Memories of the Bush
(Rosevale to Charleville)

Published by Patricia Jones at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Patricia Jones

 

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My First Love

I loved him when I was
little more than a child.

He was tall, blonde and
six feet tall.

He had the curliest hair
I had ever seen on a blonde.

Rain For Christmas

I woke up on Christmas morning
And it was raining.

Colin, the collie, trailed mud into the house,
but we didn’t mind as it was Christmas Day.

Then we heard the sound of the Honda coming down the lane.
It was young Allan
going home to his parents for Christmas.

He brought a Christmas parcel for us.
a new record player.

Allan said he nearly died when he found
that he’d brought a record player out on the back of a motor bike
in the rain on Christmas Day.

We invited him in for a cordial
and to see if the record player worked.
It did.

Allan went on the next ten miles
to spend Christmas with his family.

This was the first Christmas
we were ever able to play records
for Christmas.

It was the only time
I ever remember
it actually raining
on Christmas Day.

Tea Pots

I remember when the old, white teapot sprung a leak.
The family wondered what we’d do
without our morning cup of tea.

So Grandad asked Mr. Kilpatrick
if he would get us a six mug teapot
from Charleville.

There was great excitement
when the new teapot arrived.
It was a light grey Kookaburra brand.

The Kookaburra teapot
was in use for forty years,
but one sad day it sprung a leak.

So we were given Nanna Cook’s old brown one,
which we still have today,
but it was a bit small.

Then about five years ago, we
got the new black teapot with
flowers on it in Morven.
It is still in use today.

The Day The Cattle Laughed

I was just learning to ride the pushbike.
I took a ride around to the first crossing.
where the road crossed the bore drain,
about a mile from the house.

When I reached the sandy swamp
it was rough and bumpy
and I heard the cattle coming.

So I rode a bit faster,
but hit a bump and went into a skid
in the sand and came off.
And didn’t the cattle laugh!

I picked up the bike,
got back
on and rode home.

Meat Ants

Between the sheep yard and the house,
right in the middle of where the buffel grass grew,
there was a big meat ants’ nest.

It was hot and muggy
and the clouds were gathering.
The ants were there in their thousands.

Soon they got their army moving.
Each ant picked up an egg
And started moving to higher ground.

They took the eggs to a new nest
on the wing of the big ground tank.
It was three feet higher than the first nest,

The ants came in two long lines,
the first line carrying eggs,
the second line going back for more.
The mighty meat ants saved every egg.

When the rain came the water rose
to within four inches of the new nest,
but every egg was saved.

Washing Day

Everyone always got up early on washing day.
The dirty clothes had to be sorted.

The trousers went in the first wash
then shirts in the second wash and the jumpers in the third.
The odds and ends went in the fourth wash.

The washing machine held ten gallons of water,
which was carried in two-gallon buckets
from the bore drain.

The plunger was put in and we gave each load one hundred pumps
and the same for the rinse.
Then we put everything through the ringer.

After the washing was done the plunger was lifted out
and the kids were bathed in the washing machine one by one.
After that everything was pegged on the line.

Washing day took from
seven o’clock in the morning
until four o’clock in the afternoon.

Lamb Marking

The ewes and lambs were brought into the yard the day before.
The bore drain ran through the yard
so water was no problem.

We got up at 3.30 in the morning, to a breakfast of toast.
The men called for us in the car and took us to the yard
and work began.

The lambs were drafted off from the ewes
into the marking yard and then they were marked
on the top rail of the yard.

There were five catchers and two markers
and we were doing six lambs a minute.
The tails were cut off, the ears were marked
and the young rams were made into wethers.

A young ram lamb ripped up
my best straw hat with his horns.

After the lambs were marked,
they were put back with their mothers
and taken back to their paddock.

By the time the tails were counted and burnt
it was 8 o’clock in the morning
and 1113 lambs were marked in four hours.

We got in the car and went home,
changed out of our blood stained clothes
and I started school for the day.

A Day On The Bore Drain

I dreamed the alarm went off,
so I got out of bed and went for the horses.
But it was too early
and the horses would not go into the yard till the right time.

After the horses went into the yard,
I went over to the house for my breakfast of grilled chops.

Afterwards, we caught our horses
and rode out to work on the bore drain.
All tools were carried strapped to the saddle
or carried on the rider’s shoulder.

