Before I begin presenting you with a myriad of excuses why I didn’t get into the last edition and continue with the history of how we got here I would like to mention something I’ve noticed lately.
Was it ever resolved between the complainants, the EPA and our local councils about the dastardly act of dropping poo in the local tip a few months ago? What an un-necessary kafuffle that was. Headline news for at least two issues of ‘The Miner’.
We live in the country folks! Sheep, dogs, rabbits, chickens, ducks, horses, cattle, alpacas, goats, geese and drunks all evacuating themselves over the countryside. We are literally up to our hocks in the stuff.
And because a few hippie humans happened to use composting dunnies and drop it in landfill there is an uproar from some quarters (one might suspect vegans) about toxic waste, half-lives (maybe because that’s all they’ve got), pollution, odour, long-term environmental damage, the risk of poisoning the endangered ‘Bib-Bummed Booby’ and a variety of other nefarious excuses for all us humans to have to develop a bad case of constipation at concerts.
But that’s not all folks. After reporting that Smythesdale DOESN’T want sewerage in one issue, the headlines in the next are wandering when Smythesdale IS going to get it. Maybe I’ve got the wrong end of the stick? Keep your eyes on ‘The Miner’.
By the way can anyone enlighten me as to what happened to ‘Oscar’ the goat on the Geelong Road? One day he was there with his security blanket and the next day he was gone. I did notice him sunning himself in a rather awkward position the day before he disappeared or was his spirit already in ‘Weed Infested Goat Heaven’ by the time I noticed him. Isn’t it funny that you take things for granted and don’t miss them, like hot water and your left leg, until they are no longer there. So the odyssey continues. How did I get here, why did I get here and what am I doing here?
It was at this point in my continuing quest for a decent plot of dirt that I was looking around Northern Victoria, up near the Murray, but it appeared only slightly more arable than Gibson’s Stony Desert. Are all these trees naturally bare and black or has there been a bushfire?
Then around Central Victoria and some of the states more exciting villages. Here again it seemed the wrinklies were moving in, several times I thought I saw Bert Newton but they all turned out to be Dummies in Tailor Shops. These burgs lacked personality, they lacked anything interesting and seemed downright boring places to live. Little did I know what lay ahead.
Everything the Real Estates showed me in my price range needed a similar amount to access water, phones and/or electricity. The equivalent of the cost of a whole house. The environs of some of the larger towns in Southern Victoria advertised similar cheap plots of land with the same huge costs for infra-structure.
West of Ballarat towards the SA border a plot 20Km out of town was still hellishly expensive to make liveable. Besides they seemed to be about to host a wind farm and I was not that keen to buy in a place where it was so regularly windy my hair would take on the look of a very bad permanent comb-over.
The town almost didn’t exist and didn’t have a life either, no shops, no pubs, half a dozen houses clustered around a church that brazenly advertised a ‘Film Festival’. The 1896 ‘Soldiers of The Cross’ on a white sheet maybe?
Finally came Ballarat. The worlds biggest Eureka Flag lured me to stop and at least have a cup of coffee. It was in that historic period that water flowed past the coffee tables and Lake Wendouree actually had enough water to support a few kayaks. Now of course it’s seems ironic that a sign would say ‘No Swimming’ in the middle of an arid paddock with little willi-willies of dust playing around the middle.
It brought out a little titter of mirth when I saw it, a little chuckle similar to the one I gave when I saw the sign outside the Take-away announcing a 2-hour parking limit. There are 496 other vacant car-parking in the main street that don’t seem to need the same restriction.GODFREY Z
Was it ever resolved between the complainants, the EPA and our local councils about the dastardly act of dropping poo in the local tip a few months ago? What an un-necessary kafuffle that was. Headline news for at least two issues of ‘The Miner’.
We live in the country folks! Sheep, dogs, rabbits, chickens, ducks, horses, cattle, alpacas, goats, geese and drunks all evacuating themselves over the countryside. We are literally up to our hocks in the stuff.
And because a few hippie humans happened to use composting dunnies and drop it in landfill there is an uproar from some quarters (one might suspect vegans) about toxic waste, half-lives (maybe because that’s all they’ve got), pollution, odour, long-term environmental damage, the risk of poisoning the endangered ‘Bib-Bummed Booby’ and a variety of other nefarious excuses for all us humans to have to develop a bad case of constipation at concerts.
But that’s not all folks. After reporting that Smythesdale DOESN’T want sewerage in one issue, the headlines in the next are wandering when Smythesdale IS going to get it. Maybe I’ve got the wrong end of the stick? Keep your eyes on ‘The Miner’.
By the way can anyone enlighten me as to what happened to ‘Oscar’ the goat on the Geelong Road? One day he was there with his security blanket and the next day he was gone. I did notice him sunning himself in a rather awkward position the day before he disappeared or was his spirit already in ‘Weed Infested Goat Heaven’ by the time I noticed him. Isn’t it funny that you take things for granted and don’t miss them, like hot water and your left leg, until they are no longer there. So the odyssey continues. How did I get here, why did I get here and what am I doing here?
It was at this point in my continuing quest for a decent plot of dirt that I was looking around Northern Victoria, up near the Murray, but it appeared only slightly more arable than Gibson’s Stony Desert. Are all these trees naturally bare and black or has there been a bushfire?
Then around Central Victoria and some of the states more exciting villages. Here again it seemed the wrinklies were moving in, several times I thought I saw Bert Newton but they all turned out to be Dummies in Tailor Shops. These burgs lacked personality, they lacked anything interesting and seemed downright boring places to live. Little did I know what lay ahead.
Everything the Real Estates showed me in my price range needed a similar amount to access water, phones and/or electricity. The equivalent of the cost of a whole house. The environs of some of the larger towns in Southern Victoria advertised similar cheap plots of land with the same huge costs for infra-structure.
West of Ballarat towards the SA border a plot 20Km out of town was still hellishly expensive to make liveable. Besides they seemed to be about to host a wind farm and I was not that keen to buy in a place where it was so regularly windy my hair would take on the look of a very bad permanent comb-over.
The town almost didn’t exist and didn’t have a life either, no shops, no pubs, half a dozen houses clustered around a church that brazenly advertised a ‘Film Festival’. The 1896 ‘Soldiers of The Cross’ on a white sheet maybe?
Finally came Ballarat. The worlds biggest Eureka Flag lured me to stop and at least have a cup of coffee. It was in that historic period that water flowed past the coffee tables and Lake Wendouree actually had enough water to support a few kayaks. Now of course it’s seems ironic that a sign would say ‘No Swimming’ in the middle of an arid paddock with little willi-willies of dust playing around the middle.
It brought out a little titter of mirth when I saw it, a little chuckle similar to the one I gave when I saw the sign outside the Take-away announcing a 2-hour parking limit. There are 496 other vacant car-parking in the main street that don’t seem to need the same restriction.GODFREY Z
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