Ask anyone what they imagine a move to a small town like ours will provide and, chances are, they will say that they expect a peaceful, quiet lifestyle.
Anyone driving through Oliver and surrounding districts sees rolling hills, covered in grapevines and mile after mile of orchard. Add to this the warm, dry climate and a tranquil life is bound to be expected.
This was our expectation when we rolled up to our new home and business, in June of 1990. It was late afternoon and there was a quiet, sleepy atmosphere lying over the town and surrounding orchards. This is heaven I thought, I have really come home to my dream of “getting away from it all” and leaving the rat race of the coast.
As evening fell, the heat of the day lifted a little and we took our dog for a walk. The cool of the evening enticed people outdoors and as we walked the peace began to be interrupted by lawn mowers as homeowners took advantage of the cooler evening air. Ah, I thought, rural life is great, this is what I have been longing for.
The air at bedtime was still quite warm so we had all our house windows open but on trying to sleep, from the west came the howling of coyotes. Our own dog became increasingly restless as apparently did all the neighbourhood dogs, who set up their own chorus of howling.
It took quite a while to fall asleep but when it came, sleep was deep and peaceful. I awoke at first light for a trip to the bathroom, not yet five am so back to bed for another couple of hours, but sleep was not to be. Within a couple of minutes of putting my head down came the first cheep of a bird, a rather tentative, lone note. In a few seconds, came another lone note, which must have been an answer to the first bird as now there was a non stop conversation between the two of them. Enchanting I thought, I really live in the country, so much nicer that waking up to car engines revving. However, the two callers were soon joined by other feathered friends and, pretty soon, there was a whole choir of them filling the air with their song.
Suddenly there was a gunshot! Oh no I thought, someone is shooting the birds. I woke Dave and was telling him about the shot when another one rang out, my God, what sort of place where we living in where people shot at song birds? The shots continued at regular intervals and Dave realized that nobody was actually shooting birds, it was just done to scare them away from the ripening cherries.
By the third day of waking up to the dawn chorus, and the related gun battle, I was feeling out of sorts and had dark circles under my eyes. This is killing me I thought, how can anyone cope with this din every morning? However, by the end of the week, the morning sounds did not wake me any more and when I did awake I was rested and in good humour. Yes, this was going to be a wonderful place to live. The next day I woke up before five am with a horrible noise blasting through the window, I had no idea what it was so went to investigate. I opened the door to see a cloud of mist coming over the hedge and the really loud noise that was a tractor and spray unit going through the adjoining orchard. I shut the windows and reported to Dave that the neighbour was trying to gas us, and I had thought that this was a sleepy little village!
Directly to the north or us was Rotheisler’s welding shop. They were a long established family firm that made cherry pickers and other kinds of orchard equipment. For some reason they had a very loud steam whistle that was blown to signify the time for coffee breaks and lunch. Quite often I would be standing on a platform, hanging out the laundry when the 10.00 am whistle went off. The shrill shriek almost startled me into falling off the platform. As there were only three people working there, I thought it rather pointless to sound coffee breaks but, apparently, this had once been a signal to the field workers to take their breaks but, in that time of $5.00 digital watches, I thought the whistle rather unnecessary. However, it was a family tradition so I just laughed it off as a rather strange custom.
As summer wore on we adjusted to sleeping through late night barking, early morning spraying and all the noises that come with living here. As winter approached the spraying stopped, the birds woke up much later and we could sleep in peace, then came winter. Time for the world to rest, the orchardists to sleep late and the birds to stay warm and quiet. One night we locked up and went to bed, settled down to sleep and then it happened. A huge helicopter started circling round overhead. We got up to see what was going on, maybe a police chase or some other emergency.
When we went outside the noise was horrific but no helicopter in sight. It turned out to be a frost fan in the neighbouring orchard. The noise was unbelievable and I couldn’t believe that this amount of din was legal. However, like everything else, we learned to ignore it and sleep through it. The trick is to go to sleep before it starts as, once the fans turn on they are almost impossible to ignore as their constant turning causes fluctuations in tones and loudness.
We live in a farming community and all these noises are part of the farming life. Living with orchards around us means all sorts of noises but we also get the beauty of the blossoms, the bees from the orchards visit our garden and pollinate our flowers, there is nothing more peaceful than the droning of bees on a warm spring morning.
Visitors enjoy their time with us and remark on how peaceful and calm our life must be, little do they know how difficult were our first days in this part of the world, however, I love every day of my life and I hope to be here until I take my last breath in this little part of Heaven on earth.