Of animals and stock at Lambing flats;

Farmers are always hard done by, especially in Australia. Has anyone ever tried growing anything in this unforgiving soil and climate? Recently the issue of animal cruelty has come up whereby the mulesing of sheep has drawn worldwide condemnation. Australian wool was boycotted and the video footage shown, of sheep getting plate size skin torn off around their anal and genital area, was hard to defend. Sheep were bred for large wool bearing surface areas. This resulted in sheep getting all those folds whereby the opportunistic Lucy fly would lay its eggs underneath the tail and when hatched, those larvae would eat some sheep alive. It is a cruel life.

mulesing

Of course, the mulesing was not all that sheep have to endure. The cutting of tails has been done for decades as well and not only with sheep. The docking of tails has now been outlawed in dogs. Checking dog show websites the ‘Jack Russell’s’ are still shown without tails.  Who is still doing the cutting, and why?

Some of the farmers are now breeding sheep without loose skin and all sheep breeders are on notice to stop mulesing by 2010. In The Netherlands, after testing sheep with and without tails, the conclusion was that health problems between them was negligible and those without tails did not have any less problems. All tail cutting has now been banned there.

We have now enjoyed farm life for 13 years here and have resisted by hook and by crook all those things that one is expected to follow in animal husbandry. In fact we are probably the most negligent farmers around, albeit ‘hobby farmer’.

Livestock are increasingly being targeted by the large pharmaceutical corporations.  Vaccinations now are carried out at least twice a year, if not three to four times. Drenching against high worm burdens. Selenium, copper, zinc applications are also often favoured treatments in keeping animals. Then, molasses, vinegar, high protein pellets. All at high cost to the farmers and suggested as minimum supplements to keep all stock healthy. In fact, I suspect that at the back of farm sheds one could easily encounter complete chemical laboratories.

We decided against all advice and perhaps generally doing things opposite the accepted norms  to keep all chemical to animals to a minimum. We have never vaccinated nor drenched nor given molasses nor vinegar nor selenium nor copper or anything else to our animals and allowed them to eat what they find. We decided to do this because at earlier farm lives back in The Netherlands vetenarery care was mainly practised by governmental professionals. Animal health came before corporate profit then. It was rare to interfere with animals that were healthy.

So far we have covered animals. Let us have a closer look at the land. We bought our property that had the advantage of having been ‘unimproved’ meaning that it had no history of super phosphate being spread over the paddocks. This is what we wanted, and apart from spreading natural manure around, have never applied super phosphate. We are lucky in having a limey soil structure with acidity low. Now, the local shire inspects all this and gives out notices to spray weeds, the weeds need to be sprayed with increasing strengths and with a lethal combination in combating ‘herbicide resistance.’

It is not easy being a farmer.

By oosterman

Dinner in the Nissan hut.

After a most enjoyable 5 weeks on board The Johan Van Oldenbarnevelt since leaving Rotterdam, I finally disembarked at the Sydney’s Circular quay side back in 1956. My first milk shake at the Spiro’s milk bar in George Street and a look at St Mary’s cathedral is what I still remember. However, more etched into my mind is what followed then.

It was sometime in the afternoon when those destined for Scheyville migrant camp were asked to assemble at the quay side. Our luggage would follow the bus in trucks. Of course, no one knew where that camp was situated. Somewhere in Sydney is what we were told. The bus was thus loaded with lots of shut jaw clamped migrants. We would finally face the reality of what our parents had undertaken.  Some of them we befriended during the boat trip over, including a family of Dutch Indonesian born. They were content to be just in a warmer place regardless of anything else!

I was just happy to look out of the bus window and more than curious what Australia and the sub-tropics were all about. I noticed first of all a kind of architectural chaos with many advertising hoardings and scrambles of signs vying for attention. This was (and still is) Parramatta Rd in full glory.

Being February and hot, I noticed after about ‘n hour’s drive or so, that the bus stopped and driver got out but we were staying put. It took some time and after lots of sweating that the driver got back in and we continued. It was well after arrival, a few days later, that we heard that the driver had got a ‘couple’ from the Locomotive Hotel at Homebush. I believe this pub is now a Pizza Franchise.

Nissan hut migrant camp.

Our arrival at Scheyville was surprising. My mother first thought that those Nissan Huts were for the push bikes. I was more circumspect as I noticed beds with mattresses and, when I opened a drawer it had crusts of bread in it.  The afternoon heat and the long drive did not lessen my or my brothers enthusiasm for exploring the surroundings. The camp was surrounded by water as heavy monsoonal rains had fallen nonstop the previous few days. In no time were our shoes muddy. My dad in his Dutch mind set could not accept at once the extraordinary changes overwhelming him. The mud on shoes was so foreign and frightening… It was all happening too fast and he could simply not absorb this slip in order and neatness. He gave us a good smack.

Me and my brothers took it all in our stride and had our youth to back up any strangeness. In fact, it was this foreignness that excited us most. Fancy, on the next day excursion finding trees with orange coloured fruit on them.  We climbed the fence and pinched some but they were unripe so we chucked them feeling like millionaires.

My parents had a job adjusting to the Nissan huts, the general squalor with meals eaten in communal areas on timber benches. The camp seemed to be managed by Australians but the workers such as cooks, cleaning and kitchen staff were refugees from Poland, Hungary and Russia. In those communal eating areas, huge steel tins of chunky melon and pineapple jam were on wooden tables with pre-sliced white bread. Plates were laden with steaming slices of lamb and rich gravy, endless supplies of peas and carrots. Second helpings as well.

Australia was the ‘promised ‘land” after all.

The most baffling aspect of the wombats is the way they communicate with those that happen to share their domain. We have been here over 13 years and each time we go somewhere it involves a drive to the front gate and a laneway that have poplars growing on both sides. Perhaps two hundred in total which we planted some 12 years ago  but which have at least tenfolded in hight during that time.

The laneway is not straight and with some imagination and squinting eyes, the poplars in full leaf, the laneway  could resemble a Vermeer painting.

When we arrive at the gate,which has to be kept open by a flat piece of stone to  prevent is from swinging back, never having invested in a fancy solar powered electric motor that will open gates remotely without the need to leave the car, this flat piece of stone always has the wombat’s calling card in the shape of green almost square nuggets of shit.  Why does it do this?

Is the wombat extending a hand of friendship or is it more sinister and telling us to bugger off?

They are capable of digging enormous homes underground with large dykes around it preventing flooding during rain. The previous owners have tried by ramming old vehicles and complete bogies into the holes to try and resettle them away from fences or dams. All to no avail. They simply dig back in the same spot and the fence posts will once again be dangling in mid air and the dam will start to lose its water again. 

We have never bothered them and the numbers are now huge. At night, and with the help of a moon you can sometimes see them sauntering by on their way to matings or just to the front gate, perhaps to drop another one on the flat stone.  They also insist on doing the same on the stump that remained after we cut a tree near our house. They love to shit on elevated surfaces.

 Is it their calling card to say hello?