"A story about Poddy, Shepp, Nigger and Bonny Bess, and numerous other characters" 

One of the enduring memories of life on the land, especially when there is a lack of human companionship, is a deep interest in the animals.
 
It was not a good idea to become attached to the geese ducks or chickens, as their life expectancy could come to an abrupt end. I found it distressing to see the execution and almost as disturbing to have to pluck the feathers prior to cooking.
 
The other regular execution was of a sheep, usually a two tooth or older. I only saw Dad butcher a sheep once. It was an image that I will not forget.  I was not fond of eating meat, but obliged so that the starving children in China did not have to put up with it! 
 
I usually volunteered to bottle feed any orphaned lambs, and my favourite was Poddy.     He was unfortunate to be born a male, as on a sheep property, it meant his potential was limited.
 
Poddy was unusually intelligent for a sheep. He was quite chubby and had a ferocious appetite.  It was essential to always secure the storeroom door, as he would find a way in to get in to open the lid of the sugar bin. On one attempt to satisfy his sweet tooth, he managed to tip over the bin and was found lying in a carpet of sugar with the evidence all over his face.
 
Eventually, one Sunday lunch, when we had a roast, I commented on the meat, being more tender than usual.  “It should be,” said Dad. “It’s Poddy”.
 
I was in my 30s before I was able to eat lamb again.
 
Second only to Poddy in intelligence was Nigger, our small Shetland pony. He was not deterred by any gate closure or screen door. He could open the garden gate, eat anything that looked interesting .on his list of challenges was the kitchen door. The clip clop of his hooves on the verandah were a giveaway. When Mum or Annie (our cook for some years). heard him coming, there would be a race to slam the door shut, as Nigger had no shame, and would force his way in if he got the chance to sample any food he could reach. He came to a sad end, however, as one day he ate something he should not have, and we found him dead in his yard. Bloat was a painful end for a greedy but endearing character.
 
Bonny Bess was a part Arab pony with a mind of her own. It was necessary to be strong willed when mounting her. She had a tactic of shifting at a crucial moment and I swear she would turn her head and laugh. Bonny arrived after my brother and I were at boarding school. I was about 12, and from form 2 onwards, I did not always come home for holidays, so Gordon had a better relationship with her.
 
Two other pets we shared were two greyhounds that we named Bruce and Basil. They
were not the usual gift for preschool age kids. I think they were dumped on us after their retirement from racing. Dad confined them to the garage after they were caught dining out on new born baby lambs. I knew they had no appeal as pets. They disappeared shortly afterwards.
 
Dad had a horse called Red and a loyal Border Collie called Shepp. Both would wait faithfully by the garden gate until he came out. I can still picture Shepp when he was too old and unwell to help Dad round up sheep. He sat patiently on the drive while Dad lined up his rifle to put Shepp out of his misery. Amazingly, the shot rang out and in a split second, Shepp remembered he had reflexes. He ducked in time, and lived a few more years in retirement, until a snake ended his life.
 
We had numerous dogs and a stray cat called Whiskey, who was employed on a mice catching contract. He was motivated to keep up his score as apart from mice, he would sometimes present us with a dead bird. This was not appreciated, however.
 
There were several milking cows, but one of the best was Bella, who was particular about who milked her. This was the job of the gardener, Mr. Tulen, a Dutch migrant who was with us for many years. It took him many attempts at first to come to a truce with Bella. Having a bucket kicked over and milk wasted on the cowshed floor was too much for Mr. Tulen, who had such a repertoire of foreign swear words we suspect Bella got the idea that it might be safer to behave!!
 
All the animals had a function. Dad kept all the people on “Marong” supplied with meat, milk and Mr.Tulen was proud of his vegetable garden and orchard. We had enough for everyone, but they were not allowed to keep their own animals. I suspect the mysterious appearance of the occasional stray cat came from the Tulens’ or Mathews’ cottages.
 
