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So this particular family of the citizens of the earth start with us, Steve and Janet (the author of this website....TAFE Certificate III & IV Information Technology Student 2003)
We have such an exciting passionate, story but because I'm not a 'writer' it won't be told in such a way as to do it justice.......you will have to read between the lines, if you’re interested, to fully understand the last 34 years of our being US.
We met in the main street of Dubbo.......an awfully dull place ironically. I was with a poet friend in my volkswagon driving aimlessly, talking the talk of 18 year olds. My poet friend suddenly spotted 'Fieldy' who had apparently been away for a while. So we stopped to talk to Fieldy.......and our eyes met. The rest is history. We went to the drive in.......I held onto the door handle all night! We had mud fights in Macquarie River! We watched the sunrise on Mugga Hill. Despite all this I had planned a working holiday to New Zealand and I wasn't about to let any bloke stop me. However we wrote love letters and he followed me over in May 1972. I had even found another gorgeous guy while in Wellington so when Steve arrived it was a toss up between them. In our bad times I always say "I wish I had chosen that guy" -mind you I can't remember his name. Anyway we hitch hiked around New Zealand falling deeper and deeper and when we stopped for awhile in Christchurch, got a flat and all, we decided next best thing would be to get married. When we put this decision to our parents Steve's Mum wouldn't sign his underage consent form would she? So we had to go back to Australia and do it. As it turns out we spent so much money going back and forth to NZ!
In 1973 we were married in Mandurama , near Orange, where my dad was bank manager at the time. We moved to Wollongong where Steve was overhead crane driver at the Steel Works. I was transferred to the Figtree branch of the Bank of NSW. We were like ships in the night.....he did morning, afternoon and night shift. When he was home I was at work.......but we earnt lots of money and spent it all.
I decided to resign because I wanted to see him more and lo and behold the day I resigned I found out I was pregnant with our first baby. We started studying the bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses in October 1974.( www.watchtower.org )
We went back to Christchurch in 1975 when Joshua was 3 months old..... I was baptised as a Jehovah’s Witness in 1976 at Dunedin, NZ. Benjamin was born in 1978 and in 1979 we moved back to Australia to Blayney NSW, then to Scotts Head. We had a bad 7th year in 1981 when Grace was born........(and for the next 23 years it was struggle street) However, raising children was a responsibility my parents taught me was precious and we didn't give it up or one another. We moved to Woolbrook near Walcha in 1981where Steve took work as a Groom Handyman on a huge sheep property and that set the stage for the next 17 years of our life. We moved to two more properties, the last being Eastlake. This place proved to be the C change for us........we learnt about native plants and it became a passion for both of us. I loved the environment and the issues of preserving it. Steve took on the challenge of learning the names of the local species and how to grow them! So when we lost our work due the fall in wool prices in 1992 we were set to turn our new knowledge into a business.
We moved to Uralla in 1994, built a house and opened Field's Native Nursery......propagating, supplying and planting native seedlings for revegetation for Landholders, Corporate businesses, Mining Rehabilitation and Government www.fieldsnativenursery.com
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