Weather/Whether/Wether – Yes, your whole primary school education has been a lie! There are not just two, but THREE different spellings of weather/whether/wether. While I’m sure you’re familiar with the first two, the third and lesser known spelling, wether, indicates a castrated male sheep.
Example of use:
ST: Did you check the wethers in the House Paddock today?
Bessie: I saw some sheep. They looked fine.
ST: Was is the young wethers? Did you see any of those old ewes?
Bessie: Uhuh.
Tank – a big hole in the ground which stores water. Like a dam? you ask. Yes! Exactly like a dam, except because we want to confuse you, we call it a tank. And yes, a tank is also a giant plastic/corrugated iron/cement/poly container for storing water as well. And yes, we have tanks (the latter kind) sitting on the banks of the tanks (the first kind) also.
Example of use:
ST: Did you check the tank in Strip Paddock today?
Bessie: The ground tank or the poly tank?
ST: Both.
Bessie: The actual Strip Paddock tank? Or Jimmy’s tank at the other end of Strip?
ST: Both.
Bessie: Yeah… Sure.
Traveller/Roadie – No, this is nothing to do with a backpacker or person on a holiday, travelling anywhere, at all. It is, in fact, a beer you drink while driving back from one property to another after a long day of hard work.
Example of use:
Bessie: Would you like a traveller for the trip?
ST’s Dad: Better get me a couple I think thanks Bess.
Lamb Marking – the systematic process of ear tagging, tail docking and castrating (the males) all the young lambs on the property. Depending on how many lambs there are, lamb marking also generally refers to the period of time during which this process is occurring.
Example of use:
Neighbour: Would you like to come over for a BBQ this weekend?
Bessie: Sorry, we’re lamb marking.
...
Friend: Would you like to camping on the long weekend in June?
Bessie: Sorry, June’s lamb marking.
Crossie – A sheep which is not a purebred. Eg. A merino crossed with a dorper.
Example of use:
Bessie: How did you get that bruise?
ST: Bloody crossie kicked me.
Killer – The best looking sheep or cow in the herd, which we will eat ourselves rather than sell.
Example of use:
Bessie: We’re running low on meat in the freezer.
ST: There’ll be a couple of good killers in the mob I’m getting in the yards tomorrow actually.
22, 303, 243, 410 – Various types of firearms used to dispatch pest animals.
Example of use: I saw a massive boar at Strip Tank today but I didn’t have the 243 with me so it got away.
Town – any town within a 500km radius. Never assume it’s the closest town; always ask for specifics.
Example of use:
ST: Dad’s got to go to Town tomorrow if you need him to bring anything back.
Bessie: I’d love some milk, bread, potatoes, we’re out of carrots and some fruit would be great… where’s he going, Cobar?
ST: Wilcannia.
Bessie: Oh. OK…. Just some milk then, from the servo I guess.
Huts – also known as Shearer’s Quarters, Huts are permanent onsite bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen and dining located near the Shearing Shed (also known as the Wool Shed) which accommodates the influx of the shearing team at shearing time.
Example of use: I still have to go and clean the huts before shearing starts on Monday.
Swamp and Creek – A dry depression in a paddock which can be either sandy, rocky or clay-y which looks like once upon a time it maybe, might have, used to have, been a swamp or creek, a million years ago, back when there was actually water around.
Example of use:
ST on the UHF: Where are you?
Bessie on the UHF: In Lynn’s Paddock somewhere. Near some Box trees.
ST on the UHF: Have you passed the swamp?
Bessie on the UHF: ………… Sschhhh…I…sshhhuuuchchhh…. f-shschcch…ing….kn-schhhhhcchh-ow!
Feed/Pick - the amount of edible grass and burrs growing in the paddock for the stock to eat.
Example of use:
Neighbour: How’s the feed looking over there?
ST: Yeah some green pick coming through. Bit dry over the back though.
Hanging – When all the townsfolk gather in the public square to watch... woops! I mean, when sheep forget where the tank is in a paddock and decide to all just “hang” out in a group on a fence line instead of trying to find some water to get a drink.
Example of use: Would you be able to check those crossie wethers we put out in Bore Paddock after lamb marking, make sure they’re not hanging near the old creek in the corner at the top end?
Water Run – the 800million-kilometre round trip to every tank on the property to check the water level, how boggy the tanks are, how the sheep are looking, and how much feed there is. The length of the water run is often measured in how many travellers/roadies you need to take with you (depending on the time of day of course! We’re not all alcoholics out here. Just me.)
Example of use:
ST: I’m just going to do the water run.
Bessie: Sure, which way are you going? Should I come? How long is going to be? Will I have time to make dinner once we get back?
ST: Better grab some roadies for the trip…
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Sunday, February 10, 2013
The Trip to Town
Question: When does 70,000 acres become too small for two people?
Answer: After six weeks of shearing.
It’s about the six week mark, and I guess not just of shearing, but of being at Burragan without a break, when things start to teeter on the edge of homicide and there’s not enough room in this 70,000 acres for the both of us some days. Yet, ST can still go out “to check the sheep” for a couple of hours and I miss him. I think that is the key, that even when you’re ready to start shooting the pellet rifle at the other’s feet to watch them dance like a popcorn kernel, you’re still on the same team. Seventy-thousand acres is too small to hate each other for too long. Though, once the bottom lip is dropped, in a 20 room house with 32 doors, there’s a lot of angry foot stomping and door slamming to be done.
By the six week mark we’ve well and truly run out of chocolate (that usually happens at around week two, unless it’s the month after Easter). Even the cooking chocolate supplies will be disappearing fast. It’s most likely we’ll have also run out of any supermarket-bought vegetables and fruit, including staples like onions, potatoes and garlic. We’ll be nearing the end of the frozen vegetable stash, and will be relying almost totally on tinned or jarred goods to back up anything ready to harvest in the vegie patch.
At the six week mark scotch finger biscuits will diminish completely, making for a grumpy ST. While dwindling supplies of peppermint tea will be making for a grumpy Bess. Margarine and butter, naughty snacks like chips and biscuits, coffee and white sugar may well be on the blink. The freezer will be void of any chicken, bacon, or beef mince, and treats like puff pastry and frozen chips will be long gone. Fortunately, given we grow lamb, there will always be a plentiful supply of beautiful, home grown lamb… but after six weeks of shearing you’re usually left with cuts like neck chops and shoulders which require more effort and inventiveness than you feel like giving after 42 days without an espresso coffee.
By the seven week mark I’ll consider ordering this stuff out in the mail, but then I’m sure we should be heading to Town any day now, so I usually decide that as long as no one calls in and catches us surviving in this state, we can live without these things for at least a little while yet.
By the eight week mark I’m making cakes out of beetroot, ground almonds and honey, because I’ve got beetroot growing in the vegie patch and we’re on serious rations with the sugar and flour. And because I’ve still got more beetroot, and am craving anything remotely junk-foody, I’ll decide that making baked chips out of beetroot would also be an awesome idea. And it is awesome. But really, who wants to painstakingly slice beetroot into bible-page thin slices to bake into delicate homemade crisps after a 12 hour day in the paddock when I’ve still got to water the garden, feed the dogs and chooks, put on/hang out/bring in/fold up the washing, clean the kitchen, mend ST’s jeans, and butcher up a lamb shoulder just to make a stir fry…
At the end of eight week I’ll convince myself a spoonful, or ten, of condensed milk is appropriate for smoko, and dessert, and a midnight snack, and sometimes even breakfast. It was okay when I was 14 and my parents were out, why is it not okay when I’m 24 and my parents live 1000 kilometres away? And if I do happen to get visitors, they’ll have to be happy with lamb chops and lettuce for dinner, and if they really want dessert they can have condensed milk too, maybe whipped and frozen, maybe with some beetroot.
By week nine I’ll have run out of tonic water and I’ll be wondering if it’s okay to start mixing gin with coke. Bathroom soap may well be gone by now too, so we’ll start bathing with shampoo. And in desperate times, kitchen dishwashing liquid has been known to be replaced with antibacterial hand wash.
It’s basically impossible to get the shopping quantities right. Even if I were to buy ten extra of everything, then I can guarantee there’d be a mini tornado hit the walk-in pantry at the five week mark, totally destroying all edible stores, leaving only the tinned asparagus in its wake. Murphy always wins.
Ten weeks is the longest continual time I’ve ever spent at Burragan sans Town visit. By the ten week mark ST and I are doing well if we’re still talking to each other. And that’s less to do with not getting along than it is to do with actually being lucky if we can still remember how to speak English after two and a half months total of social isolation. Although, by that stage, often not talking is safer than what the voices in my head are telling me to say.