 
Val Dunin
August 2021

“Why is there a white horse tied up in our front garden?”  Mysteriously, our neighbour who owns the horse is hurrying down the driveway on foot carrying a stockwhip with one arm in a sling!
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My father tells me that our neighbours were getting cattle into the yard when a Hereford cow went mad and attacked Jim’s stockhorse and threw it onto the air. When the horse hit the ground Jim dislocated his shoulder. “He’s left the horse for you to get the cow into the yard.” He says, “Be a good girl and go and get the cow in for them.”

Australian mateship required that if your neighbour has had an accident and requests help from your teenage daughter she is willingly sent into the lion’s den.  

The horse, Gary, is a narrow weedy specimen with a ewe neck and a small weak head. With the weight of a large crazed beef animal hitting him amidships he would have sailed through the air! This horse has already had an accident; he’s not going to be a willing participant.

When I approach Gary he looks at me with piggy little eyes. It’s obvious that he has a shirt full of sore ribs! The solution would be to take my own horse but I don’t want it hurt as well. “Sorry Gary, it’s just you and me.”

When Jim offers me the stockwhip I decline. It was most likely the cause of the trouble. I don’t want to heap fuel on the fire. 

This cow is a heavy mean looking brute with large forward curved horns. She is frothing at the mouth and her eyes are glowering red. When she sees the horse she lets out an enraged bellow and attacks again. Gary is not going to be in this, he’s not stupid. Every time I force him back to the cow she charges him and he whips around and bolts in the opposite direction! There is no way this horse is going near that cow. This is hilarious. I feel like a Spanish picador at the bullfights, but there’s no crowd cheering us on.

Jim has had enough of watching this circus of the cow and his horse diving in all directions around the paddock.  With only one useful arm he goes to get the caterpillar bulldozer. The cow attacks the dozer. The blade towers above her but she fights it all the way up the paddock. Together we manage to push her into the yard with the other cattle and slam the gate shut.

What happened to the cow? No idea. Jim is driven to the Doctors to have his shoulder realigned. Gary is nursing his wounds in the paddock and the peace of a warm spring afternoon settles down on the farm across the road once more!  

Beverley Morton
​August 2021

 “Australia rides on the sheep’s back,” was the catch cry in the nineteen fifties and wool was bringing record prices.

On Phillip Island we changed our sheep flock from crossbreds to plain bodied merinos. As its heavy carrying country we graze four to six sheep to the acre. We have other paddocks leased across the Island and it’s my job to drive the sheep to their current pastures and keep an eye on them.
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Spring arrives later down on the coast than to inland Australia. It brings sunshine, less wind and a sparkling blue sea. In the paddocks bees buzz around at ankle height pollinating strawberry clover flowers. Yellow flowers bloom on gorse bush hedges. Horses and cattle are losing their rough winter coats. A light breeze blows across the land, rustling through the tops of the tall rye grass that is coming to seed in the paddocks that have been locked up to be cut for hay.
 
Shearing and hay time always seem to coincide for us and it’s the busiest time of the year.    I bring the sheep from the paddocks to the shearing shed. The bleating of sheep and the frantic rattle of their cloven hoofs on the wooden slats of the floor as they are forced into the catching pen, blend with the thump of the generator and the whine of the shearing machine as the shearers push the combs and cutters through the thick fleeces. The smell of wool grease permeates the air.

My sister is doing the picking up; gathering the fleece and throwing it on the wool table and carefully skirting it of any stained or coarser wool. Father works on the wool press and Mother runs a tight ship at the nerve centre, the farm kitchen, preparing baskets of morning and afternoon tea for the wool shed and the hay crew out in the paddock and cooking the midday dinner for the shearers.

I am also on the hay crew and drive the tractor pulling the ancient hay rake. It’s the harvest, and for me, watching the swathe of rye grass and thick mat of clover curl away from the tynes of the rake is almost spiritual. There is nothing like the sweet smell of perfectly cured hay. The sun seems to be smiling on us and we hope it will continue to do so until the baled hay is safely in the shelter of the hayshed.

Stud Poll Herefords have been added to the farm menagerie. They are a delight; except for Brewarrina Cora who is bloody minded at the best of times.

