Those who came before us

Words and images by Tara Luca.
Originally published in *The Changing Face of Farming, 2021*

One of the things that interests me most about farmers, and women, in particular, is the story of how they started. Being born into farming is, of course, one way. It seems people either feel it in their bones and willingly take the reins, or they don’t and run a mile towards the horizon. Sometimes they come back. Or there are those who come to it with little experience yet have somehow been drawn in, with invisible strings of inspiration guiding them blindly on the path of becoming a first-generation farmer. This is me.

Farming has and always will hold a sense of romance to it for me. I think it’s deep in our DNA to want to provide for ourselves and work in rhythm with nature in our own unique way. One needs only to feel the euphoric pleasure of growing even one head of lettuce and a few cherry tomatoes to feel that deep sense of accomplishment that swells from within when working with things that grow.

I lived a fairly urban existence until my mid 20s. I was born in Footscray in Melbourne’s inner west and played in punk rock bands throughout my teens in Sydney’s late 90s original scene. Life on the land was far from my thoughts at the time as my growing ambitions in the world of music and art felt essentially city-bound. So it was a shock even to myself when I started yearning for the great outdoors. Many people who knew me then probably wonder how the heck I ended up becoming a farmer.

But, nothing comes from nothing, and it’s fair to say that the seeds of inspiration were planted well before, deep into my subconscious, and gently grew like a slow burn over time. If I trace my story backward to where the simmering began, my thoughts go directly to the women in my life that have inspired me, probably unknowingly in my journey towards this path. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I have always been surrounded by strong pioneering women with a deep connection to the land, expressed in unique ways.

The first and most prominent influence would have to be my Nonna.When my grandparents moved to Melbourne from Calabria, Italy, in the 1950s, they brought a culture rich with traditions, all of which were centered around slow food. The relative poverty they had come from meant they were subsistence farmers by default, with skills in growing and preparing food in a frugal and nourishing way.

I observed my Nonna from a young age making pretty much everything from scratch. She hand-made her pasta, had annual sauce days, and preserved olives and vegetables from the garden in oldVacola jars that filled the shelves of her cellar.What she and my Nonno didn’t grow themselves in their small suburban backyard was sourced from local businesses, usually owned by a fellow Italian. Every school holiday, we would have driving adventures into the country to stock up on bulk food staples from the best sources she could find. I remember visits to the cheese factory on a farm just outside of Melbourne, where she would buy rounds and rounds of different varieties to store well and have fresh on hand. When going to the butcher, she would often buy a whole pig, female preferably, to make salami that would last the year.

I also remember frequent trips to a spring in the Dandenong ranges. A convoy of cars filled with extended family would head out for the day to fill up dozens of old glass cherry bottles with water from a mountain spring. It was a fun day for all, with a picnic on the side of the stream and the exotic smells of nearby campfires with fellow travellers waiting in line to fill their bottles. I remember this in particular as there was such an eclectic mix of different cultures, the air filled with the rich sounds of foreign languages, all doing the same thing. I wondered why it seemed to be something only immigrants did and why they were so excited about clean fresh water.

It’s little wonder then that when I met Alex years later, and he brought me a bag of veggies from his own backyard garden, I thought he was kind of special. He had been brought up in a community, growing food his whole life, and his parents’ lifestyle had many similarities to my Nonna and Nonno.

A few years later, when we were married and had our first baby girl, we moved to the Snowy Mountains. Hoping to save for some land, Alex took up a teaching position offered in the small town of Batlow. I quickly went from being a full-time musician, living in a busy share house, to being the teacher’s wife in a small apple farming town with a new baby. It was quite a culture shock.

Despite feeling quite isolated, Batlow was a lovely little town with an old-world feel to it. It seemed everyone was connected to an apple orchard in some way. During harvest, kids would skip school to work on the orchards, and the whole town revolved around the rhythms of the apple farming calendar. Almost every house in the tiny township had a large garden filled with veggies, fruit trees, and flowers. Even the single bachelors had at least a few rose bushes, and it was commonplace to swap veggies and fruit between neighbours. More than once, we woke up to find a box of fresh figs or quinces left on our front porch. We collected olives from a nearby olive farm and started making regular trips to Melbourne to learn what we could from Nonna.

Most of the young people in town worked full time or had moved away, so I found myself unsure how to make connections. Then, inspired by the cold climate, I decided I wanted to learn to knit. Alex heard about a local farm where you could buy homegrown/homespun spun yarn, so he took me out for my birthday. This was when I met Loraine. She owned the farm and was a passionate sheep breeder and president of the local CWA. She invited me along to the CWA in town and offered to teach me how to knit.

I was really nervous going to my first meeting, as most women were well over 40 years my senior. However, as soon as I entered, one of them took my little one from my arms and passed her around while I sat and learned to knit.This soon became the highlight of my week. During these sessions over the next three years, I learned to knit, bake a wicked cake and learn to spin raw wool from Loraine’s sheep. In addition, she shared her skills in naturally dying, breeding chickens and inspired me to ride horses after seeing her still get around her farm on horseback. All of the women in the CWA had been farmers or married to farmers, and their stories really inspired me.

When I became pregnant with my second daughter, many people in town heard I was planning a home birth and thought we were crazy. But the CWA ladies all remembered the days when that’s just what they did. It wasn’t a big deal to them, and they enjoyed sharing stories of their experiences of attending each other’s births and breastfeeding each other’s babies when a mother was ill or struggling, or in one case, had triplets! They shared farm work and worked as a community. I loved these stories so much.

While I was being inspired by the women around me and tales of their lives on the land, Alex was spending time with apple farmers and their children, and slowly started wishing he could be outside with them rather than in the classroom. So between meeting a few more dear friends, all interested in growing things, and visiting my Nonna and Nonno as often as we could, this time really set the scene for things to come for us.

After three years in the lovely Snowys, we moved back to the Northern Rivers onto the property where Alex had grown up.

Fast forward 10 years or so, and here we are. We’ve built a house and bought a farm just down the road to grow and distill tea tree oil and seasonal flowers. We grow a lot of veggies just for us, too. The flower journey I can now see clearly started in Batlow, where roses were planted everywhere and seen as just as necessary to a garden as veggies.

There is so much to learn from the women who have come before us, and meeting new farming women continues to inspire and motivate me. Sharing stories is so powerful, and it’s empowering to look to the generations before us and decide what we would like to leave behind and what is essential that we keep.

Words and images supplied by Tara Luca. Follow her work at Olive Gap Farm /@olivegapfarm.

From The Changing Face of Farming: Those who came before us