Maybe it’s a female thing but by this stage every day seems to become one of “those days” where everything gets to you and you feel like screaming the house down because of something as simple as, say, you know, you wanted cheese for lunch. But you ran out of cheese and you live 200 freaking kilometres from the closest cheese store. And why doesn't anyone else around here care about the supply of cheese? Why is it always me who looks after buying cheese and doing everything to do with cheese? And “everyone else” acts like they don't have enough time to get cheese. Yet, they don't have any problem eating cheese. And they seem to have time to do other things that in the big scheme of things, probably aren't really as important as ordering cheese. But they'll still do those other things before ordering cheese, even though having cheese is a pretty big freaking deal. And in the end they just leave buying cheese up to you, even though you bloody well hate having to be the one that buys cheese all the time.
Sure, cheese is symbolising a lot of things in this story, but I think it about sums up the general thought process at the ten week point. I’m certain ST thinks the same. Just replace cheese with doing sheep work or renovating the laundry. Anyone for a whine with that cheese?
The worst thing though, is that a trip to Town after 10 weeks is a kamikaze journey. I’m not joking. It. Can. Make. You. Want. To kill yourself. With a supermarket green bag. But the good thing is you accidentally left those in the cupboard at home (again), which is 500km away.
Five-hundred kilometres!? I can hear you ask. But Bessie, it says in your little bio up there on the top right of the page that you’re only 110km from the closest town, and 200km from the supermarket? Well my friend, that’s true. We are only 110km from Wilcannia – you’ll notice I’ve put it in italics there. That’s because I want you to read the word in such a way that it has so much meaning and emphasis, that it conveys exactly what I’m trying to say about Wilcannia, without me actually having to spell it out for you here…if you know what I mean? Anyway, without going into detail, there are no shops in Wilcannia, so it’d be totally pointless driving the 110km to get there.
To our east, 200km away, we have Cobar… (Notice there’s no italics; Cobar is nowhere near in the same league as Wilcannia.) Cobar’s nice enough. A mining town. Two IGA supermarkets (where I can order groceries from to be delivered in our twice weekly mail if I wish), a bakery, a few coffee shops, an excellent motorbike shop, a Subway and Eagle Boys… (I don’t eat either of those, but I wanted to emphasise the lack of a MacDonald’s, KFC or Red Rooster)…
But still, we’re running 70,000 acres here! We’ve got NEEDS! Like car parts and shed supplies and building renovation materials, and WINE! And not just any old wine, but BULK, well priced wine! The kind of wine where you get a discount for buying six or more bottles. We require Dan Murphy’s and Bunnings, speciality farm supplies shops, stock feed shops, and auto parts shops.
And I require Thai food and the shoe department at Myer.
And so, when we “Go to Town,” we drive 500 kilometres east to the bright lights of Central Western NSW’s major centre, Dubbo! (Notice lack of italics AND the addition of an exclamation mark.) To everyone who’s ever heard me say, “We went to Town yesterday,” or “I popped a letter a letter in the post for you in Town,” or “I found something for you in town, I’ll post it when I can,” or ‘I just got back from town, so it took a while to unpack,’ I want you to listen to me right now, very carefully: there was really no simple ‘popping’ or ‘finding’ or ‘just’ or ‘a while’ about it … We drove 500km there, and 500km back, we paid $130 for a night in a three star motel where the shower head most likely fell off , and we forgot to take our green bags.
SO - after ten deprived weeks at Burragan, without chocolate or margarine or scotch finger biscuits, Town becomes this mythical Atlantis where people can walk to the corner store without having to pack a cut lunch, where ice cream comes on sticks out of huge freezers and there’s, like, 50 different flavours, and where women can wear ballet flats made out of felt and suede, in colours like beige without them turning dirt-red, and where you can still drive around when it rains, because the ground is covered in this stuff called cement and bitumen.
Delirious with anticipation at the magical things which happen in this place called Town, I envisage a Grace Kelly like version of myself waltzing into a day spa, ready for a full day of pampering, waxing, preening and hair styling. The pre-haircut scalp massage is so undoing that other ladies in the salon point to me, “I’ll have what she’s having,” they say.
Afterwards, ST, who’s donned a suit and tie for the occasion (which I haven’t have to spend hours dragging him around every bloody men’s shop in Town to try on), takes me out to dinner at the best restaurant in Town where we feast on seafood that’s been flown in fresh from the trawlers that morning. We might catch a movie after dinner, or we might hit the local wine bar for cocktails and a cheese platter.
We’ll enjoy a full 12 hours of sleep on a King-size bed with luxurious 1000TC sheets, and who knows, maybe we’ll be upgraded to the Premium Deluxe Room, just because. A full cooked breakfast will be delivered straight to the door come 8.30am and we’ll be ready to complete our remaining few Town jobs by the time the shops open at 9…
And then, when you’re two hours into a five hour car trip to Town, reality comes crashing down – because actually, by week ten, the trip to Town is like a 15 minute trip to Disney Land where Mickey Mouse throws up on you on the giant tea cup ride. I’ve never been to Disney Land, or had Mickey throw up on me. But my point is that there’s just way not enough time to any of the fun stuff, yet you can’t avoid the bad stuff – it sticks to you and smells gross.
When we lived in Townsville the local supermarket was less than a block from our house. I used to visit every second day. So say, for 15 minutes every second day, for ten weeks, is… 8 hours and 45 minutes of supermarket time... How much fun do you think there’s to be had in cramming 8 hours and 45 minutes of supermarket time into 2 hours max?! And say $20 per trip for every second day over 10 weeks, equates to $700… yep, that sounds about right… it hurts when that figure flashes up on the checkout scanner. And you haven’t even been to Dan Murphy’s yet.
The trip to Town is a nightmare. You will NEVER be able to achieve 100percent of the jobs on your list. You will NEVER be able to complete the supermarket shopping without causing a scene with your loved one in the canned food section. You will NEVER be able to find the right motorbike/car/truck filter at the first, second, or even third store you visit, so you will spend precious hours visiting every, single auto parts store in Town and you will have to forfeit your time in the Myer shoe department. You will NEVER have to time for a three course dinner – if you’re lucky you might get a 50cent cone to eat in the stinky, cramped motel room after Thai takeaway. You will NEVER have time to see a movie at the cinemas.
You will have a fitful sleep, and you will wake up at sunrise just as you normally do. You will be grumpy the next morning as you scoff a McMuffin for breakfast and then you’ll proceed to run around like a headless chook still trying to find yesterday’s motorbike/car/truck filter. The garden nurseries will NOT have any of the plants you’re looking for, and the ones you do manage to buy will need to be tightly wrapped in plastic to ensure they still have leaves after a journey home in the back of the ute. And even then, they’ll still probably die once you re-plant them and you’ll be waiting another 10 weeks until you can buy new ones (and there’s only five lots of ten weeks in a year!)
Then, just as you wish you could stop for the day, have a coffee and head back to the motel room for a nap before dinner and stay another night to finish you list, nope, nup, sorry, I forgot to mention you had to check out of the motel by 10am, so allllllllllllll day every time you got out of the ute, you had to shift stuff from the tray to the front seat so it wouldn’t get stolen, and back again every time you got back in the car.
It’s also incredibly likely that something will go wrong with your car during this trip to Town and you will have to drop at the mechanic and complete the remainder of your 700 mile long shopping list by foot.
And then, finally, you get back in the car for the last time, ready for the glorious 500km journey home… and to be honest, you can’t wait to get home so you can just breathe again. But you’re not looking forward to unpacking everything at midnight.
Whoa, whoa, whao! Hold up! Deep breaths… Have I scared you off yet?
Let’s go back a step…
Let me tell you about week number one.
The first week back at home after a trip to Town is glorious, with all the treats you bought from the supermarket, justified because “we live in the middle of no-where, dammit, we’ve got to have something worth living for!” As you sit back on the veranda at dusk, cicadas chirping, the scent of citronella in the air, a postcard perfect sunset dipping behind the Box Gums, sipping a glass of great champagne (because sometimes it’s worth it) with strawberries ripe from your own garden. Dogs fed, trees planted, veggie patch watered, roast in the oven, contented fiancé, the only two people around for 280 square kilometres.
70,000 acres, just the pair of us.
And it feels like we own the whole world.
Answer: After six weeks of shearing.
It’s about the six week mark, and I guess not just of shearing, but of being at Burragan without a break, when things start to teeter on the edge of homicide and there’s not enough room in this 70,000 acres for the both of us some days. Yet, ST can still go out “to check the sheep” for a couple of hours and I miss him. I think that is the key, that even when you’re ready to start shooting the pellet rifle at the other’s feet to watch them dance like a popcorn kernel, you’re still on the same team. Seventy-thousand acres is too small to hate each other for too long. Though, once the bottom lip is dropped, in a 20 room house with 32 doors, there’s a lot of angry foot stomping and door slamming to be done.
By the six week mark we’ve well and truly run out of chocolate (that usually happens at around week two, unless it’s the month after Easter). Even the cooking chocolate supplies will be disappearing fast. It’s most likely we’ll have also run out of any supermarket-bought vegetables and fruit, including staples like onions, potatoes and garlic. We’ll be nearing the end of the frozen vegetable stash, and will be relying almost totally on tinned or jarred goods to back up anything ready to harvest in the vegie patch.
