Chapter 04

Life Goes On

James is now over two years out of the Army and almost two years working at Right Here. He’s not yet fully settled into civilian life, but he is settled into working on the farm. His life hasn’t settled down yet, due to it being in a rising turmoil with the arrangements for his marriage to Jenny in the near future. Their farmhouse is set up how she wants it. He made the table and chairs, surprising many with the top quality of the work; although, considering what was done on the truck should have given them a clue. The farm is producing well as the first crops came in and sell well, so does the fruit from the orchard. The new trees are ready to have their produce added to the sales list and the large vegetable plot Jean started last year is now producing food for their store and table.

Despite the concerns and the early problems the farm is doing well. A lot better than Al thought it would, and most of that’s due to James and his knowledge. The sale of the land for the road widening helped with cash for the infrastructure work which was more than Al had budgeted for, and the trickle of fruit sales has helped as well. But the big difference was the corn crop as the first one paid well and the next looks like doing better. It seems there’s a higher demand for organically grown corn than there is for wheat or canola. The fields for the stock look good and they now have some stock in there fattening up for sale.

Right Here is getting a good reputation for tasty quality food that’s going beyond their local area. The extra tourist traffic along the road helps with store sales too.

The store is set up beside the gateway into Right Here and there’s no trees on either side of the road for a few hundred metres down from the store, just wild grass. So there’s plenty of room for customers to park, but they have to be careful pulling over because of the roadside ditch before they can park on the light grass verge.

One Saturday afternoon James is watching the trouble some people have parking and he thinks about how to make it easier for them. While he’s thinking Jenny makes a comment on the trucks just flying by and how it’d be nice to get their trade because there’s so many of them. An idea springs to James’ mind and he writes it down for later action.

The next week he goes to the shire council offices to speak to the shire planner, who takes him to talk to a few others. No promises are made, but they agree to look into his idea. Two weeks later a truck stops at Right Here and it starts to unload a large pile of concrete pipes just to the side of the gateway, but on the property.

Al is heading over to find out what it’s about when James intercepts him to say, “Good! They’re doing it. Al, this will be a bit of work but we want to do this, so let it be. OK?”

Al turns to him as he asks, “Do what?”

“A few weeks back I spoke to the shire council and offered to do the work for free if they’d provide the materials. The pipes are to go in the roadside ditches on each side of the road, then dirt over them and the ditches to build it up almost the same as the road but with a bit of a slope, and gravel over the lot. For a few hundred metres or so we’ll have a car and truck parking area along the road here.”

“Now why do we want that?”

“Easier parking and access for shoppers at the fruit store, meaning more trade and income.”

“OK! I can handle the usual farm tasks for a few weeks while you get stuck into doing this. You asked for it so you do it all. Right!” James nods yes in acknowledgement of the order.

Over the next few weeks James is busy laying and setting drain pipe in the section of the ditches for one hundred metres on the Rivers side of their gateway and two hundred metres on the other. Every twenty metres also has a grill and drain at road level. When the grill areas are first put in he covers them with plywood then he puts markers on the fence to show where they are. Once all of the pipes are in a council officer looks them over before he organises the delivery of the earth coming from another road project. Putting it here means they don’t have to pay to dump it. This is turning out to be a very cheap project for the council while making a major improvement to part of this road being upgraded.

While James is busy on the road Jean is busy making some changes to the store. She finishes before he does, so she takes time to add to their sign on the clear front wall. She now has healthy snacks plus hot and cold drinks available to customers, all from the farm produce. Even the bread for sandwiches is baked fresh that day by Jean.

James first does right beside the store, then right along one side of the road, getting the dirt in and packed properly before doing the other side of the road. The same with the gravel. For three hundred metres this section of road has an extra wide area to park on and an easier turning area for trucks to enter and leave the farm. Four weeks after he starts the work the parking and lay-by areas are finished.

James asks a couple of friends who are truck drivers to stop at the shop the next time they go by and to give an evaluation of the food and drinks. They do, and are soon raving about how tasty and cheap it is. After that there’s a regular flow of truck drivers stopping for a snack and a drink. James has to make plenty of stools and a narrow counter he puts along the inside of the front wall so the drivers can sit down and eat in reasonable comfort while showing others the store is busy. The shop does very well with lots of revenue and a lot of profit, despite showing wages for Jean and the kids when they work in it.

For twenty-five metres each side of the gate James puts signs on the fence that read, ‘Please park cars only in this area to allow good vision for the vehicles using the farm entrance.’ The regular truck drivers who start stopping are good about parking a bit further away from the farm gate.

