Most kids move out of home eventually, leaving their parents as empty-nesters having to adjust to the sudden silence and shorter shopping list.\u00a0 Not our parents, they went for the pre-emptive strike. George and Dianne left two of their four adult children in the family home and decided to move out themselves, settling on a glorious 20-acre farm in Tomerong, Jervis Bay, 3 hours south of Sydney.\u00a0 That was 20 years ago, and it\u2019s been a long term project that we have all shared in.\u00a0 The old family home in the Sutherland Shire is long gone, us four kids are nearing \u2018retirement\u2019 ourselves, and looking forward with delight and trepidation at the prospect of moving down to Tomerong on a more permanent basis ourselves at some point on some unimaginable \u2018retirement\u2019 day.<\/p>\n
I say \u2018retirement\u2019 in quotes, \u2018cause we all know that it ain\u2019t about sitting around doing nothing. \u00a0In fact looking after 20 acres, including several large greenhouses, has kept our parents very active and, happily, very healthy right into their seventies.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot to be said for this farming caper.\u00a0 Most of us on the far side of 40 have probably daydreamed about what their retirement \u2018job\u2019 might be, perhaps something that gives back to the community, or takes them to unexplored corners of the world.\u00a0 I\u2019ve thought that I\u2019d like something that was productive, using my hands to make things and pretty much the opposite of the desk-bound mental gymnastics of my current day job.\u00a0 Life at Tomerong might just fit the bill.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m kid number two of four in our family, and have lived far from home for the longest time, moving to Melbourne in 1990. \u00a0After over 20 years of urban corporate life, I took a sabbatical last year and spent it on the family farm. This was partly an attempt to make up for the long absence, partly an opportunity for my 11 year old son to develop a deeper relationship with his grandparents, and partly a trial retirement run, to test if the daydream could work as reality.<\/p>\n
I came into the year with a half-formed question in the back of my mind; \u201cCan you live with your parents again as an adult, really?\u201d Uncertain of the answer, I had mentally prepared myself for some rough spots. Last year with mum and dad was wonderful, with far more laughs and far fewer arguments than I had imagined. It was an easy comfortable pleasure, particularly as the only arguments were about how much grain versus food scraps to feed the chickens to keep them laying, or how many sugary treats are acceptable to buy in a shopping run!\u00a0 I learnt the names of about 100 plants, tried about a dozen new foods, and picked up a few new recipes.<\/p>\n
My son Alex and I had tried to get a website going for Tomerong Nursery during the year, but were so busy with life on the farm that it fell off the to-do list quite quickly.\u00a0 We\u2019ve settled back in Melbourne now, and are looking for ways to connect with life back in Tomerong.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to try blogging our way into Tomerong\u2019s daily life from afar, with details about what\u2019s in season, investigations on various plants, updates on what George and Dianne are up to, and other things that connect our three generations of Tomerongians together.\u00a0 Alex had free reign to create our first blog post, and this is blog post number two.<\/p>\n
You have managed to find our little on-line home, welcome.\u00a0 We hope you discover something of value, interest or amusement.<\/p>\n
Enjoy!
\nSophia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Most kids move out of home eventually, leaving their parents as empty-nesters having to adjust to the sudden silence and shorter shopping list.\u00a0 Not our parents, they went for the pre-emptive strike. George and Dianne left two of their four … Continue reading