At the six week mark scotch finger biscuits will diminish completely, making for a grumpy ST. While dwindling supplies of peppermint tea will be making for a grumpy Bess. Margarine and butter, naughty snacks like chips and biscuits, coffee and white sugar may well be on the blink. The freezer will be void of any chicken, bacon, or beef mince, and treats like puff pastry and frozen chips will be long gone. Fortunately, given we grow lamb, there will always be a plentiful supply of beautiful, home grown lamb… but after six weeks of shearing you’re usually left with cuts like neck chops and shoulders which require more effort and inventiveness than you feel like giving after 42 days without an espresso coffee.
By the seven week mark I’ll consider ordering this stuff out in the mail, but then I’m sure we should be heading to Town any day now, so I usually decide that as long as no one calls in and catches us surviving in this state, we can live without these things for at least a little while yet.
By the eight week mark I’m making cakes out of beetroot, ground almonds and honey, because I’ve got beetroot growing in the vegie patch and we’re on serious rations with the sugar and flour. And because I’ve still got more beetroot, and am craving anything remotely junk-foody, I’ll decide that making baked chips out of beetroot would also be an awesome idea. And it is awesome. But really, who wants to painstakingly slice beetroot into bible-page thin slices to bake into delicate homemade crisps after a 12 hour day in the paddock when I’ve still got to water the garden, feed the dogs and chooks, put on/hang out/bring in/fold up the washing, clean the kitchen, mend ST’s jeans, and butcher up a lamb shoulder just to make a stir fry…
At the end of eight week I’ll convince myself a spoonful, or ten, of condensed milk is appropriate for smoko, and dessert, and a midnight snack, and sometimes even breakfast. It was okay when I was 14 and my parents were out, why is it not okay when I’m 24 and my parents live 1000 kilometres away? And if I do happen to get visitors, they’ll have to be happy with lamb chops and lettuce for dinner, and if they really want dessert they can have condensed milk too, maybe whipped and frozen, maybe with some beetroot.
By week nine I’ll have run out of tonic water and I’ll be wondering if it’s okay to start mixing gin with coke. Bathroom soap may well be gone by now too, so we’ll start bathing with shampoo. And in desperate times, kitchen dishwashing liquid has been known to be replaced with antibacterial hand wash.
It’s basically impossible to get the shopping quantities right. Even if I were to buy ten extra of everything, then I can guarantee there’d be a mini tornado hit the walk-in pantry at the five week mark, totally destroying all edible stores, leaving only the tinned asparagus in its wake. Murphy always wins.
Ten weeks is the longest continual time I’ve ever spent at Burragan sans Town visit. By the ten week mark ST and I are doing well if we’re still talking to each other. And that’s less to do with not getting along than it is to do with actually being lucky if we can still remember how to speak English after two and a half months total of social isolation. Although, by that stage, often not talking is safer than what the voices in my head are telling me to say.
Maybe it’s a female thing but by this stage every day seems to become one of “those days” where everything gets to you and you feel like screaming the house down because of something as simple as, say, you know, you wanted cheese for lunch. But you ran out of cheese and you live 200 freaking kilometres from the closest cheese store. And why doesn't anyone else around here care about the supply of cheese? Why is it always me who looks after buying cheese and doing everything to do with cheese? And “everyone else” acts like they don't have enough time to get cheese. Yet, they don't have any problem eating cheese. And they seem to have time to do other things that in the big scheme of things, probably aren't really as important as ordering cheese. But they'll still do those other things before ordering cheese, even though having cheese is a pretty big freaking deal. And in the end they just leave buying cheese up to you, even though you bloody well hate having to be the one that buys cheese all the time.
Sure, cheese is symbolising a lot of things in this story, but I think it about sums up the general thought process at the ten week point. I’m certain ST thinks the same. Just replace cheese with doing sheep work or renovating the laundry. Anyone for a whine with that cheese?
The worst thing though, is that a trip to Town after 10 weeks is a kamikaze journey. I’m not joking. It. Can. Make. You. Want. To kill yourself. With a supermarket green bag. But the good thing is you accidentally left those in the cupboard at home (again), which is 500km away.
Five-hundred kilometres!? I can hear you ask. But Bessie, it says in your little bio up there on the top right of the page that you’re only 110km from the closest town, and 200km from the supermarket? Well my friend, that’s true. We are only 110km from Wilcannia – you’ll notice I’ve put it in italics there. That’s because I want you to read the word in such a way that it has so much meaning and emphasis, that it conveys exactly what I’m trying to say about Wilcannia, without me actually having to spell it out for you here…if you know what I mean? Anyway, without going into detail, there are no shops in Wilcannia, so it’d be totally pointless driving the 110km to get there.
To our east, 200km away, we have Cobar… (Notice there’s no italics; Cobar is nowhere near in the same league as Wilcannia.) Cobar’s nice enough. A mining town. Two IGA supermarkets (where I can order groceries from to be delivered in our twice weekly mail if I wish), a bakery, a few coffee shops, an excellent motorbike shop, a Subway and Eagle Boys… (I don’t eat either of those, but I wanted to emphasise the lack of a MacDonald’s, KFC or Red Rooster)…
But still, we’re running 70,000 acres here! We’ve got NEEDS! Like car parts and shed supplies and building renovation materials, and WINE! And not just any old wine, but BULK, well priced wine! The kind of wine where you get a discount for buying six or more bottles. We require Dan Murphy’s and Bunnings, speciality farm supplies shops, stock feed shops, and auto parts shops.
And I require Thai food and the shoe department at Myer.
And so, when we “Go to Town,” we drive 500 kilometres east to the bright lights of Central Western NSW’s major centre, Dubbo! (Notice lack of italics AND the addition of an exclamation mark.) To everyone who’s ever heard me say, “We went to Town yesterday,” or “I popped a letter a letter in the post for you in Town,” or “I found something for you in town, I’ll post it when I can,” or ‘I just got back from town, so it took a while to unpack,’ I want you to listen to me right now, very carefully: there was really no simple ‘popping’ or ‘finding’ or ‘just’ or ‘a while’ about it … We drove 500km there, and 500km back, we paid $130 for a night in a three star motel where the shower head most likely fell off , and we forgot to take our green bags.
SO - after ten deprived weeks at Burragan, without chocolate or margarine or scotch finger biscuits, Town becomes this mythical Atlantis where people can walk to the corner store without having to pack a cut lunch, where ice cream comes on sticks out of huge freezers and there’s, like, 50 different flavours, and where women can wear ballet flats made out of felt and suede, in colours like beige without them turning dirt-red, and where you can still drive around when it rains, because the ground is covered in this stuff called cement and bitumen.
Delirious with anticipation at the magical things which happen in this place called Town, I envisage a Grace Kelly like version of myself waltzing into a day spa, ready for a full day of pampering, waxing, preening and hair styling. The pre-haircut scalp massage is so undoing that other ladies in the salon point to me, “I’ll have what she’s having,” they say.
Afterwards, ST, who’s donned a suit and tie for the occasion (which I haven’t have to spend hours dragging him around every bloody men’s shop in Town to try on), takes me out to dinner at the best restaurant in Town where we feast on seafood that’s been flown in fresh from the trawlers that morning. We might catch a movie after dinner, or we might hit the local wine bar for cocktails and a cheese platter.
We’ll enjoy a full 12 hours of sleep on a King-size bed with luxurious 1000TC sheets, and who knows, maybe we’ll be upgraded to the Premium Deluxe Room, just because. A full cooked breakfast will be delivered straight to the door come 8.30am and we’ll be ready to complete our remaining few Town jobs by the time the shops open at 9…
And then, when you’re two hours into a five hour car trip to Town, reality comes crashing down – because actually, by week ten, the trip to Town is like a 15 minute trip to Disney Land where Mickey Mouse throws up on you on the giant tea cup ride. I’ve never been to Disney Land, or had Mickey throw up on me. But my point is that there’s just way not enough time to any of the fun stuff, yet you can’t avoid the bad stuff – it sticks to you and smells gross.
When we lived in Townsville the local supermarket was less than a block from our house. I used to visit every second day. So say, for 15 minutes every second day, for ten weeks, is… 8 hours and 45 minutes of supermarket time... How much fun do you think there’s to be had in cramming 8 hours and 45 minutes of supermarket time into 2 hours max?! And say $20 per trip for every second day over 10 weeks, equates to $700… yep, that sounds about right… it hurts when that figure flashes up on the checkout scanner. And you haven’t even been to Dan Murphy’s yet.
The trip to Town is a nightmare. You will NEVER be able to achieve 100percent of the jobs on your list. You will NEVER be able to complete the supermarket shopping without causing a scene with your loved one in the canned food section. You will NEVER be able to find the right motorbike/car/truck filter at the first, second, or even third store you visit, so you will spend precious hours visiting every, single auto parts store in Town and you will have to forfeit your time in the Myer shoe department. You will NEVER have to time for a three course dinner – if you’re lucky you might get a 50cent cone to eat in the stinky, cramped motel room after Thai takeaway. You will NEVER have time to see a movie at the cinemas.
