ON EMPATHY FOR THE VICTIMS

Some time ago I did the first columns about trying to encapsulate a Consultative Report some 140 pages long entitled ‘Voices of Children and Young People in Foster Care’ (July 2000).

It might seem that nearly two decades makes a lot of difference but you and I know that a coat of paint doesn’t always signify change, sometimes it just covers up the sperm splashes. At first glance it does not have anything to do with youth homeless services, but as an increasing number of kids in supported services and our prisons have graduated from the ‘Alternate Care System’. What we need to do is get hold of a copy of that report and review in the light of more recent problems of abuse to ensure that youth services do not continue to inflict the same abuses from family members now that they are in the care of complete strangers.

Continuing with the report and adding, in mitigation, that 99% of the District Officers I know would have no truck with some of the abuses discussed, I don’t believe that they can all be laid at feet of D.O’s in some simplistic negation of the facts. When child welfare departments are forced to truncate their range of services and reduce staff numbers because of some spurious economic necessity then in many ways they cannot be held responsible for some of the abuse that occurs within the system. The comment ‘I was only following orders’ can still be attributed to D.O’s but the fact is those orders were for economic reasons and not for any other.

The children themselves provide much of the evidence of dissatisfaction with children and young people in the way they are treated. Some of the briefer comments from different children in care.

D.O roles - what children and young people want;

‘ It would be good to be treated like humans. They (DoCS) just do what they want you to’

‘ She came six times and then she didn’t come, probably because she didn’t like us.’

She’s negative and thinks she knows best’.

‘ Good, but you don’t really need them.’

‘If they find the right family they don’t have to do anything else. I don’t need advice. I have heaps of people giving me advice.’

‘ DO? I don’t know how to do it though because I don’t see her and I don’t have her number.’

There are three outstanding Gems in the report provided by the young people themselves, each of them a telling reminder to us all.

Gem No.1 To the question ‘Do D.O’s make any difference’ one respondent came back with

‘ No they’re just there to analyse us. As soon as you have a problem they send you off like an object to be fixed’.

Gem No.2. To the question ‘What is the worst thing about foster care?’ the reply was

‘Talking to Doe’s and answering questions’.

Gem No.3. To the question about how they felt about their District Officer. The best reply of the lot, and in all innocence:

‘But she is professional, she doesn’t listen.’

If this report were not so serious these little Gems would have had me howling with laughter. I managed however to suppress reactions until I had read to the end of the report.

I would hope that young people do not say, will be unable to say the same things about us. I would hang my head in shame if this were a report about PYSE. I would like every worker in the field who thinks beyond the pay packet and has a genuine care for young people in their care that they too develop some empathy by obtaining an old copy and ensuring a wide readership.

If something goes wrong can we use the excuse?

‘I had to consider my Duty of Care’.

FAMILY COUNSELLOR IMPRESSED

As he looked around the room and saw about thirty odd adolescents playing, arguing and fighting the Family Counsellor told us that we seem to have some really well-balanced young people using our youth centre. Here we were standing in the middle of a melle in an Inner-Sydney Youth Centre, where the Police often asked to take the kids away on a camp somewhere so that for at least one week-end there would be a pause in the Redfern crime rate.

We honestly though that this North Shore professional Counsellor was well and truly off his rocker, these kids, our kids, ‘normal and well balanced?’

We looked at the kid that stole cars and then posted a notice that if he found it them would happily accept a reward of $50, then at a girl whose mouth when she was in a good mood was just foul-mouthed but if she was in a bad mood would tell a dozen things that your brother or sister could do with a broomstick besides sweep the floor.

The girl who was pregnant with her fourth child at seventeen because as she put it herself “its the only thing I’m fucking good at”

These ‘things’ we worked with were being described as well-balanced?

We let the matter drop until the centre was closed for the night and then asked for a clear explanation for such an astonishing statement. We knew the guy had extraordinary success rates with troubled young people still with their families, as were most of ours, so we were keen to learn how he arrived at such a position.