The Wedding

In late April Jenny and James have a small church service for family and friends. Well, that’s how James asked for it to be. However, it turns out he has a lot more friends in the area than he realised. The invited guests number about forty, with a general invitation to all of the locals to be at the Saturday afternoon wedding and no one is to bring gifts.

The wedding date and time clashes with the opening game for the local football team which is not a competition game but just a warm-up game against another local team. So no one is upset when the start time is pushed back to an hour after the wedding, an event that surprises the Porters and James, but not Bob Watt or Peter Marks. They know how a lot of the long term residents regard James as one who’s always willing to help, never complaining, and the son of the area’s greatest hero.

The church isn’t standing room only for the wedding, it’s squashing room only with people jammed into seats and standing people pushed against the walls. The only place you can move is the narrow aisle left for the bride’s entrance. The service is short, but the meet and greet afterwards takes a long time due to the large number of people there.

The only reason they can handle the crowd is because it’s a nice day and they stay in the grass area beside the church while they meet and talk with everyone. The crowd thins a bit when the football teams leave to get ready, soon followed by their most ardent supporters. Three hours after the ceremony the crowd is down enough to let the couple depart on their short honeymoon. James will get the refreshments bill from the church ladies next week and he’ll pay it then.

True to her word Jenny marries James on the first day possible after her eighteenth birthday, which was on Thursday. However, she has school on Monday and he has to work as well, so it’s off to a hotel in Rivers tonight and back to their house tomorrow night.

Sunday morning the couple have a late brunch before checking out to go home. Each is handed a copy of the regional weekly newspaper and they’re stunned by the front page picture of them leaving the church which takes up half of it. The attached text surprises Jenny a lot.

Local Celebrity Wedding of the Year

Saturday afternoon our local quiet unsung hero, James Cowley, a returned serviceman (medical discharge due to combat wounds received in Afghanistan) and farmer, married Jenny Porter, the daughter of his boss. Although several years younger than James our sources tell us she actively pursued him and had only a little trouble tying him down. He’s quoted as saying, ‘I’m marrying my best friend, what more can you want!’ We agree with him. They made a lovely couple exiting the church (see photo above).

We found out they had thought to have a quiet ceremony with only the closest of family and friends, but word of the wedding got out to the general community. The church was jammed with well-wishers there to see them married. The only reason the local Fire Warden didn’t do a head count and cite the church for too many people in the building was because by the time he arrived there wasn’t enough room for him to be able to count those there. He had to settle for watching the service from the doorway.

The local football season’s opening game between Bowen’s Creek and Rivers North clubs adjusted the starting time of the game so the teams and spectators could attend the service. The organisers knew it would have been a double forfeit if they didn’t let their people attend the wedding!

Young Jenny is a senior at Bowen’s Creek High School and has been a resident in the area about two years, while James is ten years older and is a well-known local. He lived and grew up at Watt’s Here from ten years of age until he left for the Army after high school, returning to the area when discharged. Shortly after his return to the area he started work at Right Here and has been a huge factor in its revitalisation and return to profitability as an organic farm producing a range of tasty foods.

Locals still remember the day James was orphaned by a bushfire and his father, Tom Cowley, earned the Valour Cross when he died saving a bus load of children while getting them safely out of the fire storm. We wish the couple all the best for their future.

Jenny simply stares at James after reading the article. He blushes and shrugs his shoulders, giving her a good idea why he’s seen as a ‘quiet unsung hero,’ and she starts to eat her breakfast. On seeing Jenny start to eat James does too. Both are aware of a lot of the locals in the room looking over at them and smiling

The attention is too much for James, but there’s not much he can do about it at the moment. So he simply tries to ignore it while getting on with his breakfast.

After eating they pack up, check out, and go home to start their new life together as a married couple in their home. Typical of farming life time off is very dependent on the needs of the farm, which has no real time off because something is always in need of being done on a working farm.

Making Changes?

Monday morning is a bit different with Jenny cooking breakfast for her and her man, she likes that thought - her man, in their own home. For the first time since she was given the car she drives herself to school, and causes a slight commotion when it’s seen sitting in the school car park. The other girls are surprised she’s at school, but they all accept the need for her to finish her studies. Changing her name and contact details at the office before class is a lot simpler than she expects as the clerk has the forms filled in and Jenny need only sign them. The rest of the school day is fairly normal with only a few comments on her wedding ring. This is because everyone she interacts with was at the wedding, as were most of the others from the school, and the rest saw the newspaper report of the wedding.