You will have a fitful sleep, and you will wake up at sunrise just as you normally do. You will be grumpy the next morning as you scoff a McMuffin for breakfast and then you’ll proceed to run around like a headless chook still trying to find yesterday’s motorbike/car/truck filter. The garden nurseries will NOT have any of the plants you’re looking for, and the ones you do manage to buy will need to be tightly wrapped in plastic to ensure they still have leaves after a journey home in the back of the ute. And even then, they’ll still probably die once you re-plant them and you’ll be waiting another 10 weeks until you can buy new ones (and there’s only five lots of ten weeks in a year!)
Then, just as you wish you could stop for the day, have a coffee and head back to the motel room for a nap before dinner and stay another night to finish you list, nope, nup, sorry, I forgot to mention you had to check out of the motel by 10am, so allllllllllllll day every time you got out of the ute, you had to shift stuff from the tray to the front seat so it wouldn’t get stolen, and back again every time you got back in the car.
It’s also incredibly likely that something will go wrong with your car during this trip to Town and you will have to drop at the mechanic and complete the remainder of your 700 mile long shopping list by foot.
And then, finally, you get back in the car for the last time, ready for the glorious 500km journey home… and to be honest, you can’t wait to get home so you can just breathe again. But you’re not looking forward to unpacking everything at midnight.
Whoa, whoa, whao! Hold up! Deep breaths… Have I scared you off yet?
Let’s go back a step…
Let me tell you about week number one.
The first week back at home after a trip to Town is glorious, with all the treats you bought from the supermarket, justified because “we live in the middle of no-where, dammit, we’ve got to have something worth living for!” As you sit back on the veranda at dusk, cicadas chirping, the scent of citronella in the air, a postcard perfect sunset dipping behind the Box Gums, sipping a glass of great champagne (because sometimes it’s worth it) with strawberries ripe from your own garden. Dogs fed, trees planted, veggie patch watered, roast in the oven, contented fiancé, the only two people around for 280 square kilometres.
70,000 acres, just the pair of us.
And it feels like we own the whole world.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Horror in the hothouse!
We’ve had a fatality at the farm, a passing on the property, a homicide at the homestead, a casualty at the country-house, a slaughter at the station, a death at the domicile (seriously, is that even a word? Mr Thesaurus seems to think so), bereavement at Burragan, a… OK, I think you get it. There’s been a - how do I put this - an “incident.”
Last night I plodded over to the chook pen to feed our four Isa Brown laying hens. I hate going over there when no one else is home, for fear of encountering slithery, slimy reptilians of the deadly, Brown variety. But ST was out in the paddock and unlikely to be home much before dark, and we’d had a particularly hot day of about 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), so I wanted to check they still had plenty of water.
It was there that I made the ghastly discovery of two fat hens lying face down in the dirt at the back of the pen. I hooted and hollered and clapped in an effort to wake them from what was surely just a very relaxed, reclined, deep slumber. But they made no attempt to get up. Their two mates clucked around at the front of the yard, waiting for me to toss them some feed. They seemed suspiciously unconcerned. Perhaps it was murder, I thought, as I prodded the corpses with a stick, hoping for any sign life.
The water dish was still full, and there was no sign of fowl play (forgive me Pun Master). Sadly, I’d known it from the moment I’d set foot near the chook pen that evening, the most likely cause of death was heat exhaustion.
You see, it’s well known chooks like to just keel over when the going gets hot. You know that saying, “fall off your perch,” yeah? That’s exactly what they’d done. But it was a shock to my system, given that just two weeks ago we’d endured days on end of 48 degree heat, even topping 50C (122F) one day! And the hens hadn’t even batted an eyelid that week. (There’s a thought for you; do chooks blink?)
There once had been six, then there were three, then six, then five, then four, (yeah, OK, it's a very complicated situation) and now there were two. My dedicated egg makers. Cut down in the prime of life.
Looks like we won’t be making too many Pavlovas for a while. Not that I think I’ve ever made one of those in my entire life, ever. But I bet I get the urge to do it this week… just because I can’t.
Dammit! I just googled Pavlova to make sure I’d spelled it correctly and then all these really fabulous pictures of yummy, yummy pavlovas came up... and now I REALLY want to make one!
Last night I plodded over to the chook pen to feed our four Isa Brown laying hens. I hate going over there when no one else is home, for fear of encountering slithery, slimy reptilians of the deadly, Brown variety. But ST was out in the paddock and unlikely to be home much before dark, and we’d had a particularly hot day of about 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), so I wanted to check they still had plenty of water.
It was there that I made the ghastly discovery of two fat hens lying face down in the dirt at the back of the pen. I hooted and hollered and clapped in an effort to wake them from what was surely just a very relaxed, reclined, deep slumber. But they made no attempt to get up. Their two mates clucked around at the front of the yard, waiting for me to toss them some feed. They seemed suspiciously unconcerned. Perhaps it was murder, I thought, as I prodded the corpses with a stick, hoping for any sign life.
The water dish was still full, and there was no sign of fowl play (forgive me Pun Master). Sadly, I’d known it from the moment I’d set foot near the chook pen that evening, the most likely cause of death was heat exhaustion.
You see, it’s well known chooks like to just keel over when the going gets hot. You know that saying, “fall off your perch,” yeah? That’s exactly what they’d done. But it was a shock to my system, given that just two weeks ago we’d endured days on end of 48 degree heat, even topping 50C (122F) one day! And the hens hadn’t even batted an eyelid that week. (There’s a thought for you; do chooks blink?)
There once had been six, then there were three, then six, then five, then four, (yeah, OK, it's a very complicated situation) and now there were two. My dedicated egg makers. Cut down in the prime of life.
Looks like we won’t be making too many Pavlovas for a while. Not that I think I’ve ever made one of those in my entire life, ever. But I bet I get the urge to do it this week… just because I can’t.
Dammit! I just googled Pavlova to make sure I’d spelled it correctly and then all these really fabulous pictures of yummy, yummy pavlovas came up... and now I REALLY want to make one!
Monday, January 7, 2013
The A Team at Burragan
Not all that long before Christmas ST and I had a new addition to family, and so I thought it time I introduced you to the rest of our A Team at Burragan. (Note: I was going to call them the B Team – the lettering would fit better on our matching T-shirts - but really felt that the letter B detracted from their total Awesomeness and Number 1 status.)
So, you might remember in my initial introduction post about ten months ago when I mentioned that it was just ST, his dad and mum, and myself doing most of the work out here across the three properties. That’s not strictly true… I’m sorry I lied; At Burragan we actually have three other full time, live-in workers.
While they have agreed to me writing this blog post, for privacy reasons they’ve asked to only be referred to by their nicknames. Without further delay, let me introduce to you, The A Team at Burragan!
The Wok: ST and I were lucky enough to have Wok join our team about six weeks after moving to Burragan. I was heading up to Bourke for some journalism work and staying with friends on a property just north of town. That’s where I first met Wok. Our friends LO and DK asked us if we needed a new worker, we did, Wok was there ready to go, so he jumped in with me on the way back home a few days later and has been an invaluable member of the Burragan team ever since.
We’re really lucky that given he doesn’t speak much English, we don’t really have to pay him much. He works for little more than food and board, never complains and rarely takes a day off sick. In fact, he loves working out here so much that we actually have to force him to have a day off every now and then to stop him from over-doing it.
Wok is somehow dopey and hyperactive at the same time. He was about four months old when we first got him and I remember ST having to teach him how to jump into the back of the ute. The next day I was in the kitchen when I could hear a strange repetitive thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud and I looked out the window to see Wok wandering around by himself practising jumping up and down from the ute, over and over and over and over again.
He loves riding on the front of the motorbike when ST is mustering, often resting his head on ST’s arm and going to sleep. He has the biggest ears, ever. He prefers to sleep on top of his kennel, rather than in it. And when you let him off the chain he goes completely crazy with excitement, whipping around in this odd, manic chase-your-tail kind of action a dozen times before settling down a fraction. This one time he whipped around so many times and so fast that he whacked himself straight into a tree. I laughed. A lot.
He has since blossomed into a fantastic sheep dog. He’s so hyperactive that you really can’t let him work in the sheepyards – that’s way too close quarters and small scale for him, when calls of “go back” and “go ‘round” will send him half a kilometre away at lightning speed. He's definitely more of a paddock dog. My all-time favourite Wok story is about the one time we did let him work in the yards. It’s a bit long, so I’ll save it for another time, but believe me, shit went down.
One day they’re going to write books and make movies about The Wok… it’ll be just like Red Dog, except it’ll be called Wok Dog, obviously.