Once must mention at this stage that this occurred prior to Smartphones, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and all that other technical shit but the situation has changed little for the child even now. The situation might have changed but the facts remain the same. Unless kids face conflict directly in the eye, face-to-face nothing will improve for them.

“Up on the North Shore” he said, “ we have middle to upper class families, living in detached houses, with all the toys a kid would need to amuse themselves and supportive parents. So we have a situation where a child feeling threatened can just go tell Mum and Dad to do something about the bullying or simply retreat to their backyard until the storm blows over and then return to the street and rejoin their previously estranged friends. All is well until conflict arises again and the process starts again.

Here in Redfern and Waterloo you have young people who live in high-rise government housing, a high adolescent crime rate, all of the main phobia's, the majority coming from poor and socially isolated single parents who don’t have a backyard, or even a front yard for that matter, to where a kid can retreat for safety.

The result is that when conflict arises the child has no fallback position, they either face up to the challenge diplomatically or get a fistful of fives to the face.

So, your kids have to learn tact, diplomacy, co-operation and teamwork the hard way. When confronted with a problem they can either talk their way out of it or fight their way out its up to each individual. Rich kids don’t face this same problem and so conflict is something they never learn to handle. What results is an eruption of violence when faced with conflict.

Oddly enough its conflict with helicopter parents and other children, even in the kindergarten sandpit that allows them to develop into balanced young people able to handle the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”

He was of course, in my opinion quite right. It is for this reason that I believe today's young people who don’t communicate directly with each other, who can friend and unfriend each other electronically, the toys in the backyard, that has created the perceived increases in violence among young people. It’s always been there, disrespectful teenagers, wild parties and pub brawls (been there, done that) right back to the middle-ages. However, until now children growing up have not had to come face-on with conflict as often in the past and so, when confronted in the street do not have the skills to negotiate their way out of trouble and violence arises from frustration.

I'm going to go out on a limb here by suggesting that maybe 'some' bullying is a good thing it is part of out development as humans.

AS SMOOTH AS SILK

Much to the dismay of some of our readers as to how we find out what goes on about town we do sometimes have to admit that we too make some silly mistakes. One of our more recent episodes, and I use the word we to disguise who we are really talking about, was the day that we repaired our own ride-on mower. Rather than take it down to the expert living near the Sports Arena I decided to have a go at it myself.

The first thing to do was to turn it on its side and watch the petrol spill and stream towards the lit incinerator, of fire I seem to never learn. After that little panic with mop, shovel, sponge, towel and lots of kicking up of dust I was able to also stop the oil from pouring out by shoving a rag down the filler pipe and securing with masking tape. The seat decided to part from its position and the mown grass redirector (whatever its offical name) split assunder. So much for getting the machine into a position to work on it.

Needless to say I did manage to get the revolving thing holding the blades off and I was then able to see to the bearings thing that spun the thing that held the blades that cut the grass. I sometimes amaze myself with my correct usage of technical terms, for example I know a ‘litter’ is both a mess and the thing what stops the wall from falling down on a door.

To cut a long story short I completed the task and righted the machine. I waited at least 24 hours for all the liquid bits to settle back to where they should be and started the mower. Fantastic! As smooth as silk, never sounded so good, perfect balance.
Off I went to cut grass. Trundled along for a while but could not figure out why there was no grass shooting out the back of the mower. Stopped and put stick under to see if blades spinning. Nothing happened. There were no blades on the bloody spinning disc.

I went back to my outdoor workshop with the knowledge that nobody sore my mistake and this time by driving the mower half up on to the trailer was able to crawl underneath and attach the blades. Why did I not think of that before?

OK! Off we go again. A bit rougher riding this time but at least the grass was being cut. To my dismay after about a minute or so I saw out of the corner of my eye what appeared to be an unidentified flying object shoot across the ground towards where the dog had been pooping itself just seconds before. It flew low and was taking the tops off the longer grass as it went finally slamming into a dead tree stump. The mower suddenly ran smooth again.
I stopped the mower and I ambled over to the foreign object to notice that the entire undercarriage had given way and allowed the spinning blades to take off across the ground at a terrifying speed. It was at that moment that I uttered several words that required censoring, jumped back on the mower and promptly took it down to the mower mechanic.

