Around Oz the First Time - Chapter 98 - Condobolin Day 3

We were going home today but the wind has made us think twice, we have no reason to rush home in any event. The promised storms of last night apparently did not eventuate (or wake me up) and the wind has picked up. I have slept in again and its nine o’clock before I emerge. A quick check of the Facebook group sees a question from Bruce Parnaby wanting to know how much rain we got last night. I too am interested and might do a ceremonial reading of the rain gauge this morning and post the video on the page.

Walking into the house brings only heartbreak, I didn’t hear the storms because they never happened, and there was only 3.5mm of rain in the gauge. Aunty Kerre is always the optimist and what comes, gets dealt with, but she worries about other farmers in the area who may have been hanging on for some good rain last night just to give them hope. She is like that, always thinking of others, rather than herself.

Its Sunday and after breakfast we are going to “chill” for the day. There is nothing on the agenda (for now – the day may bring anything of course) today.

Aunty Christine turns up, and beckons me to set up the camera again as she has something, she wants the family to know for prosperity. Given I had to drag her kicking and screaming to the table originally, this is quite a pleasant change, and not wanting to dampen her enthusiasm to be here and talk of the family history. She sits, I mike her up and let her go.

She talks of the “why” behind her sister’s apparent rise to matriarch of the family. It begins at the time of the death of my mother, many years ago. I think my mum saw in Kerre, that something, she, herself may not have seen, but told her on her death bed to look after the family, as if it was her own. She certainly has done that since. She keeps an eye on them vicariously through Facebook, calling people and listening, often then directing other members of the family, not to take over but to simply comfort and understand the troubled ones.

Little Prairie has been theirs for in excess of forty years and is seen as a beacon for the family roots extending from Condobolin. It has never been a viable farm. Uncle Lionel does run some sheep from time to time and will throw in a crop of wheat or oats or something that will produce a few bales from time to time, but now laughs about having nothing going. The dam is presently with a little water after a down our a few months ago, but then it was dray, and as it lowered, they noticed there was a carp in it. They surmised Uncle Brolga, who used to dump excess bait into the dam (yabbies and the like), may have accidentally planted this pest there.

It was summarily dealt with.

The news brings only further anguish, although they wouldn’t show it, as Burke has received 40mm during the night and there are pictures of people “swimming” in drains. Stories like these will only make the city Aussie believe the drought is broken, but even if this rain was similar across the entire drought-stricken areas, it would do little the break the drought as it takes back up rain and time. Time for the grass to grow, time to restock the mobs and herds. It also does not take into account there might have been 40mm in Burke, 25mm in Cobar but only 3.5mm in Condobolin.

The rain has been hit and miss, and having spoken to people in Echuca expecting 150mm on the weekend, AND it to come from the north, and Condobolin, and much of the drought areas are north, the expectation of good rains was high. Then all of a sudden the northerly winds that were to bring the rain, intensified, the rain pockets that were in central Queensland earlier in the week, and the source of the rain to come, evaporated into a series of cold fronts coming from the west and the northerly blowing is away.

The best we are going to see are “scud” of showers at best, I feel. A check of the BOM site suggests it should be raining now. It isn’t, not to any great extent.

Life goes on. Aunty Kerre gets one of the ponies she is going to take to a local kindergarten on Tuesday, Melbourne Cup Day, from the paddock and brings it inside after a quick brush. She is familiarising it with people inside. She takes it to the bedroom, and it rubs it’s face on the bed, a good sign it is comfortable with the surroundings. This horse has never been used in the retirement villages or hospitals as yet and the primary school experience will be its first.

We want to show the family the horse at the centre of the whole “controversy” and how Kerre “quietens” the horses using unusual techniques, given “breaking them in” in a traditional sense is not an option given their size. First, she has to catch the horse, this she does by calling the entire group. They slowly come to the call and she halters the pony without any issues. For a two-year-old horse it is very quiet. In my younger days, we would not even consider breaking in a horse until it was well past two years old.

The plan is simple. She mounts a buggy harness on the horse and then adds a pair of jeans filled with dirt to signify the weight of a child. If then to ensure nothing will spook the horse has a box on a lead with tin cans attached that gets dragged around with it. Ding the dog also joins in darting in an out playing with the bog and tins. The young horse does not flinch. She will take the horse normally for a walk down to the road and back, almost a two-kilometre round trip, but today, once around the yard is enough for the video camera.

The workout finishes with Ding the Dog jumping over the horse from one side to the other, all captured on video. This is not new to me, when I created that video for Maddie at Christmas time we saw similar antics, but to outsiders, including the family that may not have been here for some time, it will be amazing and good TV.

Chilling out, no sooner than we are relaxed, then Kerre spots a post on Facebook that makes us sit up and take notice. Someone in Condo is selling an oven. She knows the vendor, and thinks the oven would be a good idea for her son Mitchell and his partner Casey, if only to assist them in making Brownies, which they came out with a few weekends ago.

Calls are made, decisions are contemplated, and everyone is off to review the item and perhaps purchase and install the oven post haste. Just the way the cookie crumbles in the life of the Pearce family at Little Prairie.

The rain has set in now, remaining that soaking rain and not the turbulent storms predicted that might have simply run off taking much of the topsoil with it.

Chilling out, allows me to rearrange the phone photographs by day for later viewing. Moving them around allows me to extract certain videos we have done on tour for posting to Robyn’s media group for tarting up ready for commercial use.

The rain means outside activities are not really on the agenda, save the odd trip with the camera to take update photos of the rain and its effect, reminding viewers it will be a long process to get the country back to “good times”, and worse, if there are no backup falls, the return to searing drought in the hot summer is inevitable.

Lunch and dinner are “finger food” spreads, left overs and unfrozen Chinese delights, around the island bench.

Chilling out is tiring and we want to get going early tomorrow, so I head to bed early, leaving Robyn with the last upload of videos to the media team, which has about an hour to go.