The yabbies had dug a hole under the bank of the drain,
so Kerry had to dig down to the hole and fill it in.
We caught the yabbies
and cooked them in the quart pot for morning tea.

After we fixed the bore drain
we took turns at raking the rubbish out of the drain.
About midday, we stopped for our lunch
a tin of meat and a packet of biscuits.

After lunch
we found a small box tree had fallen over the drain,
so Kerry cut it off with the axe
and I dragged the branches away.

We moved on along the drain
and found a sandbank that we had to dig out
to let the water flow down the drain.
After that we rode home to a supper of good stew.

The Boundary Fence

The boundary fence was on the edge of the Grey Range.
The track around the boundary of Rosevale out-station
was very rough and overgrown.

The boss thought it was time
to put a fire break around the boundary.
It was summer and that was bushfire season.

The bulldozer driver was new to the place,
so Kerry told him the boundary was so rough
it would cripple a horse and shake a motor bike to pieces.

The young driver thought Kerry was having a go at him,
but it was even worse than he thought.
The gullies were steep and rocky.

When his mate picked him up later in the car,
he said to tell Kerry that he was right.
“When I was not on my head, I was on my heels.”

Curious Snakes

I went to the shed to paint my old, red pushbike.
There was a lot of rubbish in the shed.

As I was getting on with the painting
a six-foot mulga snake came out from under the rubbish
to see how the painting was progressing.

I picked up my paint tin and brush, grabbed my bike
and headed in under the big box tree to finish the painting.
I never saw the snake again.

Another time
my mother had hurt her back
and could not walk.

We were all sitting on the back steps
near the rain water tank
when a four-foot mulga snake
came out from under the house
to see what we were doing.

My mother got up so fast
that her back came right.
The snake got away.

1973 – The Year Of The Babies

It was 1973
the year when Jet and Tania both became pregnant.
The same time as my sister, Betty, and her husband Bob
were having their first baby.

When Jet, Kerry’s best black sheep dog, was close to time,
she still liked to follow him to work;
so he lifted her on to the carrier of his push bike
and took her to work with him.

The next day, he hunted her back home.
Half an hour later,
she had five black pups under the rain water tank,
where it was cool and dry.

Tania, our black cat, had six grey, striped kittens
in the dirty clothes box.
Luckily, it wasn’t the clean clothes box.
They were her first litter
and she didn’t quite know what to do.
She’d sometimes go out and leave them on their own.

Jet would hear them squealing
and she would stand on the step
with a worried look on her face, as if to say,
“Is that child looking after those babies alright?”

My sister, Betty, and her husband, Bob,
came home to the outstation
to show off their new baby son, Charles.
We had 12 babies at the house
at the same time,
5 pups, 6 kittens and one human baby

Swimming Lessons

The weather was hot
and the thought of a cool swim was very inviting,
so my mother and I decided
we would walk out to the tank on the boundary,
about 4 miles away from the house,
where the water was cool and not too deep.

My mother was a good swimmer, and she said,
“It is time you learnt to swim.”

The post and rail fence went right through the tank
so I could hold on to the rails
all the way across the tank.

My mother put her hand under my back
and lifted my feet off the bottom.
The first two or three times she did it I got a ducking.

We spent about an hour
at the tank,
and that day
I learned to float.

Then we walked the
four miles home.

Laying The Pipes

The out-station bore had stopped running,
so they put a mono windmill on it
and poly pipe was laid in a trench dug for the pipe.

The boss drove the tractor with the jenny
for laying the pipes to the corner of the
holding and bottom paddocks.

The pipes were connected to the troughs
to water the cattle and sheep in both
the holding paddock and bottom paddock.

After that the pipes were laid to the out-station
and we were able to water the garden again.
Before the pipes were laid to the out-station
our water was carted in a tank on a trailer
pulled by the tractor after the ground tank dried.

After the pipes were laid they had to be checked,
so Mr. Hill and Kerry regularly
ran the pipe line looking for leaks.
Kerry would dig out the leaking pipes
and Mr. Hill would fix them.
Mr. Hill thought
they made a good team
Hill & Rabbit.

The Day The Motor Bikes Broke Down

The cattle were brought in from Springvale for branding.
They were very slow and it took a long time
to get them to the out-station.