To his dismay he heard me say ‘you can keep the @$&^()*^%# thing’ and stormed off home.

DEAR DIARY

MONDAY: Poor old Peppie has done his maths and has just asked me where two of his things have gone. The gender realignment surgery went very well except that he was not allowed to run for a week. We had only been home and hour or so when he saw a rabbit and that was the end of the ‘no running’ rule,

Having no longer use for his Cricket Box he wants me to advertise it on eBay and has also realised he has saved a lot of time washing and tending to them and he does have a nice new purse in which to carry his loose change.

TUESDAY: The rain has caused the grass to grow at such a rate that I have had to invest in yet another ride-on mower to blow-up. The last one got itself buggered driving into unexpected holes but I cut off its mower section and now use it like a very slow Dune Buggy around the property. Both of course were second hand and in my case it seemed to be a case of ‘Seller Beware’.

In Oklahoma and Happy Valium the grass is as high as a big goats eye. All I could see today was their backs floating along the horizon like clouds followed closely by the Alpacas appearing above the field heads held high like Loch Ness Monsters.

WEDNESDAY: It’s now the day before tomorrow and all through my house I’ve been searching for hours for one bloody mouse.

Yes the mouse plague has hit us yet again, at least at my place. Oh! The beauty of country life. Everybody else has been getting rid of them, but of course being a hoarder my 20ft Container has been filling up with fat Mickey’s indulging on rapidly depleting feed bins. Maybe I should have purchased a container twice the size to allow for my ever-expanding collection of de-motorised garden implements and homeless rodents.

THURSDAY: A neighbour suggested I really need to talk to an expert about the problems and gave me the name of a good Psychiatrist.

FRIDAY: Oh! Yes indeed the beauty of country life. People in the big smoke may wax lyrical about the neighbourhood in which they live but grey concrete has never appealed to my vibrant reds and blacks. The happy vista of grey skies blending with the city scenery and the even greyer city-folk around me would make me want to Paraglide from the tallest balcony without the ’Para’

Thank whatever deity you worship that I don’t have to rely on elevators beyond the ones that add an inch or two to my height.

The very thought of spending ten minutes rising and falling vertically in a coffin rather than horizontally on foot to my front gate and back for my mail is too tortuous to contemplate. What would I do if I couldn't smell horse shit, tread in goat droppings or watch Peppie crap on our daily ramble around the carport.

I was once asked during an assessment if I ever considered disposing of my soul prematurely after telling them of this contemplation. I replied ‘not before two things have happened’ and then went on to say ‘I’m out of this bloody office and I’ve spent all my superannuation’. Then as a final word I added that ‘anyone seriously contemplating an enforced taking of their last breath would not be stupid enough to tell anyone anyway.

SATURDAY: A nurse at St.John of God, exclaimed when seeing my weight on her doubtfully accurate machine that maybe I should get out and exercise more. Why don’t I buy a bike.

“Dear lady” I said, “ I am so far from decent civilisation that a car is a necessity. A bike ride just to Linton and back would be such a physically taxing hour that I’m afraid my heart would complain most violently, my legs wishing they could be detached and the dogs feet worn down to the extent that he would look more like a victim of thalidomide”.

Finally, to be healthy, I decided to consult my recipe books and watch healthy lifestyle shows on TV for exercise.

According to Gordon Ramsey, because he knows every f……..g thing we need to f….....g know, there is a f…....g cure.

1 Teaspoon of Birch leaves.

1 Teaspoon of Dandelion

1 Teaspoon of Hydrangea

Mix all the herbs, add boiling water and let simmer for a minute. Strain and drink two cups a day. Place the remaining gunk in the compost bin and ‘pray it doesn’t kill the worms’. (I added that bit after I tried it)

SUNDAY: Heavens to Betsy. Woke up this morning to the sound of animals acting the goat. On investigation I find I have another animal problem.

