Around Oz the First Time - Chapter 97 - Condobolin Day 2

Today looked to deliver many things:

           First and most importantly, rain is predicted. In an area that hasn’t seen real precipitation in many years, this news many are hanging on to start to break the cycle of the drought

           Secondly, our family had come together in secret, to help one of our own, and we were here, originally this was part of our track home, but now, more to document and share the delivery.

It should be a double bunger of delights for the denizens of the Little Prairie.

In order to get this show on the road, we need Mitchell to arrive so we can coordinate the ceremonial delivery of the first part of the hay. I know the hay is here, it’s sitting on a truck in the shed. Aunty Kerre believes it’s a delivery for a local farmer. She has however questioned why a farmer with only twenty sheep would want thirty bales of hay. It has only been a frivolous attempt to understand the workings of the farmer’s mind and she remains oblivious.

Mitch arrives and we get the perfect chance to converse alone as the plastics recycling bin has blown over in the wind, allowing us to look industrious, clean up the mess, and sort out a plan.

Rather than try to do the “telling her” outside, we decide to inform Aunty Kerre inside while she is sitting down. It may also offer me the ability to use the protection of the island bench, if she were to start swinging, only figuratively of course.

Casey, Mitch’s partner will do the videoing as I tell Aunty Kerre, as Robyn wants to be in the vicinity for comforting if required, and we set up. Kerre has bemused by what we are doing, but goes along as she knows I can be “silly” with the video as I was at Christmas time with Maddie, one of the granddaughters, who I filmed and we sent a silly video to her parent suggesting she was having such a good time, she hoped she remembered them when they came to pick her up.

So, Jeff and a video camera, situation normal.

I start by discussing that truck with the 30 bales presently on it, that was outside with hay for the farmer, is actually the first part of a hay delivery of some 1309 bales for her. She is stunned. I go through the story of how, having seen the Facebook post about selling one of the horses and jokingly suggesting it was because she was running out of feed. The emotions are overwhelming, she is reduced to tears as I tell her of Bruce Parnaby creating a Facebook page entitled “Don’t tell Ferg she will kill us”. Ferg is the nickname of Aunty Kerre as far as the family is concerned.

Composed, sort of, we head outside for more videoing, first a cameo of the truck arriving, then the driving of the truck to the shed, and the horses, the “real reason” behind the gesture. It’s not that the horses are animals owned by a family member, these equine equivalents to eventide entertainers, bring rest bite and relaxation away from the stresses of living the last of their lives in the village, withering away in the sunset of life.

Lots of fun is had, videoing hand feeding of the horses, carting the bales from the truck to the shed with my best Tim the Tool Man impressions as I heave surprising light bales off the truck and into the shed where Mitchell is staking them. Robyn is collecting the dregs off the tray of the truck and feeding the inquisitive equines. The wind intervenes and one of the horses is covered in hay, much to the hysterical joy of the crowd.

When we are finished, I snap a picture of Kerre lying in a seat created by the stacked hay, and then video her saying thank you to all those who were a party to this as she remains on the seat in the shed. She is still very emotional but composed enough to make a heartfelt video thankyou which I post on the family page. I make a number of posts of the raw data I have captured, and the comments start.

I get Bruce Parnaby on the phone, so he can take some of the brunt of the “abuse”, and he tells Ferg of the need to stop the contributions at one stage because they had an oversubscription, very quickly after the family funding call went out. What composure there was, has gone again. It is further fuelled by the comment there are many people who wanted to contribute who didn’t get the chance, they will be hot to trot when this lot runs out.

Kerre jokingly believes the 130 bales in this delivery will keep her in hay until the drought breaks in June, which is when the BOM (the Bureau of Meteorology) suggest as in the Squatter game we used to play as kids “General Rain Breaks Drought on all Stations”. For the moment, glimpses of rain, promises of storms through the heaping up of clouds or predictions of the BOM are all they have to cling to.

I would like to be able to use the line from Rick Wakeman’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth – “cumulus clouds form up in the east, like huge wool packs, heaped up in picturesque disorder, and in silence they wait for the storm”. But I can’t, the wind and the dust, the relentless wind and the driving dust, mask anything that looks “picturesque”. In fact, its frightening to think that except for the overcast, this is a normal day in these drought affected areas.

Robyn and Ferg compare BOM type sites on their respective phones, reciting the percentage chance of rain in Condobolin at differing times during the day. Several times I go outside and video the view towards Condobolin, three kilometres away, which you cannot see because of the dust whipped up by the wind.