There were five motor bikes around the cattle and
they got just about as far as the back of the big ground tank
when all five bikes broke down.
The men then walked the cattle to the holding paddock.

After the cattle were put in the holding paddock
the men walked back
and wheeled their five motor bikes back
to the out-station shed for Tommy to fix them.

The calves were branded the next day.
But what the men said about those useless motor bikes
could not be printed.
Not one would keep going.

When Our WC Got Blown Over

At the out-station it was an obstacle course
to go to the WC at night.
First you went through the turn-stile
and then through the boundary gate,
which is not easy to open at night.
Then you cross the flooded bore drain,
and after that you are just about there.

One night we had a windstorm
and the WC was blown over, so we had to go bush.

The boss came out the next day and saw what had happened
and nearly laughed his head off.
He thought it was so funny.

Jack came along later and was much more helpful.
He hooked a wire around it
and with the help of the ever helpful Irene, the old jeep,,
he pulled it upright again.

My mother, my brother Kerry and I
knocked in six iron posts,
three on each side of the WC
and tied wire over the roof,
so it won’t get blown over again.

But I also hit my thumbnail
with the lb. sledge hammer.
The nail went black, then white
and then fell off.

The Story Of My Birth

Grandad came up from the old Bando yards.
He told my mother and Granny to come on down
to the yards as there were twin calves born.
So everyone went to view the twins.

My mother said,
“I’ll go back to the house and fill the fridge.”
The fridge was a Snowman brand
and you put a bottle of kerosene in it every night

When my mother grabbed the bottle,
wrapped around it was a 4 foot mulga snake’
With the excitement of chasing it around to kill it,
I was born that night 2 months premie.

Granny skited for weeks,
“I brought that little thing into the world.”
But my mother said she didn’t know what to do
and she had to tell her how things were done.

When he first heard me cry, my brother asked,
“Is it a little kitten Granny?”
Grandad rang Bando to call the ambulance.
When the ambulance arrived,
my mother and I were loaded inside
for the 100-mile journey to Charleville
on the day I was born.

The old Bando bore drain was flooded
and the ambulance man told my mother
to “hang on to that kid -
the only way to cross the bore drain without getting bogged
is to put my foot down to the boards
and take her at 60 miles an hour!”
We arrived in Charleville in one piece
and spent a fortnight in the Charleville hospital.

I was the famous Wyandra snake baby
until I was about 5 years old.
I always knew when there was a snake around.
I also had two snake birth marks.

My mother, Holly Jones, told this story to me.

My 29th Birthday

The potatoes were running low
and I like potatoes on my birthday.
The boss brought the order out in the aeroplane.

I told him that I was very disappointed,
as it was my birthday tomorrow
and I was planning on a big potato mince for my birthday,
but the potatoes never arrived.
So the boss wished me a “Happy Birthday!”

The next day, my birthday,
the Boss made a special trip out in his aeroplane.
He brought 3 lbs. of potatoes, a piece of pumpkin
and about a pound of mince meat,
also a home-made birthday card
with a pressed Blue Bell on it.
It really made me feel very special.

Getting The Sheep Out

It was the wet season
and the Neamamulla was running and came down
fast trapping the unfortunate sheep[
on a small island.

Kerry was out there on old Katy.
When he saw the sheep he knew
he had to get them out
before the water covered the island.

Old Katy was half draft horse,
but it looked too boggy for her,
and she wouldn’t face the muddy water.

So Kerry went in on foot
to hunt the sheep through the water to higher ground.
They didn’t want to face the water,
so Kerry had to work hard to get them out.

Ten were already dead, fifteen lay down
and he got sixty-five out to higher ground

Gifts For Mother

When my brother, Kerry, and I were young,
we never spent money
so we never bought presents.

All our clothes, blankets and food
were bought by mail order and paid for by cheque,
with the exception of meat;
and wee got the killers in when we needed meat.

We had an account at the shop in Cunnamulla
and at two shops in Charleville,
and also the shop in Wyandra.

My brother, Kerry, got the chance to go to Wyandra
with the other men from Rosevale,
so he went to the shop and bought a new kettle;
and the next time he went to Wyandra
he bought a new mincing machine for our mother.

All the other mums on the station wished
their sons would buy useful presents like Kerry bought.