Timmay, the white one that impersonates dogs, had yet another psychotic episode. Now I have to get to the vet to find out what to do with a goat that has developed ‘Turette’s Syndrome’.

DON'T EVER POKE A BULGE

Every now and then you look up at the ceiling and you see something different. A spider or their multiplying webs, an unexplained stain that may resemble the Virgin Mary, a broken light globe or a dislodged piece of plaster.

In my case it was a drip from my Office ceiling. Just one, two years ago, just the slightest little wet object about to descend as ordained by gravity. After a little while it fell onto the carpet and left a wet full stop. I did not notice the insignificant little drip till a year later on another rainy day. This time several drips in a row left a dollar size mark on the floor. Of course I ignored it thinking it maybe a condensation problem.

It was after the heavy rains that flooded Linton last year when I noticed the drips again. They seemed this time to descend from a slightly lowering paunch in the plaster. I tried to ignore it knowing that it meant having to do a bit of work.

After what seemed fourty days and nights I could not help but notice that the drip, although intermittent was falling from the middle of about a square metre of bulge. The ceiling may have descended only about a centimeter but it was now beginning to bug me, and despite all my efforts to resist I went to the shed and returned with a small ladder. Looking directly above me I realized the ceiling looked jolly nasty.

It was far too tempting to resist trying to push the bulge back to where it belonged. Thinking ‘delicate’ I raised my index finger above my head to the centre of the bulge and gently pushed upward.

What resulted was a sudden rush of around ten litres of freezing cold rainwater straight down the armpit of my overalls washing away any deodorant that was left, down through my underwear and finally gushing out both trouser legs onto the carpet of the Den.

As a Lintonian I’m sure that you would know exactly how cold that water was in the middle of winter. It was probably my body heat that prevented the water from creating two very long icicles clinging to my testicles.

My descent from the ladder was as swift as I have ever moved since throwing a live hand grenade in the Army. Poor Peppie the dog copped the brunt of it as he was laying quietly at the bottom of the ladder and two very wet objects sped off into the bathroom seeking to dry ourselves off. I took a hot shower to warm up, but Peppie who hated showers decided he would dry himself shivering in circles around the house.

Five hours later I summoned up the courage to ascend the ladder again and inspected the finger-sized hole. To see into the problem meant slightly enlarging the exit point of the water so my index finger again began probing the problem. Too late, the plaster was so wet that a soggy wad of it the size of my head descended directly down onto my surprised face. With it also came twenty years of accumulated dust, dead mites, spiders, and mouse poop, all of it sogging wet. Again Peppie copped it, but this time he was covered in a lot of goop that was not fox shit.

Another process of drying off and another examination while I still had the ladder out revealed to me that directly above the initial hole in the plaster there appeared a dripping nail. For years it seems that the nail had been mistakenly secured into the bottom of the steel gully of the roof contours and hidden under an edge cap. For years one or two drips every rainfall had begun to eat away at the ceiling timbers and insulation until eventually nothing existed below the nail but a dark, damp void above an equally rotted plaster ceiling.

It was a month later that I again confronted the hole. This was a deliberate move as it meant the ceiling had time to dry out and allow some maintenance work to be done. It was not a good day to do it as it had reached the time I usually take my Nanny Nap.

Seven months  of naps later I still enter the room and contemplate the hole. I’ve really got used to it now, its like a reassuring friend always there and always constant, never offering praise nor condemnation. My next project is to purchase a suitable picture frame with which to lovingly decorate my friend the hole.

ONE MORE FOOT IN THE GRAVE

We always knew we had a Mrs. Bucket but it also appears up at Happy Valley we also have our own Victor ‘Murphy’s Law’ Meldrew. If it can be stuffed it will be stuffed. Maybe it was jet lag from the trip to Brisbane.