We have a great crop of young bulls to prepare for the Stud Bull sales. Cora’s life never goes smoothly; her calf has a black patch on his neck! He will not make a stud bull.  Brother John and I train the surrounding hair towards the patch to make it look a bit smaller. This bull is sold separately at the Dandenong sale for unregistered bulls. John leads him around the sale ring and he brings a good price. But Dad looking down from the stand can see what we have done and is irate and in front of the other cattle breeders he accuses us of being crooks!  Regardless, “Black Patch” is voted best beef sire in the Mildura district for several successive years.

The Ventnor Park Poll Hereford show team is proudly added to the horse truck for the Gippsland shows and wins many Championships in individual classes and beef cattle groups and a senior champion bull at Melbourne Royal Show.

At Korumburra Show, a tall thin old man sits on a rail fence nearby watching our cattle being prepared for the show ring. The washing of white tails and white legs, oiling hoofs, grooming and putting rows of curls in their thick red coats. When I finish he says, “I love to watch you working with the cattle. Are you coming to Mirboo North Show next week?  If you do you’ll win.  You have the best cattle and I’m judging.” We find that he is also the judge that day at Korumburra!

With John home from school we need more acres and Father has always wanted to get back over the Great Dividing Range, “One mouthful of grass there is worth more in stock feed than four in Gippsland,” he always says. The search for land brings us to Borambola in Goomalibee. It’s fathers dream that we will all live there together, but fate always has other plans.

In a café in Melbourne, a young woman I have never seen before sits down at the table beside me and says, “Your name is Beverley, isn’t it?” 

I’m surprised! “How do you know that?”  She says “I’m guessing. Have you ever thought about going nursing?  I tell her that I will think about it.  Although farming will always hold a piece of my heart, times are changing and I know it’s time for me to move on.
 

Bev Morton
August 2021

Growing up I spent many holidays on my Aunt’s large sheep farm near Romsey. There we rode horses and occasionally mustered sheep and went rabbit hunting at night. There was usually a group of cousins and we all got on well, so life was good.  I also devoured The Billabong books by Mary Grant Bruce, so had this romanticised view of farming life.

In 1978 my husband, four children and I bought a house on forty acres close to Benalla. We were lucky to have a woolshed and a machinery shed plus sheep yards included. We started off our farming adventure slowly with a couple of lambs we bottle fed. These were called Bonnie and Curly. These two grew up and were a great help when we increased the flock, as Bonnie would follow us and the rest followed her.

Our next addition was a cow in calf.  Unfortunately, after giving birth to the calf, Rosie, she died from Grass Tetany.  A couple of years later we found Rosie was infertile so sadly she was sent to the sale yards.  We then invested in a beautiful Jersey cow. The kids named her Goldie. She was a gentle soul who allowed me to milk her. We set up a bail in one of the sheds and she used to follow me from the paddock to the bail every morning. We then bought another cow, whose family had named Veranda. She was a different temperament. When I would open the gate, I had to run towards the shed with her racing behind me.

With all the milk being produced I learned to make butter and even branched out into ice cream making. At one stage we bought a couple of piglets which delighted the kids, but they grew quite big and were sent to the abattoir. We were given a goat to help keep the grass down, but he seemed to think the house was his and would wander into the lounge room to watch the Television.​

We were very fortunate in our neighbours, who went out of their way to show us the way to do things such as cutting sheep toenails and putting marking rings on the male lambs.  One family allowed us to share an Angus Bull with them, so we had newborn calves. We had also bought the kids a calf each which they hand reared and named. To the cattle and sheep, a horse and a donkey were added, as well as various dogs.  All in all, life was chaotic but enjoyable.

Then came the drought of 1982 - 83. Suddenly, life became a pattern of hand feeding stock and anxiously watching the sky for any black cloud. As my husband was employed, we were not reliant on income from the land, unlike full time farmers. Thus, my romantic view of farming life took a battering, but I learned empathy for farmers.

I still feel life on the land is the ideal lifestyle, but one needs a certain temperament to cope with Nature's moods.


Margaret McCrohan
August 2021