Rob: After a brief stint with a gorgeous Border Collie pup called Wal (Wok and Wal, geddit?) who died tragically after eating a frangipani tree, the next to join our tribe was Rob. Rob came from good breeding stock, down south somewhere, Victoria way. We knew he was coming for a long time before he actually arrived… living with our stock agent in Hay for several weeks before anyone was travelling down there (or up here) to get him to us. During his stay in Hay, he escaped and was taken to the pound. For the stock agent to pick him up, he had to get him micro chipped, and to get him micro chipped, he had to give him a name. Rob was the name of the guy who bred him, so the dog became Rob too.
Rob (pictured above left, with Tex right) arrived with a noticeably big lump in his belly and I soon had to drive him 330km into Broken Hill to have a hernia fixed. He was quickly becoming the most expensive work dog ever (well, I guess not quite as expensive as that $9,000 Kelpie from last year’s Casterton sale, but at least he would be worth it!). “He’ll be a bit sleepy still from the anaesthetic,” the vet told me that afternoon when I picked him. I carried the dead weight to the car and tried to put him back in the doggy cage, but he was too heavy and sleepy and I couldn’t get the door quite shut. Oh well, looks like he’s pretty dopey and tired anyway, I’ll just leave it open, I thought. I was driving him around to our friend SCS’s place to drop him off for the night, and within seconds of pulling out of the car park, he was back to his usual energetic self, jumping over the car seats and acting up. I pulled up at SCS’s place and suddenly Rob was laying back down in the puppy cage acting as sick as possible. He was looking pretty sore and sorry as I drove off – ready to milk the opportunity for all it was worth. When I picked him up the next day, SCS said they’d let him sleep INSIDE ON THE COUCH for the night!! Rob has NEVER been the same since!
When we got back to Burragan he waltzed straight in the door like he owned the place (Note: Work dogs are NOT inside dogs). To this day Rob still thinks he’s an inside dog… we now call him “Roberta”, “Town Dog” or sometimes even “Soccer Player”… because he is so unsuited to farm life and likely to act mortally wounded over the simplest of injuries. ST will tell you he can hold his own in the yards, but I’ve yet to witness Roberta on a good day where sheep are involved – though they do say it takes Border Collies two years to mature, whereas Kelpies (like Wok) develop a bit quicker. But we still love him and make sure he feels included as a member of the A Team.
Tex: For a long time Tex (pictured above top, with Rob bottom) was my baby, my puppy, my precious youngest child. He came as a puppy from a litter at ST’s parent’s place, the son of two good working Collies with the genetic makeup to show results.
It’s kind of said that you’re not supposed to spoil working dogs too much as puppies because it might soften them up… but from the outset Tex was known as my dog, and I showered him with love and affection. I’m sure Rob has felt this favouritism towards Tex from the start and thus it’s furthered the strain on my relationship with him.
Not long after we got Tex we had painters here transforming the outside of our house from mint green and mission brown, to grey and white. We didn’t have a house-yard fence at the time, and the painters had taken the doors off the house to paint them, while I was working in the office and didn’t know. I went into the kitchen that afternoon and found Tex eating a pile of mouse bait. Other piles of mouse bait were also mysteriously gone, and then I found Wok and Rob wandering around the house too. I was mortified and had a very traumatic few hours trying to induce vomiting by pouring salt water down their throats. I went to bed that night (with Tex locked in the bathroom and Rob and Wok at their kennels) drained of tears, convinced I would wake up the next morning to find all three of them dead.
Fortunately, given that mouse bait actually takes a few days to take effect, they were still alive in the morning, and the vet in Cobar was able to send out some antidote in the post which luckily was also coming out that day. A simple dose of Vitamin K each day for several weeks saw them all survive without any issues.
But since this incident, Tex has shown signs of having super powers. Perhaps six months later, ST was welding up our house-yard fence while Rob was off his chain having a run around. ST’s hat and sunglasses were resting on top of a fence post, tempting Rob to snatch them and start chowing down – this became known as The Great Akubra Massacre of 2012. Panic ensured as we tried to track down all the pieces of the $200 rabbit fur hat, and Rob was chastised and taken back to his kennel. We managed to track down the hat (minus a massive bite chunk from the back brim) and the band (which had been ripped off) but after 15 minutes or so of searching, we still couldn’t locate ST’s sunnies anywhere!
Releasing Tex from his chain, I gave him at pat and said in my cutesy-wootsy-little-puppy voice, “Find the sunnies Tex, find the sunnies.” And off Tex ran, straight into the long grass next to a tree about 50 metres away (remembering we live in a dry box swamp surrounded by about a trillion trees) and began sniffing around like a custom’s dog on a boogie board bag in Bali. Yep, you guessed it, Tex had found the sunnies in less than 20 seconds! The way I see it, there’s only one logical explanation – he’s psychic.
And that brings me to our latest addition, Flip:
Flip, a Jack Russel, came as a 10-week-old puppy from a property about 100km south of us. We were best friends as soon as we met and he cuddled into my arms and started snoozing. He’s cheeky and sneaky and simultaneously adorable and pure evil. He’s probably only about four months old now, but already we have so much in common. All his favourite things are my favourite things too!
Flip loves eating, and I do too!
Flip loves Facebook, and I do too!
Flip loves reading the kindle, and I do too!
Flip loves shoes, and I do too!
And Flip loves sleeping, and I do too!
The first time I took Flip out to meet the rest of the team, Wok turned around, cocked his leg and… you can imagine the rest. Rob ignored him, and Tex looked forlorn at the knowledge that he was probably being replaced in the position of Burragan baby.
So that’s our A Team! Most days they’re the only other living beings we get to talk to face to face...
So, you might remember in my initial introduction post about ten months ago when I mentioned that it was just ST, his dad and mum, and myself doing most of the work out here across the three properties. That’s not strictly true… I’m sorry I lied; At Burragan we actually have three other full time, live-in workers.
While they have agreed to me writing this blog post, for privacy reasons they’ve asked to only be referred to by their nicknames. Without further delay, let me introduce to you, The A Team at Burragan!
The Wok: ST and I were lucky enough to have Wok join our team about six weeks after moving to Burragan. I was heading up to Bourke for some journalism work and staying with friends on a property just north of town. That’s where I first met Wok. Our friends LO and DK asked us if we needed a new worker, we did, Wok was there ready to go, so he jumped in with me on the way back home a few days later and has been an invaluable member of the Burragan team ever since.
We’re really lucky that given he doesn’t speak much English, we don’t really have to pay him much. He works for little more than food and board, never complains and rarely takes a day off sick. In fact, he loves working out here so much that we actually have to force him to have a day off every now and then to stop him from over-doing it.
Wok is somehow dopey and hyperactive at the same time. He was about four months old when we first got him and I remember ST having to teach him how to jump into the back of the ute. The next day I was in the kitchen when I could hear a strange repetitive thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud and I looked out the window to see Wok wandering around by himself practising jumping up and down from the ute, over and over and over and over again.
He loves riding on the front of the motorbike when ST is mustering, often resting his head on ST’s arm and going to sleep. He has the biggest ears, ever. He prefers to sleep on top of his kennel, rather than in it. And when you let him off the chain he goes completely crazy with excitement, whipping around in this odd, manic chase-your-tail kind of action a dozen times before settling down a fraction. This one time he whipped around so many times and so fast that he whacked himself straight into a tree. I laughed. A lot.
He has since blossomed into a fantastic sheep dog. He’s so hyperactive that you really can’t let him work in the sheepyards – that’s way too close quarters and small scale for him, when calls of “go back” and “go ‘round” will send him half a kilometre away at lightning speed. He's definitely more of a paddock dog. My all-time favourite Wok story is about the one time we did let him work in the yards. It’s a bit long, so I’ll save it for another time, but believe me, shit went down.
One day they’re going to write books and make movies about The Wok… it’ll be just like Red Dog, except it’ll be called Wok Dog, obviously.
Rob: After a brief stint with a gorgeous Border Collie pup called Wal (Wok and Wal, geddit?) who died tragically after eating a frangipani tree, the next to join our tribe was Rob. Rob came from good breeding stock, down south somewhere, Victoria way. We knew he was coming for a long time before he actually arrived… living with our stock agent in Hay for several weeks before anyone was travelling down there (or up here) to get him to us. During his stay in Hay, he escaped and was taken to the pound. For the stock agent to pick him up, he had to get him micro chipped, and to get him micro chipped, he had to give him a name. Rob was the name of the guy who bred him, so the dog became Rob too.