Happily unpacking his new high pressure hose to wash his Ute (pick-up) he methodically worked his way from the back bumper bar towards the front of the vehicle. All was going well, it was successfully removing mud from the wheels, sheep shit from the rear tray, and grass from the suspension. However, at a point half-way along the car he thought he heard the telephone ring. Half turning to the dog and asking it to confirm if the phone was indeed ringing, he paused a moment and heard the Nokia ring again. OK. So turning back to organize shutting off the thin stream of very high pressure water he noticed that the drivers window was still down and the hose was merrily filling up the CD Player and inundating the whole dashboard.

Needless to say he is still trying to turn on the radio and defuse the CD player which continually noisily attempts to eject discs that are not in it.

DAWG GAWN - III

Last month we got as far as the ‘Whippets’ first swim. I promise that this is the third and last episode. It is getting close to becoming pedantic and repetitive and that’s something I am rather good at.


Anyway it has gone now. To a new ‘Master’ who I feel will treat it far better than its former. But while it was still with me we had a few further adventures. As a dog that had been confined to a small house with a miniature back garden, ‘Dog’ had not really experienced the wide world as you or I might have done.

A month after entering my dubious care he began to develop some hair on his chinny chin-chin. He was also daring to go outside more too.

One splendid day he was following me around the property while I was doing something or other called exercise and natural instinct kicked in. I knew that every time the sheep bolted he got a bit agitated. This time however out of the long grass hopped .......... A wabbit.

Before it had a chance to ask if anything was up with Doc the waskally wabbit wan qwickly off and so did the Whippet. The pursuit was so fast that both disappeared over the horizon within seconds. Then I waited, for over that very same horizon were to be found nine sheep and two alpacas.

First came the nine sheep like a herd of unstoppable Buffalo with Max inevitably in the lead. Then after them came the two ‘Lords-a-leaping’ the Alpacas. What they must have thought they’d seen was a ‘Scud Missile’ undoubtedly fast but also incredibly inaccurate. What else to expect from a Socialist Country or an Australian Politician.

Oooops.....pull my head in.

Needless to say his inexperience meant that the wabbit won and he returned empty handed after about five minutes. With that the rest of the tribe took off rather quickly back over the horizon, with Dumb and Dumber making those Cockatoo-like noises again.

I rather began to take to the thing. He was lazier than me. Lay here, lay there, eat here and sleep there. He made me look like Robert de Castella by comparison. The thought of someone being lazier than me is a bit off-putting actually. I think that even looking at the sky is a chin up but this dog can even relax his bones to the point where he can lay flatter than unleavened bread.

In fact on one occasion I went to the bathroom and stepped onto what I thought was the toilet mat. To my surprised it yelped, whinged and whined until I apologised to it with a bloody bone.

It was almost the last day when I was standing in the carport. Dog raced around the corner of the house, tail wagging, eyes all aglow, acting very pleased with himself. He presented to me a mouthful of blue fluff. While I examined it he ran away again returning with another mouthful of blue fluff.

I had to find out where it was coming from. At the back of the house I came across him worrying the blue feather duster that I had left in the kitchen and he was eagerly tearing out it’s hair. Perhaps it thought it was a Smurf Rabbit and he was keen for me to see what a clever boy he was. One would ask why a dog would think I was dusting the television with the carcass of a dead rabbit in the first place.

Unlike the Astonisher which appears as though it will go on for a little while yet, this story which had a start and a middle must now have an end.

Reluctantly I had to part with dog who now lives at Tarnagulla but I have done it in a way that makes it possible for ‘dog’ to come for short visits to keep the rabbits on their toes.

But he did not go to his new home before a last final adventure with Maxine. The day before he left I was standing in the sheep yard at mealtime with the dog by my side filling the feed trough with their supplementary diet. By now Max had just about had it with this ‘thing’, enough was enough, the dog was definitely not permitted to be near her dinner. Maxine marched through the gate full of confidence and literally ran the dog out of the yard and away from her beloved food.

So that’s it then. The end of my dog yarn. Oh! Except for the Vet. The only time I saw an astonished face on him was when a thermometer was inserter apparently somewhere he thought was private.

