Thirty Thousand Bottles of Wine and a Pig Called Helga

by Todd Alexander

  In January 2017 I was driving to meet my brother Glen and his husband, James, for a brief two-day holiday in Forster, the first little break I’d taken in recent memory. Our poor Barina had been so battered over the years the air conditioning no longer worked so I was driving with the windows down. Suddenly I smelled shit. I figured I must have stepped in some on the farm, so while driving I bent down to try to sniff my shoes – nothing. Confident it was not a personal hygiene issue, I assumed some farmer had just fertilised their roadside fields with mountains of dung. But the longer I drove, the more intense the smell became.

  This game of ‘where the hell is this shit smell coming from?’ continued for several minutes. At last I turned a bend in the freeway and finally saw its source. Ahead of me was a truck full of animals headed for slaughter. The smell of their fear had been trailing behind them for several kilometres and now that I was close, it was unmistakeable. I caught the eye of one of the sheep and its look was one of pure terror. I could not help it. I promptly burst into tears.

  So taken altogether it simply became unacceptable for me to continue eating meat (not to mention asking for trouble, given my genetics).

  I know ‘vegan’ is a word that often causes meat-eaters great stress, conjuring up images of barefoot, smelly hippies and hemp-clothed, placard-waving types, so I’ve come to a simple philosophy: if veganism is a scary word, just tell yourself Jeff and I have transitioned to a plant-based lifestyle.

  *

  One of the very unfortunate side effects of turning vegan was that I had to learn a whole new way of cooking. I’d amassed a vast repertoire of dishes over the years but none were vegan. The only solution was to reignite my cookbook collection, filling it afresh with vegan titles – and as if the gods of my previous Annandale life were still smiling down upon me, more vegan books seem to be released each week. Using these books as my guide, I had to reinvent the entire way I cooked. Meat was no longer used as the main flavour and texture, so at first I experimented with replacing my meaty staples with a vegan alternative. Cauliflower became the butterflied chicken in my one-pot signature dish, tofu replaced chicken breast in Asian dishes, marinated garlic mushrooms replaced pepperoni on pizza. It was a challenge to continually inspire myself to add to my repertoire but each week I’d master another dish, so in time I had thirty or forty stored in my memory bank and each I’ve tweaked to suit our palates.

  I also experimented with meat substitutes. The worst thing in the world, believe me, is fishless tinned tuna and I didn’t go much on fishless fish cakes either, though I did make my own ‘chorizo’ out of strong gluten flour and while it wasn’t disgusting, it wasn’t exactly something I’d be rushing to create again. There’s a basic rule in our house: if you crave the texture and density of meat, use tofu instead. Some vegan cheeses are plastic and bland but others are barely distinguishable from the real thing and I often make my own cashew cheese, boosted by nutritional yeast, one of those ‘secret’ ingredients vegans use to trick the mind into thinking the tongue can taste dairy.

  Eating at friends’ and family’s houses is a hassle we choose not to put them through so more often than not we take our own dishes, though Mum has grown quite adventurous and often goes out of her way to make us vegan meals. She and Dad even enjoy going vegan when they eat at ours (at least, Grant never passes on any second-hand complaints so I can only assume there haven’t been any). Most of the time if I add enough flavour (which I’d always been a huge fan of doing) no one I cook for ever thinks twice about what’s being served. Meat has just gone on a little holiday – it will be back in their lives soon enough. Even Charlie, his whole life one of the world’s fussiest eaters, has ventured so far out his comfort zone that I’ve got him eating tofu and mushrooms and he enjoys them so much he goes back for seconds, while Lucy was inspired by us (and reading about the chicken farming industry) to go vegetarian a few months after we went vegan.

  After giving up animal protein, I also started exercising with more intensity. One of the beautiful things about living where we do is observing the animals when you go for a run. I can’t recall a single occasion when I haven’t seen a kangaroo – usually they graze by the side of the road. Most often they jump skittishly out of the way, afraid that’s a rifle I’m packing in my gym shorts. Sometimes they’ll let me run past within a metre or so of them and it never ceases to amaze me how beautiful, inquisitive and mesmerising they are.