Rob (pictured above left, with Tex right) arrived with a noticeably big lump in his belly and I soon had to drive him 330km into Broken Hill to have a hernia fixed. He was quickly becoming the most expensive work dog ever (well, I guess not quite as expensive as that $9,000 Kelpie from last year’s Casterton sale, but at least he would be worth it!). “He’ll be a bit sleepy still from the anaesthetic,” the vet told me that afternoon when I picked him. I carried the dead weight to the car and tried to put him back in the doggy cage, but he was too heavy and sleepy and I couldn’t get the door quite shut. Oh well, looks like he’s pretty dopey and tired anyway, I’ll just leave it open, I thought. I was driving him around to our friend SCS’s place to drop him off for the night, and within seconds of pulling out of the car park, he was back to his usual energetic self, jumping over the car seats and acting up. I pulled up at SCS’s place and suddenly Rob was laying back down in the puppy cage acting as sick as possible. He was looking pretty sore and sorry as I drove off – ready to milk the opportunity for all it was worth. When I picked him up the next day, SCS said they’d let him sleep INSIDE ON THE COUCH for the night!! Rob has NEVER been the same since!
When we got back to Burragan he waltzed straight in the door like he owned the place (Note: Work dogs are NOT inside dogs). To this day Rob still thinks he’s an inside dog… we now call him “Roberta”, “Town Dog” or sometimes even “Soccer Player”… because he is so unsuited to farm life and likely to act mortally wounded over the simplest of injuries. ST will tell you he can hold his own in the yards, but I’ve yet to witness Roberta on a good day where sheep are involved – though they do say it takes Border Collies two years to mature, whereas Kelpies (like Wok) develop a bit quicker. But we still love him and make sure he feels included as a member of the A Team.
Tex: For a long time Tex (pictured above top, with Rob bottom) was my baby, my puppy, my precious youngest child. He came as a puppy from a litter at ST’s parent’s place, the son of two good working Collies with the genetic makeup to show results.
It’s kind of said that you’re not supposed to spoil working dogs too much as puppies because it might soften them up… but from the outset Tex was known as my dog, and I showered him with love and affection. I’m sure Rob has felt this favouritism towards Tex from the start and thus it’s furthered the strain on my relationship with him.
Not long after we got Tex we had painters here transforming the outside of our house from mint green and mission brown, to grey and white. We didn’t have a house-yard fence at the time, and the painters had taken the doors off the house to paint them, while I was working in the office and didn’t know. I went into the kitchen that afternoon and found Tex eating a pile of mouse bait. Other piles of mouse bait were also mysteriously gone, and then I found Wok and Rob wandering around the house too. I was mortified and had a very traumatic few hours trying to induce vomiting by pouring salt water down their throats. I went to bed that night (with Tex locked in the bathroom and Rob and Wok at their kennels) drained of tears, convinced I would wake up the next morning to find all three of them dead.
Fortunately, given that mouse bait actually takes a few days to take effect, they were still alive in the morning, and the vet in Cobar was able to send out some antidote in the post which luckily was also coming out that day. A simple dose of Vitamin K each day for several weeks saw them all survive without any issues.
But since this incident, Tex has shown signs of having super powers. Perhaps six months later, ST was welding up our house-yard fence while Rob was off his chain having a run around. ST’s hat and sunglasses were resting on top of a fence post, tempting Rob to snatch them and start chowing down – this became known as The Great Akubra Massacre of 2012. Panic ensured as we tried to track down all the pieces of the $200 rabbit fur hat, and Rob was chastised and taken back to his kennel. We managed to track down the hat (minus a massive bite chunk from the back brim) and the band (which had been ripped off) but after 15 minutes or so of searching, we still couldn’t locate ST’s sunnies anywhere!
Releasing Tex from his chain, I gave him at pat and said in my cutesy-wootsy-little-puppy voice, “Find the sunnies Tex, find the sunnies.” And off Tex ran, straight into the long grass next to a tree about 50 metres away (remembering we live in a dry box swamp surrounded by about a trillion trees) and began sniffing around like a custom’s dog on a boogie board bag in Bali. Yep, you guessed it, Tex had found the sunnies in less than 20 seconds! The way I see it, there’s only one logical explanation – he’s psychic.
And that brings me to our latest addition, Flip:
Flip, a Jack Russel, came as a 10-week-old puppy from a property about 100km south of us. We were best friends as soon as we met and he cuddled into my arms and started snoozing. He’s cheeky and sneaky and simultaneously adorable and pure evil. He’s probably only about four months old now, but already we have so much in common. All his favourite things are my favourite things too!
Flip loves eating, and I do too!
Flip loves Facebook, and I do too!
Flip loves reading the kindle, and I do too!
Flip loves shoes, and I do too!
And Flip loves sleeping, and I do too!
The first time I took Flip out to meet the rest of the team, Wok turned around, cocked his leg and… you can imagine the rest. Rob ignored him, and Tex looked forlorn at the knowledge that he was probably being replaced in the position of Burragan baby.
So that’s our A Team! Most days they’re the only other living beings we get to talk to face to face...
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
There’s no place like home…
They say there’s nothing like travel to make you appreciate home, and I’m pained to say I’m starting to agree with “them”.
It’s been just days since I got back to Burragan following a month-long holiday and I’m already feeling like a fraud when answering queries about our overseas trip with “Yeah, it was good, thanks” in the type of voice which is really saying “Holy Crap, I’m glad to be home!”
An old uni girlfriend’s wedding in up-state New York, USA, seemed like the perfect opportunity to drag ST to the States and see the sights of NYC, LA, Hawaii, a touch of Canada and the likes. If you’ve ever known a farmer then you’ll know oftentimes it’s an Olympic marathon just to get them past the boundary gate let alone on a plane to the opposite side of the world. So I teed it up with ST’s family and booked flights at the very beginning of the year, giving ST no room to back out as our August departure drew closer.
Well, if you’ve ever wanted to really convince a man (who’s already not a friend of the “overnight trip to town”) that he really, really should never leave the property again, then, dear readers, take note… Because this is how it’s done...
We arrived in Hawaii at 7am - which really felt like 2am – after a sleepless, crammed flight, and dropped our bags at our hotel before hitting the beach. With eight hours to kill before we could check into our room, hitting the beach meant buying a beach towel, finding a shady palm tree and napping in the summer heat of Waikiki among the delightful company of 70 thousand other tourists. The jetlag was like a hangover, we were tired, cranky, hungry, hotel-less… and I’m still not sure why no one understood my woeful cries of “Seriously, would somebody please bring this woman a Mai Tai!”
For the first 12 hours Hawaii sucked. Though we didn’t actually say that out loud, I’m sure we were both thinking it. But hey, we were on vacation, we were in beautiful, romantic Hawaii, and so we knew our blues were nothing an afternoon nap (we could finally check-into the hotel!) and a few G&Ts couldn’t fix.
It was around this time that we stumbled across a little smoothie bar riiiggghhht down the back of the International Markets. It’s funny how a good drink or feed can change your mood, and I’m not sure if it was just that it was completely what we needed at the time, or if it was, in actual fact, the world’s best smoothie, but boy did the creamy, fresh coconut and pineapple concoction rock our world.
It was just what we needed after some spruiker had shoved a mega-giant, multi-coloured bird on my shoulder, grabbed my camera out of my hand and started taking (blurry!) photos of me before demanding we pay him $10 (in fact, that guy kind of sums up my feelings about Hawaii).
Later on, a night of the most delicious passionfruit mojitos we’ve ever had revealed to us the sort of Hawaii we’d imagined before leaving Australia, finally!
A satisfying night’s sleep meant we liked Hawaii even more come our second day. One of the best meals of the whole trip was that morning’s Brazilian breakfast dish known as an Acai bowl:
Overall, Hawaii was nice. And yes, I mean “nice” as in how you can’t be bothered to think of anything better to say. Sure, it was beautiful, the weather was fabulous, there were fresh pineapples and coconuts galore, we had some fantastic fresh seafood meals and some great drinks to go with the beautiful meals… but it was also expensive and very touristy – this we found out the hard way, following:
1) a recommended “more private” and “authentic” Hawaiian Luau where six other coach-loads of tourists arrived with us to be drafted through queues like cattle before a fake pig was pulled out of a fake fire pit and served up to us with fake fish by waiters with fake tans to match their fake smiles;
2) a much anticipated tour of the Kualoa Ranch and the adjoining valley where Jurassic Park (one of my all-time favourite movies) was filmed, where an “extreme adventure” ATV tour was ruined by being limited to a maximum speed of 15 miles per hour and having to sign waivers stating we were definitely not going to have any fun, at all, whatsoever (heaven forbid you should have some fun and then sue them);
3) and finally a day tour which had promised to be “12 people, private and fun… just for Aussies and young people” and instead proved to include Gran and Pa from southern Kentucky along with 30 of their closest friends and family.
I had desperately wanted to explore the island of Oahu and try to uncover the real Hawaii… the Polynesian, tropical, relaxed Hawaii I’d seen in my mind’s eye. Instead it was all like “Here, try this authentic Hawaiian Japanese sushi roll,” or “Here’s your authentic Hawaiian wood carving labelled ‘Made in the Philippines’,” and “Oh, look at this beautiful mountain fed waterfall and rock pool, please go from a swim… but no, no, no… do not enter the water from outside the flags, do not swim over to the waterfall, do not touch! Do not have fun! Or else we’ll chastise you in front of everyone with my megaphone!” (Yes we actually witnessed this happen.)