Of course this column has always been more of a case of ‘self-indulgence’ than an organ of interest to everybody in town. Although I have heard that even the ‘Only Gay In The Village’ has had a giggle or two from it.

If I can write this diatribe so can anyone else, and, unlike some other rag I could mention we don’t pick and choose who we publish and rarely do we look at drawing lines anywhere except in the interest of taste.

So if you feel that you’d like to engage yourself in writing rubbish like this then we welcome you with open arms.

This story was sponsored by:


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A GREAT BLOW

THE ULTIMATE BLOW

Last months high winds which brought down trees and de-roofed animal houses all over the district created havoc at my place as well. Situated on a ridge I got the full blast from the windstorm. I had just passed through Snake Valley when the first big gusts struck and for a few kilometres I was ducking falling trees and branches careening across the road in front of me like a rugby forward. (I’m sorry if I hail from the north.)

Being nearly blown off my feet, I’m big enough to withstand 200 Km/hr, as I opened and closed the front gate I was halfway up the driveway and had nearly reached the shelter of home when all of a sudden an unseen tornado hit my garden shed. Without as much as an ‘Allah Akbah’ the 9M2 structure lifted vertically off the ground and blew itself apart like a hand-grenade.

I had to gun the car up the drive to miss the dozens of bits of wall and roof and connecting pieces as they flew across the ground taking huge divots out of the lawn. Something white and fuzzy bounced across the front of the car following the horizontal rain which left a deep skid-mark in the bonnet.

The household detritus and garden tools and sheep feed stored within the building sat still for a few moments before it too began to scatter itself to the four corners of the property. The willy-willy was blowing all my stuff willy-nilly. The wind was so strong I found the heavy double bed size inner spring mattress about 40 Metres to the east and the single bed foam mattress against a tree another 40 metres past that.

Heavy tools stayed where they were but a box of white elephant donations emptied itself piece by piece along the eastern boundary. Ice-cream containers filled with what I describe as ‘things I might need’ and screw top jars of ‘smaller things I might need some time this century’ fell out of the shelving as it collapsed backwards into the void left by a shed wall. Paint tins of various sizes with contents anywhere between 2 Lt and two spoons full rolled hither and thither across the bit of flooring that was left.

As I turned towards the house with the wind astern I espied in my rear-view mirror what could only be described as a meteor shower of sheep pellets headed towards the back of the Ute. I gunned the car again this time into the carport but I was too late, like hailstones I was pelted with a mixture of poo and malt pellets.

The sheep were wondering the paddock with monstrous comb-overs. Maxine who sometimes can’t tell her tail from her elbow sported a really nice Emo style hairdo.
As usual Dumb and Dumber the two Alpacas just looked startled, a pretty normal countenance for them.

Later that afternoon I got a call from one of my neighbours to tell me that Hayu the lamb had landed on their front patio. He joked about flying pigs between gales of laughter and asked me to come and pick him up. I mentioned that he was only a foster lamb why could he not have been blown back to his natural flock. That explained the white blur and the skid mark. But I picked him up anyway, you can’t leave youngsters with strangers.

Days later I was still collecting up bits of shed a hundred metres from where they originated and sweeping dung from the back of the Ute.

Sensibly I have now purchased a 7 Metre Shipping Container weighing in at two and a half tons to replace the shed. Why don’t the retailers tell you that these lightweight metal shells are referred to as ‘blow-aways’ before they sell them to you.



But all this is not really about Max is it. So I’d better get on with her story. She’s has been acting a bit political of late in fact she has become like a university student and chosen to take to the left of politics. Somewhere between Lenin and Kevin I think.

The final straw, which is ever so slowly sending me around the twist, was the anti-xenophobe project she inaugurated this week. It all started with the arrival of Fatima and Farsi the two ‘coloured’ Merino’s last month.
As soon as they arrived the locals gathered around them, stared, stffed the same place dogs do, smelt a hint of Tabouli and decided not to have anything to do with them.