  ‘Are they ever aggressive?’ guests sometimes ask and in the past I’d dismiss the suggestion as outrageous.

  However in February 2018, I’d completed a six-kilometre run and was about one hundred metres from our driveway when I heard something skid on the gravel. In my own little running world, it scared the bejesus out of me. I spun around so fast it pulled a muscle in my neck and my heart was beating even faster than usual.

  About thirty metres behind me stood a large male kangaroo eyeing me suspiciously.

  ‘You scared the fuck out of me,’ I said aloud to him, then turned on my heel and kept on with my run.

  Now it may have been because I was wearing a bright orange t-shirt, or perhaps the kangaroo felt confronted by my turning around to look directly at him and me being such a fine masculine, aggressive-looking specimen, but within seconds I heard the distinct hopping sound of a large kangaroo. Then he produced a deep guttural grunt, the kind I have often heard when male roos challenge each other around the property.

  Still running, I turned my head to look behind me (hurting my neck again) and saw the kangaroo making a beeline for me. Holy shit I’m a goner! was the only thought to fill my head. I knew I wouldn’t be able to outrun him and if he got close enough he could rear up on his hind legs and push me from behind. In another split second I made the snap decision to head for Natalie and Andrew’s fence to place anything between my marauding mate and me.

  Like the most adept stuntperson, I slid beneath that fence seamlessly because I genuinely thought my life depended on it. With two planks of wood as my safety cage, I stood and faced my attacker, waving my hands in the air and screaming at him like one of those desperate victims in the horror films we watch with Pet. Gew became Shoo!

  The kangaroo stopped, stood high up on his hind legs and puffed up his chest. I’m ready to fight, I thought. I’m going to have to fight for my life. I could hear the thumping of my heart. I raised my hands again and screamed out some more and this impressive display of strength and scariness was enough to make the roo think otherwise. He skipped on a few lengths.

  Oh my god, that was close, I said to myself, wait till I tell Jeff! I was ready to come out from behind my hidey-hole when the kangaroo stopped and turned to face me again. He gave me what I was sure was a menacing glare. All in good time, I swear I heard him mutter to himself before laughing wickedly.

  I still go for runs, but I remain a little edgy whenever I come across a male kangaroo, and often cross the road to put a few more metres between my nemeses and me.

  *

  With a plant-based diet combined with a return to exercise, I lost ten kilograms in a little over a month and I felt as though my veins and arteries had been flushed clean. I cannot stress that point enough: I felt renewed on the inside. It’s almost beyond words the overall feeling of healthiness I felt. I have experienced no side effects, no deficiencies of any kind, and my energy levels are higher than they were with pieces of meat rotting inside my gut.

  I believe so many things have led me to the realisation that I no longer want to support industries that shamelessly take advantage of animals with little regard for their welfare. Moving out of apartment life made it possible for Flo (our little break-and-enter feline) to remind me how much I loved animals and missed having them in my life, which opened the door for Leroy’s adoption. Dissatisfaction with the corporate world led to our desire for a tree change. Having a property large enough to accommodate animals led first to the chickens, then the pigs, goats, ducks and peafowl, and their accompanying lessons led me to a little p
iglet who has grown up with me and with whom I have formed an incredible bond. Helga has become the embodiment of my belief that animals deserve compassion and respect and it makes me sick to the stomach to think how much meat gets thrown away across the world – unfinished portions, meat past its use-by date, parts of the animals we choose not to eat . . .

  I look into Helga’s eyes and I feel at one with nature, knowing that a life of overcrowding, stress, smog, traffic, meat consumption, wealth creation and, frankly, never being satisfied with your lot in life, is worlds away from the existence Jeff and I have forged for ourselves and our menagerie of strong-willed and incredibly beautiful individuals. And if I listen closely, I’m sure I can hear Enya playing somewhere in the distance.

