Green Red Zone

There was something unsettling sitting in the offices of a certain government department in Baghdad and hearing senior civil servants, some with PhDs from US and European universities, cynically observe that they had swapped their home grown dictator for Dictator Bremer of Washington DC. Perhaps most disturbing was their discussion about how they were poised to assist the imposed coalition government but how they were rejected and ignored - ironic given these are the folk now trying to administer their country and get it back on its feet. We sat in a boarded up building that had been bombed and looted. Here met men charged with providing utilities and basic living infrastructure four years after Bremer had arrived. Outside sat queues of silent and staring Iraqi citizens, waiting for a chance to petition their minister - a novel concept for them. Not all the signs were hopeless, though in my town we are not searched for weapons before we meet our local member. Follow the white rabbit»

Turns out Albert Priest was…

…the town clerk (not sure which town) in the 1920s or so who thought it would be good for all in that part of the bush to have some water delivered via the channel that now bears his name.    Once can only suspect he well earned the naming rights since, as a town clerk, getting such a venture accepted, funded, launched and completed may well have turned into a life calling.

The Hurt Locker

What the heck was I thinking, watching Wolfsissie during the week? What a hopeless movie, starting with so much promise and fizzing half way through. Anthony Hopkins must need to pay off a credit card or something to be dragged into something as bad as this. Anyway, more than offset by The Hurt Locker which was recommended to me during the week by Greg. It’s one of those movies that sneaks up on you, Follow the white rabbit»

Who was Albert Priest?

Who was Albert Priest? We cross the Albert Priest Channel 26km south of Nyngan. Not such a luminary that a town or desert is named after him. No mountains either of course, this part of the country being billiard table flat. Perhaps it is appropriate that landmarks out here are subsurface ones such as a channel, for the only high points are eucalypts and casuarinas.

Oodla Wirra - Where?

A (very sharp) boning knife protruding backwards from hip pocket, mad scramble through thorn bush hunting jittery goats and a forearm inadvertently connecting with aforementioned knife had us do a quick (one hour) run to the hospital at Peterborough (that’s not a real wound - gotta love those country nurses)  through Oodla Wirra. A name that rattles out of your mouth and falls to the ground in a clatter. The sensation is so pleasing you have to try it again. And again. It makes you laugh. Follow the white rabbit»

The Devil’s Shilling

In the deserts of South Australia there are numerous monuments to failed enterprises and settlements. Standing at an old crossroads in the middle of saltbush country is a  derelict hotel with flowery wallpaper slowly peeling off the walls, floors caving in and a cellar blown into the street. It became the scene for a gothic short story task, the end result being titled “The Devil’s Shilling”

Two Men and a Dog

Cast:

Buzz. Old kelpie dog. 74 years of dust matted into his pelt. Eyes set way too close together. Thinks he runs the farm.

Silver. Mongrel something. 73 years of dust. Forehead as wide as a tanker’s bow - eyes way too far apart. Thinks he runs the farm.

Two kelpie bitches in heat. Know they run the farm.

Two part time, pretend farm hands trying to keep all of the above separated, fed, watered and out of each others way.

Scene 1: Bitches on heat. Dogs crazy. Follow the white rabbit»

Cactus is Fractus

Well, it is fractus (there is one for your Scrabble games) out on Miss Betty’s place, even if you do see it flourishing elsewhere in the state. Over the years prickly pear has been managed quite well and the family property is pretty much free of it. But given she is now managing it on her own a few plants have been creeping back. So part of our efforts in SA were directed at knocking these things off. First drive a hole into each pad and into the trunk of the plant. Just as Chris is doing here. Then fill the hole with undiluted Roundup. Then spray a mark on it - it can get pretty confusing out here and you don’t want to cover old ground. (It is a method a whole lot safer than the original treatment methods which involved boiling an arsenic mixture and letting the fumes drift into the weeds!) More than 200 plants were so treated, much to Miss Betty’s relief.