Of course the locals do not include Max. I worry about her as she gets far too friendly with the wrong animals, I fear she’s going to have too much to drink one night and forever after will be unable to say with any honesty “I’m a lady I do ladylike things”.

She sauntered up to me on Saturday and dropped at my feet an article by Susie O’Brien in the Age about Kinder Pupils being urged to ‘challenge bias and discrimination’ as part of new teaching guidelines. ‘You’ve got to be kidding of course’ I thought as I picked up the partially chewed article, ‘little people don’t understand the intangible quit yet.’

But then, looking at Butch and then over towards Kebab (who will be living in the freezer soon), I thought that maybe if this lot can understand the concept of ‘funny looking sheep’ so could the under 5’s?

Oh! Bother – run out of space as usual so that story will have to wait until the final episode next month.

GODFREY ZONE

GO HOME PACKIES

When I bought into Happy Valley I had no idea what lived on my block. As far as I knew the Deeds stated 10 Acres with Small Shed, Dam, Electricity and Telephone. (For some reason a 3Sq.m shed with 2 phone lines and ADSL?) I had seen lots of flaura, that was obvious, but there was nothing in it about any fauna.

I confronted the Agent. This might have been just an investment property, to be left alone save for the payment of rates. Linton may have woken up one morning to find they had been over-run by what turned out to be a total of nine unshorn, giant, really feral sheep, turning the median strip into a barren wasteland, decimating every garden club members front yard, maybe even having there own way with the tin sheep outside the pub.

As a general rule I try to vary the story a little bit each month, but I find myself in this issue writing further of my adventures with Alpacas.

For animals whose genes originated in the high Andes in South America they seem to have adapted quite easily to the flatter territory of Australia. It amazes me that both Dali and Penshun seem to prefer sitting on a small pile of dust near the front gate rather than climb Erebus, Etna or Vesuvius the three piles of dozered up rock under which Warren, Bruce and Clive the Rabbits has created elaborate Harems, and more recently Bobby the Brown Snake.

On the subject of rock, the Land Consultant I engaged to sort out where our human sediment should float too was the first to mention the problem I might have. It was not until after I had bought the land that I learnt about ‘Floaters’ .

But my mention of the value of rock and the possibility of selling it he broke out into a polite gale of laughter, you know? Turn their back towards you and pretend they are having a coughing fit.

‘Do you think that anyone within 200Km of this place would want to buy MORE rock?’ he chortled.

Back to the subject of Dali and Penshun, Dumb and Dumber, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy or whatever names I think of in times of frustration for these flighty, dithering, highly strung, nervous Nellies.

These two definitely have a mind of their own, if a prawn has a mind? It took me two months to even touch them, two months more to get them to feed from a bucket without little panic attacks, and a further two months to get them into the sheep race. Penshun tried to take flight first and succeeded in getting his legs ‘espaliered’ in the mesh sides. Thank heavens they spat at each other in this process and not at me. Now I know exactly how far ‘spitting distance’ is.

Once in the enclosure I was able to run my hands over them, like trying to break a horse, but all I encountered were sticks and stones embedded in their tangled fleece. Gathered I would expect either from the hill of dust in which they delight in rolling or the trees that they regularly fight. Taking note of how many objects per. square metre was entangled in their fluff I noted that normal shearing might be out of the question in favour of a big pair of gardening shears.

Dali, whose superior intellect is only just superior to a Cashew Nut, realised that he could actually move backwards under the rail behind him and reversed out of the race.

I learnt later that a backscratcher held horizontally would appear to them to be something you could not move beyond. So now instead of trying to corral them the same as sheep I just corner them with both arms outstretched holding a few simple bits of tree branch, but running around like that makes me appear to other humans as though I am trying to take off or that my latest experiment in puppetry failed miserably.

Regardless of their mental capacity my two Alpacas are still worthwhile recruits to my security needs, and a progressive comedy festival at the same time. Even if their wonderfully big, deep black eyes stare vacantly, you have to accept them as they are – animals with special needs.

GODFREY ZONE

MARCH FLIES?