Whirly Winds And Other Big Winds

It was in the big drought
and we were feeding the horses for seven years.
The whirly winds went hundreds of feet into the air.

One whirly wind took a 44 gallon drum
right over the four-foot-high house yard fence
and dropped it with a bang on the other side,
almost frightening the life out of the horses.

The next really big wind was
when we were eating supper on the side verandah
and the wind roared through the house.
Our place was filled with dirt,
so we had to give our supper to the dogs.

Another very strong whirly wind got into the shed
and had a job to get out again.
It knocked over the forty-four gallon drums,
also the motor bikes and took half the roof off the shed.
Two days later Tommy came out
and put the roof back on the shed.

 

The Stone Outside Charley Jones’ Door

The steps on the middle verandah
were on the point of falling apart,
and to make things worse,
the dogs had dug a hole at the back of the steps
and things were getting dangerous.

Grandad liked to tease us kids
and, as the song of the day was
“The Stone Outside Dan Murphy’s Door,”
Grandad said, “if Dan Murphy can have a stone
outside his door, so can Charley Jones!”

Kerry and I thought he was showing off
and being silly having a stone outside his door.
We were annoyed when our mother helped him
wheel a very big
stone in the wheelbarrow.

But we were very surprised when the barrow
was wheeled right up to the steps
and the steps were taken out
and the big stone was rolled into the hole
that the dogs had dug behind the steps.
Then two smaller stones were rolled
in front of the very big one to form steps.
They were still there when we left Minetta.

Lenny’s Hunting Lesson

Tania was the mother cat.
She was every inch a female’
She always liked the male cat
to take the first bite of anything she caught
and she was a good hunter.

Lenny was one of Tania’s kittens
and just old enough to learn to hunt.

Tania, like all cats, didn’t like water,
but she managed to catch a duck on the edge of the water.
She brought the bird up to the garden
where she wounded it and let it go for Lenny to catch.
The duck dragged him through the dog netting fence.
Tania saw that he couldn’t hold it,
so she jumped the fence and killed it,
then meowed to Lenny to take that first bite
like she’d told him to.

For Lenny’s next hunting lesson,
Tania caught a huge lizard.
She brought it up on the front verandah, wounded it
and let it go for him to catch, but it bit him.
Tania nearly went through the gauze getting to him.
She killed the lizard then called him up to take that first bite
like she’d taught him to.

A Little Accident With The Little Plough

Kerry went out with the Boss on the little yellow 22 tractor
to deepen the bore drain.
They used the little plough and the delver
on the shallow parts of the drain.
Kerry handled the plough while the Boss drove the tractor.
After it was ploughed, the delver was pulled
through the drain to deepen it.

While they had lunch they left the little plough
lying in the mud on the bank of the bore drain.
Afterwards they went on with the delving
but the tractor ran clean over the little plough.

When Kerry got home
he told the other men what happened.
He said, “Oh, by the way,
We had a little accident with the little plough.”

Tommy asked, “What happened?”
“The tractor ran over it,” said Kerry.
‘What part?” asked Tommy.
“The blades and the handles,” said Kerry
“and now that is the biggest part – in fact, that’s all of it!”

Those men nearly killed themselves laughing.
Tommy said, “Please let me sit in the back
when we go home in the aeroplane,
because the Boss will tell it the same way.”

A Brave Deed

Peter was a child of music.
Jim took every lesson on guitar there was to take
and still couldn’t play as well as Peter.

Peter would sing, “The very next day the cat came back.”
I sometimes stayed out of bed just to listen to him.

Now Peter had a plate in his head
and sometimes went off.
One day he grabbed the rifle
and held up the mustering camp.

Gilbert, the overseer, walked right up to him
and took the rifle off him
and took the bolt out of it, so he couldn’t use it.
Now that was a brave deed.

Solid Rain

I had only seen hail
three or four times in my life;
but the out-station
was much colder than Minetta.

At the out-station
there was an old charcoal cooler
and the cat
would sit under the cooler.

The day the hail came, poor little Lenny
was sitting under the cooler.
Lenny was only three months old
and had never seen solid rain.

I noticed he was outside,
so I put on my rain suit and went out.
I put the poor, wet kitten inside my suit
and took him inside and dried him down.