The day goes as usual for James with farm work until he’s ready to go to town in the afternoon. Jean is going in to go shopping so she’ll drop him off and Jenny will drive him home. They’ve an appointment with Peter and his wife: he’s an accountant and she’s a lawyer.

Jenny and James meet outside of Peter’s office and go in for their set meeting with Peter and Amanda, Peter’s lawyer wife. Most of what they want was conveyed to Peter and Amanda well before now. This meeting is to sort out the many legal forms and sign them now they’re married.

A dozen documents are spread out for them to sign, wills for each, life insurance policies, and a power of attorney for Jenny to manage James’ money. There’s no problems with all the papers until they get to the last one, the power of attorney for the trust. Peter holds it up and asks, “Jim, before I hand you this form to sign I need to clarify a few things.” James nods yes. “Those reports I send you on the trust, do you read them?”

“Sort of, Peter,” is James reply. “Look, I’m good with my hands and what I know about farms, but those academic things are a headache. I got good marks at school, but I worked damn hard for them with a lot more studying than most of the other kids. I read what I understood of the reports then I put them aside. When I came back from the Army I had all those papers you gave me. I’m sure they’re important, but all I could make out of them was you do better than average so I signed you up.”

“I wondered if that was what happened. Especially when I spoke to you about the utes last year.” He takes a deep breath, “The trust has a lot of money in it. Do you really wish to give Jenny full control of it?”

“Peter, I’m flat chat managing my pay each week. I can’t handle the trust, so Jenny may as well look after it. I already have her managing all of the household bills. I suspect she’ll let you do the financial wizard stuff on the investments and just keep an eye on it or get money when we need it. So I’ll let her make that decision.”

Handing Jenny a sheet Peter says, “Jenny, please look at this and explain it to Jim for me.”

With a frown she takes the paper and looks at it. Her eyes go wide and she turns to James, “Jim dear, this report is the trust growth for the last six months. Have you seen one of these before?”

“Yeah. I get one every six months. I don’t understand those long numbers so I look at the percentage. Because they’re always in double digits and are growth, not loss, I just file it with the rest.” Jenny and Peter just look at each other while Amanda wonders what it’s about.

Jenny sits back to think on this, why can’t he understand this. She asks, “Jim, what numbers do you fully understand?”

He grins, “Up to a hundred is easy, even a thousand is OK. After that, all I know is: it’s a lot. As to money in the bank, I worry if it gets to less than four digits, after that I only worry if a shop rejects the card.”

Peter shrugs, “Well, that explains a lot. However, I wonder how he got through the school system that way.”

Amanda asks, “Why the big concern about this?”

Jenny looks up, “I’m ten years younger and I just found out my new husband has over a million dollars in a trust account as well as the sixty thousand he has in his bank account. I also found out he can’t handle money above a few hundred. Why wouldn’t Peter be concerned!”

“Oh!“ is Amanda’s only response.

James asks, “What’s so important about a million dollars?”

Jenny grins, “With a million dollars you can buy a yard full of new cars, if you want to. Knowing you don’t understand this explains why you work and why you’re so careful with money.”

“I work because I like working. When my parents died I had only the set of clothes I stood up in, and nothing else. So I soon learned to do without and how to make things go further. Now it’s just how I do it.”

“James, do you mind if I spend some money to help Dad with the farm?”

“Why not? If it makes the farm better it’s better for us all.”

Peter sighs as he passes the form over for James and Jenny to sign. When handing it back she says, “Peter, please keep managing the money the way you have been, but try and have a reserve available so if we need it we can get at it quickly. I think fifty thousand would be enough, if we need more than that I’m sure we can use the trust as security for a bank loan. I don’t see us needing anything from the trust for many years, but I want a fall-back position just in case of an emergency.”

While nodding his agreement he replies, “That’s about how I’ve been doing it, in case James wanted anything. I couldn’t understand why he never spent any, now I know. Now I’ll send you all of the reports.”

Next is the bank to have Jenny issued with a debit card and made a signatory on James’ account as well as giving her Internet access to it. She opens a higher interest account and puts ten thousand across into it.

After the bank they go home. Tonight is dinner with the family. After dinner Jenny sits down with her parents where she has them explain the ins and outs of the farm operations and what they cost. When they go home for the night Jenny spends time on the Internet working out a few on-line courses to help her run the business side of the farm later on.

Doubling Up

The next afternoon Jenny talks to her father about the farm and how it’s going. Al says, “Jenny, going on a strict operating cost basis I should be putting Jim on half days and half pay because we don’t need to do so much infrastructure and repair work now. However, that’ll cause him a lot of trouble. I saw how hard it was on him to not work when he was put on light duties by the doctor. So I’m looking for things we can do to help, even if they’re long term items.”