  Our Little Army

  There is never a day that Jeff and I wake up with nothing to do. The list of jobs is eternal; for every one completed another three are added. Emergency repairs frequently pop up. A lot of days I find myself bent over a toilet scrubbing away other peoples’ excrement. This is one of the realities of our new life. I worked my guts out to get a great HSC mark, went to university for five years to study law then gradually worked my way up the corporate ladder for fifteen years to become a respected leader and yet here I am, basically a cleaner. For some, this realisation might prove depressing and it’s true there are occasions when I do not enjoy the more mundane chores of running a hotel. Woe is me, I have to remind myself; billions of people around the world clean bathrooms and make beds for their spouses and kids, and they do it all for free, often with little or no thanks. But whenever I think there might be something else I would rather be doing, I remind myself of all those city dogs chasing their own tails – a life I never want to participate in again. I would rather scrub other peoples’ shit than lick more corporate arse. And besides, there will come a day that Jeff and I hire a cleaner to do the dirtier work. But for the time being it is about maximising profit margins and maintaining our high level of quality. The more people we get involved in the running of our business, we reason, the less control we have over our guests’ experience.

  In truth I have grown to prefer physical work to office politics. From day to day I am ‘employed’ at any number of trades – cleaner most regularly, but also gardener, landscaper, shopper, chef, wine-taster, barman, vine pruner, painter, handyman, animal handler, builder, fencer, concierge, water checker . . . our time is free to fill as we please with only a few pressing deadlines like the arrival of guests, the spraying of crops or harvesting.

  I am always dirty. Dust and grime are everyday realities. My clothes are always getting stained or torn; my sweat is continually drying then running again. My fingernails are naturally filthy and it’s rare I’m not sporting some smear from Helga’s snout or the rubbing of her freshly muddied body. No job on a property the size of Block Eight is simple or small – repairing a fence can take all day, your muscles so sore by the end of it, your neck so stiff, that the dull ache permeates your entire body.

  But we still love to help out friends and family where we can. We drove to Sydney and helped Jesus work on his pergola and once again I was chief labourer, carting over a hundred and thirty kilograms of pavers from one side of the yard to another. Even when Jesus left a metal clamp fastened at (my) head height and it wedged into my forehead to carve a deep Harry Potter scar, you would not have heard me complain. It’s a far cry from corporate life, where I spent my time worrying whether someone in another team was telling my boss lies about me.

  When Mum and Dad decided to sell their property on the Central Coast to be closer to us, we drove down to them several times to present their house for sale. I painted the entire outside from top to bottom, Jeff built them a stunning outside deck to take in the water views and we hacked down the neighbour’s three-metre-thick hedge (with permission) to reveal more of that lovely enough-money-can-buy scenery. Then when they moved, we spent hour after hour landscaping their barren backyard. I pulled my back so badly I could not get up off the ground.

  ‘Which one of you is giving me some of your Endone?’ I asked politely. Both my parents’ GPs handed out the drug like it was candy at a school fete and dammit, I knew they were packing.

  ‘Endone?’ Dad said vaguely. ‘I don’t even think we have any on the premises at the moment.’

  Got ya! I thought. Dad would never use a word like ‘premises’!

  ‘One of you go and get your son a god-damn Endone!’ I yelled. ‘I’ve thrown my back out for you, now it’s the least you can do.’

  And of course Mum was the one to part with her precious bedmate. But that was as nasty as I got.

  *

  With debts piling and more work than we could ever complete, Jeff and I thought it would be a good idea to self-manage our super fund and buy an investment property in the town of Branxton. Mid-2017, we bought the biggest hovel; I mean the ugliest, shittiest pile of dump you have ever seen, knowing we’ll have to do all of the labour in restoring it to its former lovely cottage self.

  ‘Now remember, Jeff,’ I said to him, ‘this property is not worth taking risks for. No daredevils; safety must always come first.’

  During demolition he said: ‘Just be careful of those planks of wood you’re pulling off the walls,’ and I gave him that look – it was I who’d reminded him to be safe in the first place, after all.

