Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

More Habseligkeiten needed

I have taught the computer some new German words. Habseligkeiten has been voted as the most beautiful one by the German Language Council. It relates to the gamut of cherished things a person gathers about them. The runner-up word was geborgenheit, which relates to the feeling of security and self-confidence. Number three was lieben, to love.

Of course all three can be interwoven to be part of a formula which leads to a happy, well balanced lifestyle. With so much misery in the world we could all benefit with a bit of concentration on these things.

It has occurred to me that when I began yesterday’s essay there were some people preparing to ambush a convoy of Australian light armoured vehicles with a car full of explosives near the Australian Embassy in Baghdad. The attack reportedly occurred near the time I put my essay up on the web, which was 12.30pm Perth time. Three Australian soldiers were wounded, but apparently the injuries were not life-threatening. These are the first Australian casualties since the occupation began. Iraqi civilians suffered worse – reportedly at least sixteen were injured and three killed. For the moment, it seems hard to think of an application for the German words in relation to Baghdad.

So on to what I was intending to write about today. Son number one is renovating a house in the nearby suburb of Spearwood. The area was once noted for its market gardens and a Slavic/Italian population. Many of the houses have a decent selection of fruit trees, as was the good fortune of my still single son to discover when he bought his house a few years ago. He has a bed there, and here. He eats here while he is renovating.

He has a grove of prickly pear, beautiful oranges, lemons, stonefruit and a mulberry tree. Not the sort of woosy mulberries we have here with dinky little fruit, but the decent traditional type with huge mulberries as large as the first joint in my thumb. The type that stain everything and everyone who comes into contact with them a deep purple. They are the juicy type that many old timers remember, but haven’t seen since they were kids. Such memories are part of their Habseligkeiten.

At this time of the year the tree is loaded with mulberries. So yesterday afternoon my wife and I went over to gather some. We had to be careful where we walked because there is a small population of bobtail goannas living in his garden, and they like to eat the fallen fruit. These endearing, harmless reptiles can grow up to about 40 centimetres long. The diet must agree with them. They have some babies, live–born.

A good thing about mulberries is they don’t seem to have any insect enemies, aside from silkworms. But no silkworm can survive outside of a shoebox. The birds would pick them off. "Yum!" say the birds.

Our intent was to collect enough fruit to make some jam for a forthcoming school fete. Easy. There is still enough fruit on the tree to make hundreds more pots of jam, – and more fruit will continue to develop through summer. We ate a few too. Sweet as could be. We also grabbed a few lemons because these are needed to provide pectin to set the jam. We have a couple of lemon trees of our own, but they are a bit short on usable fruit at the moment.

Jam needs plenty of sugar – white sugar. We had some. Usually we use raw sugar on the domestic front. We couldn’t find a recipe for mulberry jam so we opted for the raspberry version. They look something the same. The jam took about 40 minutes to make. Lots of testing along the way to see it it had reached the right stage of gooyness. If I was a restaurateur I would have stopped half way and used it as sauce for ice cream, it was so delicious. A dash of gin and it would have made an excellent liqueur.

But we were patient, and were duly rewarded. The consistency seemed okay and we ladled it into jars. My wife had the foresight to have on hand the special cellophane jam covers. I love these. When they dry out they go drum tight. Everyone likes to tap them, as evidenced by the fingerprints when we awoke this morning. More Habseligkeiten.

The jam has set perfectly. So now we will do some labels with watercolour paintings of mulberries. That will be my department. I used to do quite a bit of painting in the past. I would do more, but never seem to find the time.

© MMIV Paul R. Weaver.

About the writer

Check out the index of my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days. Topical – often humorous – no swearing – no porn – no spam – no soliciting – no religious mania – no smoking – no catches.

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