50% chance of rain then, 90% chance, all during the daylight, and not a drop. At one stage while out filming the dust, I notice a fast dropping in the temperature. I look up and see a line of clouds, darker than the others crossing overhead. The line of cloud is not deep and, in the distance where it would have met the horizon, it merges with the dust. Is this the sum total of the front which was supposed to bring short term relief to the drought-stricken area?

During the afternoon, others of the family turn up and I am able to get them in front of the camera to talk about family times long past and what Ferg does and means to them, as a backdrop to a later video we want to both about the family for the Facebook page but also for a drought video, we want to create to keep minds on awareness of the issues being faced, putting a face to the pain. As a Belrose Rotarian we will be able to use something like this to help with our drought relief programs and Tree of Joy Christmas Appeal.

They talk of family, the talk of good times and bad, a family in two halves, centred around the death of my mother’s father. His untimely demise, at his own hand (a fact I personally was unaware of until today), left Nan with the lower half of the family, to bring up on her own, surrounded by the pressures of the “Stolen Generation”, and a particular welfare officer, hellbent on separating them. There was talk of a collection being arranged by the town, and my grandmother too proud to take the money, but because the mayor at the time was smart, from time to time when she absolutely, needed it, a child was dispatched with a letter addressed to the mayor, and the required money would come in a sealed envelope specifically for the purpose required.

It was fascinating to listen to the stories, coming in part from two aunts, suffering dementia, but lucid enough to relay the stories in front of a camera. Shy at the start, once Aunty Christine got started, she rambled on for in excess of forty-five minutes. Repeating herself a little from time to time, the stories are still very fascinating. Aunty Caroline, who is much further gone, down the dementia path is less lucid but still worthy of being filmed. They are both tickled pink at the result.

I have a plan for a “twenty questions” session for Kerre later. This initial “research” changes some of the questions to be asked, particularly after hearing the story of Ferg riding her horse into a store to by pink musk sticks (a story for another time). More to the point will be the questions of family and why she has assumed the mantle of matriarch. Aunty Caroline was the oldest in the homebound family at the time of the death of her father, and according to Aunty Christine it was hardest on her as she was thrust into looking after the rest.

Kerre is the second youngest in a family of thirteen. Her father being a gun shearer and half aboriginal, he was rarely around. There aren’t many of the family left, and those that are, except for Aunty Julie who is the same age as my wife, are suffering various old age issues from extreme age to depression to dementia. There are six left now, Robyn (in Narrandera), Brolga (Uncle Max), Caroline, Christine, Kerre (all of whom are close here in Condobolin) and Julie who lives in Largs near Newcastle.

There are cousins all over Australia, and like Robyn’s wandering family, can pop up anywhere in your travels. You can of course, like we have done at this point in our trip, schedule a drop in, and you will be warmly received and not expected to leave until you have out worn your welcome (if that is possible). We intend to wander up the east coast of Australia in one of our future jaunts and I suspect there may be very little need to find a caravan park in Queensland as there are cousins residing in all the major towns up the coast AND they all fish.

It is dark later with daylight saving, according to the clocks, and it is dark when the rain finally starts. I race outside and video the rain, making comments of nakedness, in reference to a news story of some months ago when a farmer ran naked in the rain, celebrating a long-awaited rain event. The rain doesn’t last long, about an hour, but the BOM have promised storms during the night and significant falls for the area.

Kerre and I go about the interview process of the twenty questions. It takes a while, and in the idle, one of the, I suspect, main contributors to the hay fund, cousin Daryl, calls. The call lasts almost an hour but does not take our concentration off what “needs to be done” in creating these videos. Although my aunt is only a small hobby farmer, putting face to the plight of the drought stricken communities may just stir some movement in the hip pockets of those thinking the phenomenon has past or is a figment of someone’s imagination, even though no one seems to be able to get those in power to make any real decisions on immediate and long term solutions to the problems.

Proud and stubborn, I finally got Aunty Kerre and her son Mitchell to apply for a Rotary Relief Grant, which they automatically qualified for, to assist them with fuel for his business and other necessities. But that was a “private” fund, through Rotary International, nothing is available through government channels, and if it was, there is far too much paperwork and red tap to hop though over and around before any money gets to where it is needed.

We finish the taping and sit down to enjoy an old western movie – Shane. The rain has stopped now, but the promise of storms during the night sends all to bed with hope.