Monday
Up at o’dark o’clock. Crystal clear morning, steel coloured sky and fading stars. No frost but the breeze is up. I load up and head out looking for yabbie bait and something for the pot this evening. The search is futile and the team is gathered here at the end of the day cooking vegetable soup! Any protein running around this property managed to get away from me, much to my chagrin. Still, it has been a good day. We spent the morning emptying a time capsule of a shed so we could reorganize it and make more room for various farm implements and resources. This property was purchased in 1893 and there were fragments of that original purchase scattered through the back of the shed.
Family were in the First Light Horse and lined up for the Gallipoli landings. Remnants from that story are now on their way to the RSL. Everything we touched came from various eras and we wondered at 1920s decorations, 1950s Detective magazines, wooden hand tools, rabbit poison (fumigation) ampoules, drays, horse leathers, bits, collars and other leather and strapping from transport long forgotten. There was the more mundane – we sorted and restacked timber, tidied up field plumbing, reorganised guttering, moved drums ad nauseum and otherwise soon had the place looking orderly. The team put in a great effort and by lunchtime we had sorted through 100 years of “stuff” which had been covered in seasons of dust from the last decade of drought (at least), brushed it off and gotten ourselves happily filthy in the process. Bec had pasta lunch prepared for us and after that short “repasta” we were back into it and soon had the complete contents back in the shed or down in the tip with a large fire burning. There is still more to be done but we are pleased that Joy now has a functional shed with plenty of spare room in which to place temporary stores.
We all piled into the vehicles after closing the shed and headed to the main dams (a half hour drive away) to set yabbie traps and to have a chance to let loose on an impromptu range – good for those how have not had any chance in town to try out a 30-06. The shine in the eyes of some tells me this will be a highlight for them.
Now we are back with the vegetarian crew inventing dinner, the fire rumbling away in the fire place and everyone feeling a little bit more peaked than they did yesterday. There is noting like a hard days work to knock the sap out of everyone. Rod has just clapped his hands and shouted “Dinner guys” so I had better put this down and head to the table.