Scrubbers

Minetta was built on a stony ridge.
There were three bore drains running from Minetta bore.
The water was hot and clear.

The killing sheep were wild and hard to run.
We only ran a killer in when meat was needed.

The sheep were wild, really wild,
and there were two scrubbers in the flock that led every break.
Now scrubbers are cattle or sheep
that are very wild, sometimes dangerous,
and have had very little handling by humans.

One day Kerry jumped on old Kate
and went for the killers.
The girth broke and dropped Kerry on the stones,
saddle and all.
But old Kate just stood there while Kerry got back on.

After that, Kerry finally got the killers into the yard.
That night he killed the worst of the scrubbers.
It had run so much it ran its trotters bare.

The Family Rolls Royce

Jack took his wife and kids to town for shopping
in his station wagon.

On the way back the car broke down.
Jack walked back to where the David Brown tractor was
and brought it back to pick up the family.
Now to load a man and his wife and seven kids
on a David Brown tractor is no mean feat.

Jack drove the tractor with his little son, Paul, on his knee.
His wife sat on the mudguard
with her little daughter, Pauline, on her knee.
Kayleen sat behind her dad’s seat,
held on by the older girls.
The older girls, Margaret, Barbara and Jo-Ann
stood on the back of the tractor.
Allan stood with one foot on the battery case
and the other foot on the step,
holding on the best way he could.

When they reached the out-station, Jack said,
“Get out the camera
and take a picture of the family Rolls Royce!”

Then they made it home the lasts ten miles safely.
Quite a feat, don’t you think?

Dog Bites

I was a shy and timid seven-year old.
I was walking down to the bore drain
when a black dog came up behind me and bit me on the leg.
Now you must not run away;
but it is no use telling a frightened seven-year old that.

I was so frightened I ran up to the house and hid in the bathroom
until my mother found me and dressed the wound’
I never told on the dog, so he didn’t get shot.

The next time I was bitten by a dog,
I was mowing for Linda.
I was covered in dust and dirt when I finished the mowing.
Afterwards, I went over the road to the petrol station
to get a forty-four gallon drum for a rubbish bin,
I had to get it home the best way I could,
so I rolled it home.

As I reached the corner house
their dogs didn’t like the noise the drum was making
and two dogs came out at me,
but a nice girl got them off me.

I went on a bit further and three dogs came at me
but the same nice girl got them off me again,
while her parents looked on, but didn’t lift a hand to help.

I was so frightened I didn’t know I had been bitten
until I saw the blood running down my leg.
I got home okay after that, then I had a bath
and went up to the hospital for a tetanus needle.

A Visit To The Doctor

I took my mother to the doctor
to get a sunspot on her collar bone cut out.

I went with her.
The Sister had gone to school with my sister, Betty,
and we had known the doctor for 23 years.

The doctor asked if we had ever had an operation without anaesthetic?
He had once, when he got kicked by a horse.
His doctor sewed him up in cold blood.
After the operation he went looking for a bottle of rum.

The student doctor told the story about when her father had an accident
and told his daughter to sew him up
on condition that he got a bottle of rum afterwards.

I told the story of when my brother, Kerry,
was bitten by a centipede.
He said he would have screamed
if anyone had been around to listen.
Instead he got on his horse and rode home.
I carried him inside
and we bathed his foot in Condy’s Crystals all night.
He went back to work the next day.

The Sister told the story of when she had the mumps.
My sister, Betty, wore her fairy dress instead
and looked better in it than she did.
The Sister never forgave her.

My mother, the patient, told the story of
when a snake got into the kitchen
and was lying between Kerry’s bed and mine.
It had been raining
so Kerry and I were sleeping in the kitchen.
Kerry was sent out to get Grandad,
but Grandad went on unharnessing the horse,
so my mother killed the snake with the axe.

I told the story of when I got a centipede in my pants.
I was helping Kerry pull the culvert out for the delving.
I felt something moving in my pants.
I pulled it out and threw it away. It was a centipede.
I think it got a bigger fright than I did.

The doctor said, “Cut!”
but the student doctor never heard him’
She was so entranced with the stories.
So I said, “Cut!” It was the last stitch.
My mother got nine stitches in all.
We all enjoyed the stories,
and thanked everyone for the lovely time and went home.