“Dad, the farm across the road is for sale very cheap. Why is that and is it worthwhile for us to expand by purchasing it?”

He laughs, “A good idea. I looked at it. The farm is very cheap as the last owner literally ran it into the ground. There’s no equipment, the soil needs a lot of work, and so do the fences. It won’t be able to provide an income for two or three years and it’ll need a fortune of investment to do anything with it. That’s why the bank has it at half the real value of the land. I spoke to them and they’d like me to buy it, but I haven’t got the collateral for a loan to buy the land and to meet operating costs until it comes good. Getting that would keep us all busy.”

“Have you spoken to Jim about Daisy Downs?”

Al smiles, “He raised the idea, but the bank shot it down.”

“Call the bank and make an appointment for us to talk to them after school tomorrow. We want to talk to them about what you think you need, plus another ten percent for unexpected issues.”

“Jenny, I’ve already done that and we don’t have enough collateral. I’ve got a lot of equity in Right Here, but not enough to cover both of the properties. I’m about half a million bucks short and they won’t take that sort of risk on Daisy Downs because of the past issues with it.”

“Dad, trust me. Make the appointment.”

Despite feeling it’s a waste of time Al sighs as he nods his agreement to call the bank to go to talk to them tomorrow with Jenny.

The next afternoon Al meets Jenny at school and he takes her to the bank since she still catches the bus most days. They go in to see the manager about a loan big enough to buy Daisy Downs plus money for the farm operating costs of them both for three years. Placing a loan file on the table the manager, Mary Quinn, says, “Al, I know you can cover the repayments on the loan from your revenue but you can’t provide enough collateral for such a large loan. Not on top of your current loan. Now, unless you’ve got something new to throw in we can’t help you.”

Jenny asks, “How about if Jim and I agree to guarantee the loan to Dad? Will that make a difference?”

“Jenny, it’s nice for you to try and help your Dad, but he’s over half a million bucks short on the collateral. Unless you have that amount of collateral there’s nothing you can do. Head office wants more collateral.”

While handing over the latest report from Peter she replies, “Why don’t you look this over then ring Peter Marks to make arrangements for us to back Dad’s loan. From what I’ve learned it’s better for Dad to have one big loan from you than a couple of loans from different sources.”

Mary glances at the report, at first, then she has a closer look before calling Peter to confirm the details. She discusses things with Peter on how to use the trust funds to secure the larger loan. Hanging up she says, “Right! Peter says you’ve the right to commit the trust and he has the authorities to sign papers. So we’ll just get you, Al, to make the loan application. Jenny can sign on behalf of the trust as guarantor and I’ll sort out the other papers with Peter. That’ll take a few days to process, but since we’re both the lender and the vendor it’ll be quick so you can start doing what you want with it in a few days. I’ll call when it’s done.”

Al is fast to fill in the paperwork and to sign where he has to, Jenny signs her part, and Mary signs hers. Al is still a bit stunned by this, and it’s a little while before he asks, “Jenny, what did you do in the bank?”

“Dad, please don’t tell anyone, but Jim has a lot of money in a trust fund. He works because he likes to, not because he has to. I’ve got control of the trust because that’s what he wants. We’re backing you.”

“Why does he have you managing it?”

“Dad, do you remember that history show some months back where they spoke about ancient numbering systems and how early societies had systems that went from one to ten then many?” He nods yes. “Jim is a lot like that. He understands numbers up to about a hundred, but not much beyond that. He also has trouble reading and other things.”

“But he’s so good with the farm and equipment!”

“I don’t understand it either. The long and the short of it is he’s very good with his hands and the farm but a total loss on academic stuff. So I have to watch over the books and things like that for him. For all he’s ten years older than me he’s the innocent babe in the woods as far as life off of the farm is concerned today.” Al simply nods his agreement again.

When they get home they tell James about buying the farm across the road. He sits down with Al and the map they have of it while they talk about how to repair the land and make it a going concern again. They soon have a set of detailed plans on how to work the land, lay it out for better usage, and rebuild the infrastructure of it. The one big help in all this is the land hasn’t been used for four years, so it won’t be that hard for them to get it organic certified once they get its soil fixed.

The work on Daisy Downs is very much a repeat of what they did to Right Here in the first year. The only difference being they know they have to add natural fertiliser and keep it fallow for two years before a cash crop can be considered. Within weeks all of the internal fences are out, the boundary fences are fixed, and the front gate is moved to now be opposite the gate for Right Here.