The worst part was that these things were all expensive – built for hordes of tourists… and by the end of it we just felt empty and ripped off.
Fortunately, the thing I was most looking forward to in Hawaii also turned out to be our highlight of the state. Waaaayy back in February, right after I’d booked our flights, I had also booked us a native guided tour of the active volcanoes on the Big Island of Hawaii. We had to fly to the other island for the day, but I’m so, so glad we went to the effort.
ST and I stood on the rim of the Kīlauea caldera (one of five volcanoes that make up the Big Island of Hawaii, along with its more famous cousins Mona Loa and Mona Kea)… walked through lava tubes no one else gets to walk through… felt the warm, sulphur gases of deep steam vents coming from the centre of the earth… and hiked through lush rainforest leading to barren, black deserts of dried lava.
Actually, according to the US Geological Society, Kilauea is regarded as the most dangerous volcano in the world. Though it’s very safe and easy for visitors to look around, there are areas away from the main caldera (currently a full days hike to see) which are constantly flowing fresh lava, slowly claiming suburbs and entire cities of the Big Island. Yep, it’s awesome. Check out some up to date webcam images of the Kilauea Volcano here: http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/cams/
But just like everything in Hawaii, a good moment was followed up by a sucky, expensive moment. And after our super cool day exploring the volcanoes, we ended up standing in the pouring rain for an hour in the town of Hilo waiting for a taxi which we had to call three times, worrying that we would miss our flight back to the island of Oahu.
When it came time to leave Hawaii a few days later, headed for New York City (via bus from Boston, after plane from Honolulu via a very tight connection in Seattle), we were actually relieved and really looking forward to the US main land. So after a $60 cab ride to the Honolulu airport (it seemed to be getting more expensive each time) and lining up to check into our 1pm flight, it was the last thing we wanted to hear when the check-in lady said, “Oh you’ve been changed to the 8pm flight….”
Ummmm, say WHAT!?
To be continued…
It’s been just days since I got back to Burragan following a month-long holiday and I’m already feeling like a fraud when answering queries about our overseas trip with “Yeah, it was good, thanks” in the type of voice which is really saying “Holy Crap, I’m glad to be home!”
An old uni girlfriend’s wedding in up-state New York, USA, seemed like the perfect opportunity to drag ST to the States and see the sights of NYC, LA, Hawaii, a touch of Canada and the likes. If you’ve ever known a farmer then you’ll know oftentimes it’s an Olympic marathon just to get them past the boundary gate let alone on a plane to the opposite side of the world. So I teed it up with ST’s family and booked flights at the very beginning of the year, giving ST no room to back out as our August departure drew closer.
Well, if you’ve ever wanted to really convince a man (who’s already not a friend of the “overnight trip to town”) that he really, really should never leave the property again, then, dear readers, take note… Because this is how it’s done...
We arrived in Hawaii at 7am - which really felt like 2am – after a sleepless, crammed flight, and dropped our bags at our hotel before hitting the beach. With eight hours to kill before we could check into our room, hitting the beach meant buying a beach towel, finding a shady palm tree and napping in the summer heat of Waikiki among the delightful company of 70 thousand other tourists. The jetlag was like a hangover, we were tired, cranky, hungry, hotel-less… and I’m still not sure why no one understood my woeful cries of “Seriously, would somebody please bring this woman a Mai Tai!”
For the first 12 hours Hawaii sucked. Though we didn’t actually say that out loud, I’m sure we were both thinking it. But hey, we were on vacation, we were in beautiful, romantic Hawaii, and so we knew our blues were nothing an afternoon nap (we could finally check-into the hotel!) and a few G&Ts couldn’t fix.
It was around this time that we stumbled across a little smoothie bar riiiggghhht down the back of the International Markets. It’s funny how a good drink or feed can change your mood, and I’m not sure if it was just that it was completely what we needed at the time, or if it was, in actual fact, the world’s best smoothie, but boy did the creamy, fresh coconut and pineapple concoction rock our world.
It was just what we needed after some spruiker had shoved a mega-giant, multi-coloured bird on my shoulder, grabbed my camera out of my hand and started taking (blurry!) photos of me before demanding we pay him $10 (in fact, that guy kind of sums up my feelings about Hawaii).
Later on, a night of the most delicious passionfruit mojitos we’ve ever had revealed to us the sort of Hawaii we’d imagined before leaving Australia, finally!
A satisfying night’s sleep meant we liked Hawaii even more come our second day. One of the best meals of the whole trip was that morning’s Brazilian breakfast dish known as an Acai bowl:
Overall, Hawaii was nice. And yes, I mean “nice” as in how you can’t be bothered to think of anything better to say. Sure, it was beautiful, the weather was fabulous, there were fresh pineapples and coconuts galore, we had some fantastic fresh seafood meals and some great drinks to go with the beautiful meals… but it was also expensive and very touristy – this we found out the hard way, following:
1) a recommended “more private” and “authentic” Hawaiian Luau where six other coach-loads of tourists arrived with us to be drafted through queues like cattle before a fake pig was pulled out of a fake fire pit and served up to us with fake fish by waiters with fake tans to match their fake smiles;
2) a much anticipated tour of the Kualoa Ranch and the adjoining valley where Jurassic Park (one of my all-time favourite movies) was filmed, where an “extreme adventure” ATV tour was ruined by being limited to a maximum speed of 15 miles per hour and having to sign waivers stating we were definitely not going to have any fun, at all, whatsoever (heaven forbid you should have some fun and then sue them);
3) and finally a day tour which had promised to be “12 people, private and fun… just for Aussies and young people” and instead proved to include Gran and Pa from southern Kentucky along with 30 of their closest friends and family.
I had desperately wanted to explore the island of Oahu and try to uncover the real Hawaii… the Polynesian, tropical, relaxed Hawaii I’d seen in my mind’s eye. Instead it was all like “Here, try this authentic Hawaiian Japanese sushi roll,” or “Here’s your authentic Hawaiian wood carving labelled ‘Made in the Philippines’,” and “Oh, look at this beautiful mountain fed waterfall and rock pool, please go from a swim… but no, no, no… do not enter the water from outside the flags, do not swim over to the waterfall, do not touch! Do not have fun! Or else we’ll chastise you in front of everyone with my megaphone!” (Yes we actually witnessed this happen.)
The worst part was that these things were all expensive – built for hordes of tourists… and by the end of it we just felt empty and ripped off.
Fortunately, the thing I was most looking forward to in Hawaii also turned out to be our highlight of the state. Waaaayy back in February, right after I’d booked our flights, I had also booked us a native guided tour of the active volcanoes on the Big Island of Hawaii. We had to fly to the other island for the day, but I’m so, so glad we went to the effort.
ST and I stood on the rim of the Kīlauea caldera (one of five volcanoes that make up the Big Island of Hawaii, along with its more famous cousins Mona Loa and Mona Kea)… walked through lava tubes no one else gets to walk through… felt the warm, sulphur gases of deep steam vents coming from the centre of the earth… and hiked through lush rainforest leading to barren, black deserts of dried lava.
Actually, according to the US Geological Society, Kilauea is regarded as the most dangerous volcano in the world. Though it’s very safe and easy for visitors to look around, there are areas away from the main caldera (currently a full days hike to see) which are constantly flowing fresh lava, slowly claiming suburbs and entire cities of the Big Island. Yep, it’s awesome. Check out some up to date webcam images of the Kilauea Volcano here: http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/cams/
But just like everything in Hawaii, a good moment was followed up by a sucky, expensive moment. And after our super cool day exploring the volcanoes, we ended up standing in the pouring rain for an hour in the town of Hilo waiting for a taxi which we had to call three times, worrying that we would miss our flight back to the island of Oahu.
When it came time to leave Hawaii a few days later, headed for New York City (via bus from Boston, after plane from Honolulu via a very tight connection in Seattle), we were actually relieved and really looking forward to the US main land. So after a $60 cab ride to the Honolulu airport (it seemed to be getting more expensive each time) and lining up to check into our 1pm flight, it was the last thing we wanted to hear when the check-in lady said, “Oh you’ve been changed to the 8pm flight….”
Ummmm, say WHAT!?
To be continued…
Friday, July 27, 2012
21 things I didn’t realise about living out bush, until I lived out bush…
21 things I didn’t realise about living out bush, until I lived out bush…
1. The weather is more than just a mundane conversation topic; it’s a living entity, and also the boss.
2. Mobile phone reception is not a right, it’s a privilege.
3. Chocolate: I know I’ve mentioned this before, and I don’t want to harp on, but as I woman I feel it should be brought to the attention of females around the world that chocolate, a life essential, is not readily available in the middle of no-where. One must purchase chocolate in large supplies before heading out bush, or risk certain death.