My Wild Garden

When we first came to town to live,
our yard had a nice vegetable garden, as well as three fruit trees.
The silver beet lasted for three years.
Our neighbour from over the back fence,
handed us four little pepperina trees.
We planted two at the back of our house
and two at the front.
But Andre, the neighbour’s horse, ate one of them.

A little green plant grew by the rainwater tank.
No plant ever had a rougher time than that one.
When the cladding was put on the house, one of the workmen sat on it.
It also got trodden on and things were dragged over it.
When the 1990 flood came, eight feet of water went over it.
Later, when the big pepperina tree was pruned,
a five-foot-high pile of pepperina limbs were dropped on it.
Today, this plant is a forty-foot high palm tree.

A little lady from down the street gave us a plant
to put on my dog’s grave.
Some people call it a money plant
and it is now six feet tall.
We also have three or four alovera plants in a corner.
The flower stems on this plant grow eight feet tall.

As well, we have a pig face covered with pretty pink flowers.
When I first got it, I accidentally ran the lawn mower over it,
so I had to get a new plant.
I have a few cacti; I even have one growing in two pots.

The long cactus is tangled up with my ferns.
Then there is a spiky bush that tangles up with
everything else; but I cut it back to ground level every year.

I have another plant with big green leaves
which doesn’t like getting its feet wet,
so I planted it in a Defiance pot
and now it is growing wild in a different pot.
To complete my garden, my two side fences are loaded
with mile-a-minute with its pretty purple flowers.

The Red Star Of Charleville

When we first came to Charleville twenty-five years ago
my brother, Kerry, was dying.
He would lie on his bed
and watch the Red Star of Charleville.

The Red Star of Charleville
was the light on the water tower.
From Kerry’s bed it looked like a star.
Kerry loved that light.

When Kerry died, the Red Star of Charleville went out for
three months, in respect for its greatest admirer.

I still watch the Red Star of Charleville
and think of how he loved it.
If Kerry were alive today,
he would have loved the RSL Star,
the prettiest star of all.

Shadow

My mother and I were sitting on the back verandah
when three kittens walked up from the shed.
Two were black and grey striped and the other one
had light grey stripes with a lot of white.
For about a day we thought their mother was feeding them;
but they were all alone, so I got a tin of dog’s meat
and mashed it up for them. I also gave them some milk

Two days later, the two little dark kittens died;
but the light one was all right.
He sometimes disappeared like a shadow, so I called him Shadow.
Once, he fell off the fence in front of Dever,
the cattle dog from next door.
But Dever was a mum, so she wouldn’t hurt a baby.
The little girl from next door put him back over the fence,
then he was okay.

On Mother’s Day it rained
and I could not leave him outside any longer,
so he became ours and lived in the house.

When Shadow was six months old
we took him to the vet to have him de-sexed.
He didn’t like getting into the basket so he scratched me and got away;
but I caught him, put him back in the basket and tied it down,
and he was done.

When he was ten months old he disappeared.
I hope he is alive; but if not,
then he lived for ten months longer than he would have otherwise.

Seniors Week, 2006

There was excitement at the Respite Centre
and the Senior Citizens Club,
because it was Senior’s Week and we were in it.
The first day was the Mayor’s Morning Tea.
It was delicious.
The Mayor entertained us with singing and music.
He was good.
On the same day was a cent auction.
I won five prizes and it took a bit to get them home on the bus.

On Friday the Waroona Bus called for us at 8 o’clock in the morning
to take us to Morven for a chocolate cake bake off.
We had the chocolate cake for morning tea.
Afterwards we had a game of Hoy. I won one prize.
Then we had lunch at Morven and came home.

Monday was the Senior Citizen’s Luncheon at the RSL.
Jill Mobbs and her daughter-in-law, Alison, sang for us.
I always love to hear Jill and Alison sing.

On Tuesday, we went with the Respite Centre to Wyandra.
My mother met one of her old school mates from Cunnamulla.
My mother and I won a prize for wheelchair dancing
at the old time dance.
We then had lunch and came home to Charleville.

Wednesday we went to Waroona Nursing Home
for the Senior’s Quiz.
The Respite team came second.
On Friday I played with the Senior Citizens Team,
while my mother, Holly was with the Respite Rovers Team.
They won a bronze medal in the quiz.