  Two minutes later a rusty nail went into my elbow but I continued demolition after the blood stopped flowing. It was going to take more than a bout of tetanus to stop this labourer from working! That night as we sat watching television, my arm went numb at the elbow and it hurt every time I moved it. Waves of pain spiralled up and down the length of my arm.

  ‘I know you think I’m a hypochondriac,’ I started defensively, ‘but I think I might have done some serious damage to my elbow.’

  So off we went to the hospital. Again.

  After I’d been seen by the doctor I texted Jeff in the waiting room.

  It’s amputation, as feared, I wrote. This is the last text I will ever send with my right hand.

  Ask if you can keep it, he texted back. What’s the ’arm in h-asking?

  *

  In no uncertain terms, it takes a particular kind of couple to thrive when you both live and work together. You’re each other’s boss but also self-employed; you’re each other’s harshest critic but also most ardent supporter. You want everything to be perfect but have to realise that your perception of perfection is not the same as anybody else’s – some days you grossly under-bake it; others you over-deliver with ease. Money is at the core of every problem you face – where it’s coming from, where it’s going. Financial stress is the one that can cripple any couple, no matter the depth of your love. Somehow Jeff and I scrimp from day to day and just assume that the next ‘cheque’ will come in before the next bill is due.

  One day we played a game where we listed all the local companies we support in the running of our little business: two dairies, bakery, butcher, egg co-operative, a water company, bottling company, winery, electrician, plumber, builder, grape consultant, grape-pickers, transport companies, laundry . . . the list went on. It was only when we made a conscious effort to go local that Jeff and I truly got a sense of the local community.

  Unlike the city, everyone is up for a chat; it’s just part of your day. Gai-Lee at the laundry taught me how to make beds using the three-sheet method and every time we drop off or pick up the linen there’s a chat and a laugh to be had. I cannot recall a single occasion of picking up the mail at the local post office, that didn’t end up with the licensees, John and Margaret, and us in hysterics. Janell who organises local grape contractors is always up for a chat and a giggle, and whenever I need a single thing it seems she drops everything for her ‘boys on the hill’. Her main tractor driver Beryl never visits without a hug and asking after the kids, and telling us how beautiful we are. Drivers who deliver the milk and bread each day stay for a chat, and over time we got to know more of the neighbours on our street
– there are now dinners and wine aplenty. As we got talking to more of the winemakers and cellar door staff, I got to know most by name, and I’m always met with a genuine welcome and a How are you?, which has extended to include the staff at local restaurants and the wonderful team at the cheese factory. Even local supermarket staff know us by name and ask us how Block Eight is going, a familiarity I doubt many people enjoy in the city. All of us locals shared our fears and concerns throughout the heatwave of January and February 2018 that kept tourists away. Block Eight’s income plummeted to depths we’d never seen in the six years of our tree change. It was comforting to know we were not alone, and rewarding to discuss potential strategies for plugging the gap. When you drive a vehicle emblazoned with your logo and branding, it’s a daily occurrence that someone toots their horn and waves and you find yourself waving back, whether you know who it is or not.

  A whole host of other companies provide assistance from further afield: designers, printers, coffee supplier, toiletries manufacturers, accountants, lawyers, insurance agencies, furniture suppliers, hardware stores, nurseries, online travel agents, payments processors, channel managers, Google . . . For every dollar we make (for the time being at least), the same dollar is being spent on all these businesses and one day in the not-too-distant future we hope some of those dollars might even find their way into our own pockets.

  But over the years of our tree change, the number of people who have volunteered their time is nothing less than extraordinary. Mel and Jesus, of course, are always helping out but then other friends like Meredith and Lachlan came to every single working bee, as did Merv. Pet brought her parents, Rod and Anne, to work and they did so without complaint, in their late sixties performing tasks at twice the speed of people half their age. Our kids know that holidays spent at our house aren’t in actual fact holidays – there is always work to be done, chores to be completed. Vicky throws herself into them with gusto.