4. Mail only comes twice a week, and not at all if it’s raining.
5. Grocery items, plants, alcohol, gas bottles, motorbikes and assorted mechanical parts can all be ordered through the mail and delivered to the mailbox. Mailboxes are generally the size of a 44 gallon drum. Our mail box is 15km from the house.
6. Fuel is bought in the thousands of litres instead of tens of litres… and yes, we have our own fuel bowsers!
7. There’s no such thing as the weekend, or business hours.
8. The world consists of only two types of cars: Toyotas and motorcars.
9. Number 1s and Number2s don’t just disappear into the ether for someone else to deal with once you flush. And if something goes wrong, then sometimes you really are, literally, in the shit.
10. Medical receptionists, accountants and government employees will never understand the inconvenience of driving 300+km for an appointment that is rescheduled or cancelled. Pharmacists and optometrists, on the other hand, will post almost anything to you!
11. Border Collies and Kelpies are actually one quarter human… and can understand (but not speak) English.
12. Reading a book on an afternoon off is not considered a valid use of time. (Nor is having an afternoon off.)
13. A 90 kilometre return trip is not too far to drive to get a roadhouse burger and chips (or a proper espresso coffee) for dinner when you really can’t be bothered cooking.
14. You can never have too much toilet paper. Always have backup for your backup, and backup for that backup.
15. Same with wine. And batteries. And matches. And chocolate.
16. Smoko is the main, most important, and most enjoyable, meal of the day.
17. A Leatherman is a magical implement, kind of like a lightsaber, which can be used to complete any task from digging splinters out of your hand, fixing fences, fixing engines, “disposing” of feral animals and cutting your cake at smoko. In order to retain its special powers, the Leatherman must not be washed between tasks.
18. Fencing, shearing, crutching, spraying and marking are all nouns, not verbs.
19. Plumbers are not always necessary to get a job done right. Electricians are. And they live far away, and charge a per kilometre rate to visit you.
20. There is no garbage truck. Everyone has their own rubbish dumps… so you actually have to load your rubbish into the Toyota, drive it to your dump, and dispose appropriately.
21. 4.30am is actually the morning of a new day, not just the end of a big night.
1. The weather is more than just a mundane conversation topic; it’s a living entity, and also the boss.
2. Mobile phone reception is not a right, it’s a privilege.
3. Chocolate: I know I’ve mentioned this before, and I don’t want to harp on, but as I woman I feel it should be brought to the attention of females around the world that chocolate, a life essential, is not readily available in the middle of no-where. One must purchase chocolate in large supplies before heading out bush, or risk certain death.
4. Mail only comes twice a week, and not at all if it’s raining.
5. Grocery items, plants, alcohol, gas bottles, motorbikes and assorted mechanical parts can all be ordered through the mail and delivered to the mailbox. Mailboxes are generally the size of a 44 gallon drum. Our mail box is 15km from the house.
6. Fuel is bought in the thousands of litres instead of tens of litres… and yes, we have our own fuel bowsers!
7. There’s no such thing as the weekend, or business hours.
8. The world consists of only two types of cars: Toyotas and motorcars.
9. Number 1s and Number2s don’t just disappear into the ether for someone else to deal with once you flush. And if something goes wrong, then sometimes you really are, literally, in the shit.
10. Medical receptionists, accountants and government employees will never understand the inconvenience of driving 300+km for an appointment that is rescheduled or cancelled. Pharmacists and optometrists, on the other hand, will post almost anything to you!
11. Border Collies and Kelpies are actually one quarter human… and can understand (but not speak) English.
12. Reading a book on an afternoon off is not considered a valid use of time. (Nor is having an afternoon off.)
13. A 90 kilometre return trip is not too far to drive to get a roadhouse burger and chips (or a proper espresso coffee) for dinner when you really can’t be bothered cooking.
14. You can never have too much toilet paper. Always have backup for your backup, and backup for that backup.
15. Same with wine. And batteries. And matches. And chocolate.
16. Smoko is the main, most important, and most enjoyable, meal of the day.
17. A Leatherman is a magical implement, kind of like a lightsaber, which can be used to complete any task from digging splinters out of your hand, fixing fences, fixing engines, “disposing” of feral animals and cutting your cake at smoko. In order to retain its special powers, the Leatherman must not be washed between tasks.
18. Fencing, shearing, crutching, spraying and marking are all nouns, not verbs.
19. Plumbers are not always necessary to get a job done right. Electricians are. And they live far away, and charge a per kilometre rate to visit you.
20. There is no garbage truck. Everyone has their own rubbish dumps… so you actually have to load your rubbish into the Toyota, drive it to your dump, and dispose appropriately.
21. 4.30am is actually the morning of a new day, not just the end of a big night.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Getting back to business and a very special delivery
Life as I know it at Burragan has been back to the norm lately. No major events, no snake sightings (thankfully, given it is winter), no bizarre injuries… just life, slipping by, with the day to day workings of the property.
We’ve been lamb marking for the last few weeks. For those not in the know, that’s when we ear tag, ear mark, castrate and tail dock the lambs. The ear marks and tags help to identify which sheep belong to which property and which are male and female, while tight elastic rings are used to castrate the boys to control breeding and dock the tails to help prevent flies laying eggs in the woolly areas around their hind.
While it can be monotonous - and messy - lamb marking is one of my favourite “on farm” duties. As a child growing up in regional Victoria, we had a friend who used to give me an orphaned lamb every year for my birthday. We’d rear it in town until it was old enough to go back to the farm. There was Snowball 1, Dandelion 1, Snowball 2, Dandelion 2… I think you can see where this is going…
I used to walk them around town, and years later, in my teens, I was still known by some as the girl who used to have pet lambs.
I LOVE lambs… and I love lamb marking, when we get to see all the lambs together in the sheep yards and they’re bleating at me saying, “Beeeesss, love me Beeeeess, love me.” It’s like being in a pen of 500 adorable puppies, with bows on their collars… offering unconditional love… and a never-ending supply of chocolate… and a neck massage.
While I do enjoy the actual process of lamb marking, it also involves mustering every paddock on Burragan, as well as ST’s parent’s place, and the third property we run stock on. Which means a lot of down time for me while the men are out on their motorbikes rounding up the mobs.
And generally these days down time means getting stuck into another renovation project. A few weeks ago my totally awesome dad drove down from Queensland with a special delivery for us – our new laundry! Ever since the great snake incident of Summer 2011/12, we’ve thought it might be a good idea to start moving the laundry from its old tin shed outside, into a vacant “sleep out” area in the house.
So it was The Block meets Burragan for the better part of a week while Dad worked tirelessly to install new windows, plumbing, cupboards and benches, and tile the splash back wall. Renovating is always an interesting game out here when you have to make sure you bring out every possible material and tool you may need. One missing or broken component, sometimes as simple as a pipe fitting or a certain sized screwdriver/drill bit/chisel/saw blade, can stall a project for weeks or months while you try to arrange to get something sent from a hardware store 500km away and other jobs keep cropping up along the way.
Sorry I don't have any great pics of this room before we started the reno, but I hope you can make out from these that the room was all old louvre windows so we actually had to put new walls up, as well as plasterboard the ceiling, and enclose some open gauzed areas. We still have to paint the whole room (Arctic white and Shale Grey), but the laundry is well on its way and I think it’s looking damn fine even if it is half finished! The cupboards and bench tops are actually from my Mum and Dad’s old kitchen, which they recently renovated.
And while we’re on the subject of special deliveries, I’ve been bouncing from the walls to tell you all about an amazing package that arrived in my mail box last month. It really deserves its own entire blog post dedication, that’s how much it blew my mind…
Shortly after writing my “Anything you can do I can do backwards… in heels” post (also commonly referred to as the one about how much I love chocolate) back at the end of May, I received a package with unfamiliar handwriting on the front.
In the hesitant knowledge that yes, it could be hate mail, it could be anthrax, or a bomb, the package and I stared at each other as it rode in the passenger seat for the 15km trip home from the mail box.
“Who sent you here?” I asked it. “How did you know where to find me?”
But the package remained silent.
By the time we arrived home that journalistic need to know everything, about everyone, all the time, got the better of me. And as I tore at the padded postage satchel its contents was revealed as… CHOCOLATE!! Freddos and Cadburys and tasty treats galore... oh my!! Tea bags and a personalised pen… magnets and assorted goodies… from who? From a woman I’ve never met! A fan? And a famous fan at that!
My big bag ‘o chocolate was from the extremely talented Australian rural romance author Karly Lane. And when I thanked her on her Facebook page that evening she said, “I just wanted you to know, that even though you’re far from chocolate, you’re never far from friends.” What a line! My heart melted into a gooey chocolate mess. Isn’t it an amazing world we live in, when strangers can possess such kindness as this.
We had a visitor for dinner that night and when I showed him my fan mail he said, "That definitely seems like a great friend to have Bessie," and I couldn't agree more!
So if you’re into chick lit with a rural twist, please share the sweet, cocoa covered love and check out Karly’s books: http://karlylane.com
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