debris from the mess of forest. But everyone had their own clearing to
do, and the best we could do was get in a few jobless lads who worked superbly,
made a winter’s firewood for us (and a bit for themselves) but alas, hardly a
mark on the devastated area.
Insurance? Oh no! This was an ‘act of God’. So was God going to pay for the vast amount of work needed to put things usably right? Even He couldn’t make 20-30 metre trees grow back overnight. Well, if He could have, He didn’t.
Insurance? Oh no! This was an ‘act of God’. So was God going to pay for the vast amount of work needed to put things usably right? Even He couldn’t make 20-30 metre trees grow back overnight. Well, if He could have, He didn’t.
Over the next
three years we just didn’t look at the ex-forest – reduced to a dozen
ridiculously spindly trees -- and the buried, shattered yards. We reduced our
stock, closed the area off, and tried not to remember what it had been like
before. Wendy remade the gardens, I went through several cheque-books … and
went back to Berlin.
And while I was
away, Wendy chatted to our pal Nigel Rose of Roseworks, who has trimmed the
shelter-belts annually for us since forever. He was semi-retiring and, yes, he
would clear the yards for us.
So, last week
Nigel and 5 year-old Bradley arrived in his house bus, with trucks and digger
and king-sized chainsaw, and ever since the air has been loud with sound of
chainsaws ripping through trees, and machines chugging and crashing (and
Bradley playing ‘let’s petrify the horses’) ten hours and more a day …
Nigel has gone
home for a breather this week-end, and we snuck up to review the situation. The
yards are amazingly cleared, and a huge amount of firewood (some for us, some
for him) piled in every corner. Oh, we’re far from having our yards back as
they were. They will have to be re-fenced, graded, resown ... but at least we
have a good acre of land to re-add to our home paddock. And we can start. As
soon as I get a new cheque book.
If Mother Nature
will just leave us alone for a few years.
No comments:
Post a Comment