A Romantic Moment

I used to mow the lawn for a very old couple.
She had a very bad back and he was almost blind.

One morning I went over to mow their lawn.
I went early and he was still in his pyjamas.
He usually helped me start the mower
but this morning it would not start,
so I had a cup of tea with them.

Afterwards, the old man said,
“Come on, I want to show you something.”
And he took me into the bedroom, and to my surprise,
he showed me a brand new lawn mower!
He and I carried it down stairs and I mowed no trouble.
But wasn’t that romantic?

Intruders

The first time that anyone came into our house uninvited,
we were at the Senior Citizens Christmas Party.
The President had a bad heart.
A man was getting fresh with us and
she was worried he might hurt us.
So she said, “I’ll get you a taxi home.

When we got home the door had been forced
and things pulled out all over the floor.
Our dog was old and sick and we thought he might be hurt,
but he was okay.
The intruder was lucky that Pug was not well, because he was loose
and he was big and didn’t like strangers.

My mother walked down to the police station to get the police
and came back in the police car.
They said, “You’d be surprised
what charming children we have around here.”
The fingerprints were children’s.

The next time we had an intruder was at 4 o’clock in the morning.
We were in bed and Wooley, the dog, was barking;
so I got up and got the whip to quieten him.
I walked out to the kitchen and put the light on.
The doorknob was turning, so I knew someone was there.
But luckily the door was bolted.
I asked him what he wanted and he said,
“I want a bed and if you don’t let me in
I’ll come through the window.”
I said, “You’d better not – I have a six-foot stock whip in my hand,
and I won’t hesitate to use it.” He didn’t risk it.

My mother, meanwhile,
went next door to get our neighbour to hunt him,
and escort him out of our yard and point him towards the pub.

Another intruder came at 11 o’clock one night
and Wooley chased her over the fence.
Next morning we found our tin of fifty-year-old rivets had been dropped when
Wooley chased her over the fence.

It was just about midnight when we had our next intruder.
Susie the dog started barking.
We heard a bang and thought a bird had hit the window,
breaking one of the louvres.
I went back to bed.
Just as I did I heard another bang!
The louvre was now out and I saw someone riding away on a pushbike
and my purse was on the floor.
The next morning I called the police.
A policewoman came down
and she took away the louvre for finger printing

The next time we had an intruder we were watching TV.
There was a storm in the distance and Susie was barking,
but there didn’t seem to be any reason.
At 10 o’clock we turned off the TV
as the storm was getting closer.
I went for a bath and sitting on our tea towel box
was a big, ginger cattle dog!
I went next door to get our neighbour
to get him out of our house.
He came and dragged the dog out and sent him on his way.
It is great to have good neighbours.

The Day The Money Got Wet

It had been raining heavily
and Bradley’s Gully was running a banker.

My mother and I got on our pushbikes
to take flowers out to the cemetery
to put on Grandad’s and Kerry’s graves.

We went out by the unsealed road past the hospital,
The sand was not so bad when it was wet
so we got to the cemetery okay
and put flowers on the graves.

We decided to come back via May Street over Bradley’s Gully.
We didn’t know how deep the water was,
so we came straight down the hill from the cemetery,
straight into Bradley’s Gully!

I had my purse on my back and it didn’t get wet.
My mother had her purse in the basket on the bike
and it went under water and everything in it got wet,
including the money.

After we got out of the gully
we went around to see our friend, Maggie, in King Street.
She was very helpful and got out her iron
and ironed the money under a cloth.
She laughed about it for weeks and told everyone about it.

The Sad Parting Of The Sugar Gum

One day I heard a creaking noise down the back.
The day was very calm and there wasn’t a breath of wind.
I walked out to the back verandah and slowly, without fuss,
down came the thirty-foot-high sugar gum tree,
taking the back fence with it.

It nearly squashed our Chinese fan palm.
It knocked our big round cactus out of the ground,
it also knocked over the cross on our cat’s grave.

Now, the sugar gum wasn’t our tree,
so I went to see Mrs Rogers, but she wasn’t home.

Spider said, “did you come to see Shirley?”
I said ”Yes, the sugar gum came down this morning.”
He said, “I know.”
I said, “It is not our tree,”
He said, “I know, I saw it come down.”

Three hours later Colin turned up to cut up the tree.
He took most of it away, but the trunk was too heavy.
He also propped up the fence.

