Well it’s been a bit over a year since I did a Househusbandblog post and with good reason, I got forcibly retired from my position.
Yes with both the children now school age and a second income being desirable, I once again full-time entered the workforce. No more watching 500 funeral insurance ad’s a day for me!
But with the lockdown that accompanied the pandemic, like many others I started working from home. This meant I was once again thrust into the position of Househusband, albeit one that still had to get on the computer from time to time to fulfil his work obligations. Now that the lockdown restrictions are easing and I have had to physically return to work 5 days a week, I’m going to voice an opinion that hasn’t been heard much over the last several months.
I liked the lockdown. I enjoyed it!
Yep! I was happy to be back at home – I really was! Despite being the social butterfly in my late teens and 20’s & 30’s, in my 40’s as a Dad, husband and hobby farmer I’m quite fond of the hermit lifestyle where I only see my personal family unit and rarely venture out. I still had to physically go into work one or two days a week during the pandemic but the rest I never left the farm. No rushing around in the mornings trying to get myself ready. No packing my lunch. No drive to my job. I could simply get my work done at home at my own pace, grow my isolation beard and occasionally change out of my pyjamas if I had a Zoom meeting (and even then I considered pants optional).
And the beauty was that my wife was working from home most days too! No long commute for her in the mornings. No getting home really late because of the long post-work drive. Our children’s school was quite clear that for continuity they wanted our kids to either attend school every day or none at all. Since there were days both my wife and I still had to go into work this meant the kids attended school. And since they were at school full time, it meant that my wife and I got some ‘us’ time on our lunch breaks the days we were both home. We could sit together and have a meal and a cuppa without kids screaming that they were hungry or thirsty or tired or bored or annoyed or that their sibling hit them. It was the most one-on-one time we’ve had in our marriage since we became parents! It was beautiful and it was something neither of us took for granted. And when our kids came home on the bus, because I had gotten so many househusband jobs done during the day it meant I had more time to spend with them every afternoon. It really was a win-win situation, especially since we weren’t short on toilet paper.
Isolation is natural in the bush
As for being physically stuck at home…. well…. it’s not so bad when you live on 125 acres in the middle of nowhere. During the bushfires we spent so much of the summer evacuated and wondering if we would ever see our beloved property again, it was a joy to have an enforced couple of months in the autumn upon it. Caught up on all those farm jobs that had been going wanting for so long. And with no children at home for 7 hours a day it meant I didn’t have to stop mid-task to wipe a nose or bandage a boo-boo. I completely sympathize with those during this pandemic that live in big cities – living in areas where you dared not venture out of tiny apartments must have been claustophobic to say the least. But when you’ve got huge areas of bushland on your own property you can walk around without risk of meeting another soul – being stuck at home is really a non-issue.
Wasn’t hard for our kids to social distance from the rest of the world
So yeah, I liked the lockdown. Staying at home on the farm was wonderful and I enjoyed every minute of it! More time on my property, more time with my family – where so many are hating on the Chinese right now I’m inclined to send them a thank you card! My heart goes out to all those during this pandemic who have suffered stress, gotten sick, lost loved ones, lost jobs, felt depression stuck at home etc. Just because I didn’t experience it personally doesnt meet I don’t understand or indeed sympathise. But for me it was lovely to return to the hermit lifestyle a very welcome respite – I hope some of you were also able to find a ray of positive sunshine in your lives during this crisis as well.
As of writing this the western edge of the Kerry Ridge Fire is about 5km from our farm. Due to this being the worst bushfires in Australia’s history, our heroes in Rural Fire Service are severely overstretched. As such, the RFS is extremely busy trying to fight the fire fronts and saving homes, they don’t have time to attend every single spotfire that is caused by an ember attack.
So as we can do our small part and try to protect our farm from Spotfire/Ember attack, we converted my 22 year old bush-basher paddock-bomb Ford Courier Ute into a Spotfire Fighting Vehicle.
There are kits set up to do this already available, but they are all hideously expensive. This video shows you how to set up your own for a fraction of that cost.
Enjoy, and stay safe this horrible bushfire season.
