44 Finishing the mansion

Gordon had run out of time but his son-in-law arrived to complete the house that Gordon built. It might take 6 months at a leisurely pace then he would return to his job as a steeplejack in Sydney. He already knew the area well but this time he started having problems with strange feelings particularly during thunderstorms.

He became aware of being watched whenever he was working outside and noticed his tools were sometimes being moved. On one occasion he rang me to ask if I had emptied their 8000 gallon water tank; someone had turned on the tap and drained it onto the garden causing a flood. Later all their apples were stolen from the tree. His working chain saw had been exchanged for my broken one. There were too many strange happenings to readily explain. I began to wonder whether my moonlight experience really was an off-world one.

This was confirmed later when a ‘sensitive’ moved onto a property a few kilometres away. She and her partner saw lights hovering over the place at night, lights that were not natural.

That season was a particularly good one for the raspberries and we were benefitting from the extra crop in the enlarged enclosure. We had our highest yield to date and one tonne of fruit seemed a real possibility. It was also a really good season for the birds. The welcome swallows had started mating early, in August, so by March there was a large flock in the area made up in part by the dusky wood swallows and fairy martins; the fairy martins had been attracted to nesting material freely available in the cement filler of Gordon ‘s decaying wall boards scattered around the garden. Our big shed and all the power lines started to be covered by hundreds of birds as they collected in readiness for migration. The numbers swelled over maybe a week.

Clearly our place had to be special, a marker node for migrating birds on a super highway.
I couldn’t work out why the birds didn’t leave, they just sat around. I soon found out. A weather front was moving in and riding that magnificently were the kings of the air, the needle-tail swifts, zooming from out of sight above the thunder clouds to almost head height. The air was filled horizon to horizon with their speed. The swallows joined the frenzy, but slowly by contrast. By next morning the super highway sky was empty and the only action was the occasional grey thrush pecking on the ground and calling in their single but melodic autumn tone.

The problems continued with the never-seen souls that watched the area. The phone started to ring at odd hours, usually at night, before telecommunications collapsed entirely. The local telephone node had been destroyed, apparently with an axe; some blamed the damage on lightning. The node was replaced but internet connections then became difficult and very variable though Telstra could find no faults with our local systems.

All these disturbing happenings, particularly the loss of building tools, had their effects on the finishing of the mansion next door which extended well beyond the estimated six months into years. This is the price paid for drinking river water and living close to granite tors. City people don’t know how lucky they are.