The sugar gum had borers in the roots
and that was why it came down.
We replanted the big round cactus.
We also trimmed the Chinese fan palm
and they both lived.

We also fixed Claudie Girl’s cross.

A Big Fright

I use to look after an old lady,
I called to see her twice a day and three times on Sunday.

Now Linda was an early riser
and this morning I was late.
It was already half past eight.
Mrs Kirby had arrived before me,
She was standing on the back verandah looking worried.

The door was still locked
and when we knocked and called out
there was no response.
Mrs Kirby and I by this time were getting very worried.

I said, “I know how to get in.”
So I climbed up on the cement tubs,
opened the window and looked through.

There was Linda sitting on the bed.
She was alright.
She had just forgotten to unlock the door.

Ginger And The Kookaburra

Ginger and Rex were twin cats
that were born in a drain pipe at the old Hixon’s Hotel.
When they were old enough
they both moved in with us.

One day Ginger saw a Kookaburra perched on the tap
quite close to the ground,
so he thought
he would have Kookaburra for breakfast.

But the Kookaburra was watching him
and when he got close he took off over Ginger’s head,
giving a very harsh laugh.
One very disgusted, frightened kitten ran under the house.

The 1990 Flood

It had been raining off and on for days.
we had three inches of rain on the 20^th April
and there had been nine inches up the Nive River.
Everyone was watching the Warrego rising.

I went for a walk around the block and at the corner
where the Golden Fleece Petrol Station was,
I was up to the hem of my very short shorts in water.

Later, my mother and I went for a walk as far as the Hixon’s Hotel.
The water was just coming in their door.
They said, “What the hell are you doing here?
The water will be in your place in three minutes!”
They weren’t kidding!

When we got home the water was racing across our lawn,
taking a garden gnome with it,
through under the house and into the laundry.
The Radnedge boys came over
and lifted our washing machine up onto the big blue trunk.

Then it was time to leave the house.
I tucked the dog under my arm.
I tried to take the cat too, but she wouldn’t come.
There was too much water.

I put her on the kitchen table to take her chances.

We spent the night at Radnedges.
June lent us a dress each.
The water entered the second storey of Radnedge’s house
at 6 o’clock next morning.
Spider said, “Everybody out of bed!”

When I looked over at our house
only the roof was sticking out of the water.
I was getting the seat of my pants wet
sitting on the bed on Radnedge’s second storey verandah.
The boat arrived at 8 o’clock in the morning.

The first load took old people and children.
The second load was Kelly and I and four dogs.
The third load were the men, with Bluey the senior dog.

When we reached the railway crossing they said,
“Throw the dogs overboard!”

Wooley started swimming for home.
I went in after him and brought him back to dry land.
I threw him in the back of a small truck and got in with him
and went as far as the Scout Den.
Wooley and I crossed by boat, then caught another truck to the airport.

After all that water (there was sixteen feet of water through the town)
the hardest thing to do was to find water to give the dog a drink.

I re-joined my mother at the airport.
Our friend, Anne Liston, let us share her swag.
The food line started at 2 o’clock in the morning
while I was taking old Ivy to the toilet w.
After taking Ivy to the toilet we joined the food line.
A young soldier ran over.
He said, “Take that old lady to the head of the line.”
A baked bean sandwich tasted good after 24 hours
with only half a slice of dry bread.

Wooley fared a little better.
When the army came all the dogs were impounded.
Some of the steak had gone off so the dogs got it.

After the first three days we were allowed back to town.
We went everyday to clean up our house.
We thought we might not have a cat anymore,
but the first thing we heard was “Meow! Meow!”
Claudie Girl sat it out on top of the fridge.

After three days all the dogs disappeared.

There were stories going around that they were shooting the dogs,
so I went for a looking for Wooley
and after walking around for two hours
I found him at the town pound.

I then began walking back to the camp.
I met a truck coming to town.
The truckie offered me a lift back to the camp.
He had to turn the big truck around. It wasn’t easy.
He was a real gentleman.

We stayed at the camp for just a fortnight,
until our house was liveable again.
Wooley was brought home and tied to the front fence.
It was the only fence left standing.

*******

I hope you have enjoyed this little book
You can write to me on email
pattyjones@mulgatraining.com.au