Apart from overrunning vast amounts of land the cactus spines get into the sheep wool making it a problem to handle come shearing time. In fact some shearers refuse to shear sheep known to be farmed in country with cactus. The spines will penetrate clean through a hand and leather boots are no protection. Hence Chris attacking this plant with a specially crafted spear - it allows him to stand off and drill the holes for the Roundup.

( A little bit of Prickly Pear disaster/success story in NSW here)

A Country Finger

Rarely is the gesture of a single finger ever interpreted as anything except someone wishing the worst things to happen to you or your mother. Or both. Regardless of culture, language or age. Except in the country where a single, brief wave of a finger off the steering wheel is understood by rural folk to mean something completely different again. In some respects it is akin a secret handshake.  Follow the white rabbit»

Kinked Back Shingleback

The short stick in the dusty distance moves in the heat and you are not sure if it is the shimmering haze off the gravel tricking your eyes. Then it moves again and a little more determinedly albeit awkwardly.  You slow down and get ready to swerve to avoid whatever it is. The stick waddles with a little more purpose as you apply brakes, and as you get closer it moves forward with the appearance of having a stiff back, slipped disk or some other spinal disability. Turns out on closer inspection to be this very determined little fellow who stands up to the Canon poked in his face - gaping his mouth wide and presenting a slightly bizarre blue tongue. Potentially dangerous for him if our curiosity is any guide - we are more inquisitive than deterred.

Bulyninnie, and this part of South Australia in general seems to be full of these lizards, related to the Blue Tongue, one of which alarmed one of my kids once by climbing into bed with her. All she saw was its scaly back and imagined a snake had come on board. She had the good sense to lie still but still managed to convey her alarm through the whole house. Poor lizard.

This guy settled down after a few minutes (put his blue tongue away, stopped hissing and lowered himself down from his aggressive posture) and hunkered down behind his lunch (they are herbivores) and watched the camera. I am not sure if he looks like a little old man or a baby. Either way they are quite endearing in their own way, shuffling about in the desert doing their own thing. The minute you think there  is nothing alive in the desert except 40 squillion flies (half of which are using your back as a layover) one of these guys shuffles onto the track in front of you to remind you it is not quite as desolate a place as you imagined.

A Word of Distraction

Last year I used the NanoWriMo competition of bash out the Iraq novel. This year it was used to smash into the biography of Herb Money. Bash and smash are the only way to describe trying to write 50,000 words in 30 days, when lots of other things are out there distracting you. I now confess to taking the laptop to the shearers quarters in South Australia. Happily I can report that it was not dragged out for the purposes of writing - which meant I had to do a lot of catching up. Crossed the 50,000 word line tonight - though all I think I have achieved at this point is a good idea about how the publishers book proposal should look. That cannot be a bad thing. Now, that short story for the writers group. Oops, no, better get back into the prospectus we need to have concluded in the next 24 hours or so.

Fixing the Back Fence

The boundary fences out here were built in 1898. Or to be more precise, the wire you lean on today was strung out in 1898. The steel posts replaced the wooden posts which are still lying where they were pulled out of the ground more than 110 years ago. We stood in awe of the steel and wire for it stretches as far as the eye can see in a perfectly straight line. More than 110 years old and still straight as a die.

We take some of the original posts, still strung through with original wire and sue them to dam up the trough burrowed under the bottom wire by the goats. The rabbit wire mesh is rehitched, and clipped and in some cases it is replaced or patched. We start this work as early as possible but it is not early enough. The morning is cool and fresh but he oven door opens about 9 am and by 11 we are done. Working with no hat and with minimum water intake catches out some of the team on the first day, a lesson quickly learned. We coach everyone to keep an eye on the colour of their urine as a guide to how hydrated or otherwise they are. It is a novel concept for some of them, but that is what this time away is all about after all.

We get one of the lads hydrated, get him loaded up into the ute and start back to the quarters. It is 17km from the back fence to home - as the crow flies. A bit further as the lizard wanders.