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Helen paints some pictures: I was sorry not to have photographs to illustrate the type of things we did in our placement with Outback Links. I thought I might try and paint you some "word pictures'. A picture showing my husband cleaning windows would be very ordinary, but let me tell you about it. A combination of red dust and pest control spraying meant these windows really needed attention. We were staying in a very well run household, where once there would have been the time to do this job. Now everything is different, because the housewife has had to take work in the nearest town. This is a big help financially, but you must understand that the nearest town is 175 km, and this necessitates staying away from home. These windows, and the garden viewed through them, become reminders of what life used to be like before years of drought. Constant, ever present, depressing reminders. My husband cleaned the windows, all of them. He pruned and tidied shrubs. The garden is a luxury for which there is no longer any time. We talked gardens and looked through gleaming windows. We looked at plans of when and how the garden was laid out. We check through the names of trees. We shared past joys. There was companionship in sharing how the garden used to be. There is hope, the hope that when the rains come again, maybe, just maybe there will be time and energy to resurrect the garden. For now, it is at least tidy, and can be seen clearly through the windows. A picture of myself in the kitchen, cooking, would be very ordinary, but let me tell you about it. When a wife has to take off-farm work, then husbands and sons cook for themselves at the end of long, hard, working days. A chance comment at the dinner table says it all. "This sure beats coming home exhausted, and then turning round to try and knock up a meal, then sitting down to eat it about 8.30 p.m. A meal on the table when you walk in at night sure beats that." Cooking meals and filling biscuit tins are easy tasks for me. Another chance comment. "I wouldn't have worried once if there was nothing in the tins, but now, when I am not here, I know my husband sometimes goes out about 5 am, to cut scrub for the cattle. Often he is so consumed by worry, he doesn't eat before he goes. If there are scones, or a loaf in that tin, he eats something as he passes." I was glad I could put some cooking in those tins, and in the freezer. I was also glad to be a listening ear when her husband confided "it is not the hard work that gets to you, it's the constant worry and anxiety, it churns up your guts. That's what gets to you". Possibly the most useful part of our stay may have been the listening and the sharing. There were stories told and sometimes one glimpsed a depth of feeling behind the story. The biscuit tin is one such example. There is talk about irregular hours and missed meals. Unstated, is the anxiety about the safety of men, regularly using chain saws, or bulldozers, to cut or "pull" the scrub to provide feed for the few cattle not away on agistment . (Did the cattle hear the noise of the machines and come to get the feed today, or were they wandering elsewhere?) Hard, and potentially dangerous work, particularly if working alone, and a wife not at home to monitor and provide back-up. In some situations wives too are driving bulldozers. Would I have sufficient courage to even contemplate such a task? I think not. There is concern too, for the sustainability of the land, only cutting the minimum of scrub, and cutting it within Government defined guidelines. These farmers have nurtured their land over several decades. They want to conserve it and preserve the resource for future generations. They hate the necessity to "cut scrub". (The scrub is mulga, an acacia, which the stock normally eat, up to head height. In times of drought, higher parts, beyond their reach, are cut with a chain saw, or trees are pushed over by bulldozer, to provide stock feed. The acacias then regenerate from the bottom. This technique has been utilised for over a century.) The effects of drought are very severe and the talk is all of cattle now. Most people have had to drastically cut numbers of sheep, or sell them all. Underneath this reality talk there is a kind of grieving. Sheep husbandry skill, honed over decades, now no longer needed. Blood lines, built up so carefully, over decades, now sold off. A sense of worth, in what is known, in what is done well, is no longer applicable. I cooked for a young shearer and his partner. Fewer than 300 sheep were shorn. Once, the flock on this station numbered several thousands. A local man, he now works in Western Australia, because there are too few sheep in this area to provide him with continuity of employment. For "old times sake" he does this shearing for his old friends. The next week he left to drive back to the west. It is not where his roots are, but it is where the work is. Rain can make such a difference! Prospects are constantly discussed. We shared the anxiety in July, when the arrival of a promising front with rain was predicted. It was monitored by radio, by television and on the internet. News of developments soon became our immediate waking thought too. My heart ached as I saw depressed, haggard faces, as it was feared the front had passed to the south. A young man, the age of our son, was at point of despair. Falls of rain were finally received, quite meagre falls, by most standards, but we were assured it would make a huge difference. Phones were busy as people called one another to share news and check on the areas most drought affected. Supporting calls came from interstate, a comfort to know that others cared. At this time and on other occasions we "saw" things that could not be captured photographically. Things like concern for others, anxiety that in accepting Outback Link assistance, a family in more dire need might miss out. We saw evidence of generosity of spirit; 150 steaks cut from home grown beef for steak sandwiches, to support a fund raiser for Isolated Parents Education lobby group, big blocks of corn beef cooked and delivered. A long awaited tradesman doesn't start on the job in hand, rather he is re-deployed to a neighbouring property where the need is considered greater. It may be months, maybe a year or more, to get another tradesman for the planned job. The circumstances of the unfinished job are not even mentioned to us, we discover them later, in a chance conversation elsewhere. These are stoic, resilient people, generous in spirit, coping with the reality of their situation, and watching out for one another. I am proud of these people, our new friends. I am humble too. Would I have this much courage and endurance in the face of adversity? I may not. Helen Williams |