YES – MARCH FLIES
or
Is there anything dumber than an Alpaca?




Of course every self-respecting Shepherd has to have an Alpaca or two let loose amongst the flock. It raises the question for me, having acquired a couple, which ‘Is there anything dumber than an Alpaca?’

It has been over nine months and they are yet to work out whether they should be afraid of the sheep or the sheep be afraid of them.

I saw a documentary once about Australian animals being some of the dumbest in the world because they lacked any serious predators and so placed little emphasis on real protection. But I think Alpacas faced the same problem in Llama land and have evolved into what would appear to be the world’s dumbest creatures.

The brown male I have is formerly known as ‘Dali Llama’ or ‘Mayor’ because he thinks he’s in charge, the other, the black male is formerly known as ‘Penshun Llama’ or ‘Administrator’ because he pretends not to be the real boss. They don’t mind each others company, but they bicker, they carry on more like husband and wife. Frankly I think they suffer from ADHD or a Bi-polar Disorder.

My Alpacas primary role is to see off small animals such as foxes they don’t believe should be there especially at lambing time. I don’t doubt that they are valuable as many Shepherds swear by their effectiveness. But I don’t seem to have any foxes. Bossy, the lead whether passed away and it was four days before I placed him in the ‘Pit of Death’ yet he remained untouched even by Crows.

They have proved their worth however by seeing off the next door neighbours’ cat a few times. Boy does that ginger thing pick up speed when an Alpacas about to hoof its head in.

An example of how Alpacas don’t think might be how, after the shearing of the sheep, they then spent 20 minutes chasing them around the property getting more frustrated every time a new one came shooting out of the race. I think they eventually realised that they already knew these animals from somewhere before but by then they were all slowly collapsing in the shade of trees including Dumb and Dumber.

Now, trees, there is an interesting concept. I’m convinced that genetically Alpacas do not relate to trees. Why should they, in the high Andes of South America trees are non-existent. So Alpacas have never learnt how to dip their heads below a tree branch. Mine just continue to walk towards their target, whether it is the waterhole or the next patch of grass. If they meet a tree it’s a case of just barge through.

Many a time I have been startled by what sounds like a meeting of monkeys in a nearby tree only to see a set of legs doing a Fred Astaire on the ground and a head eventually breaking loose of the rest of the tree. Out walks a really upset Alpaca almost seeming to say ‘Who put that bloody thing there?’

‘How to meet Alpacas and influence them’.

That’s a Course I would like to find if it exists. On the Sheep Course I learnt all about Ticks and Mites, Worms and Wombs, Teething Problems, Marking and Husbandry, but learnt nothing about how to organise them into a team.

They are also easily distracted, demonstrated by the fact that the young Alpacas next door get a little kiss occasionally. I’m not sure if they have worked out he’s neuter gender or they might like to participate in the Mardi Gras Parade.

I’ve had time to study the pros’ and cons of my various animals. I have come to the conclusion that Dumb and Dumber are far less intelligent than say - Louis De Fly.

GODFREY ZONE

SHE HAS A PROBLEM

SHE DOESN’T DIET

Welcome again – meet a failed candidate for ‘The Biggest Loser’. Somehow the name Maxine Suffolk got accepted by Channel 10, that she weighed 80Kg was a bit doubtful, they wrote back to query that bit of the application, but I made the silly mistake of entering her age as THREE. Even I will admit that I could lose a bit of weight. I solve the problem temporarily by surrounding myself with lots of fatter friends. But Maxine doesn’t have that luxury. Even freshly shorn she appears to be double the size of anything else in the paddock. Like me she resembles a Sumo Wrestler.



Her favourite is bread, not plain old white bread she literally turns her nose up at that rubbish, but Whole Grain and Rye will have her run 200 Metres, yes run I said, towards the sound of a plastic guitar pick being pried off the package and the sight of anything resembling a Black and Yellow Bread Wrapper. Visitors have been warned, maybe it also needs a sign on the gate, not to wear any combination of black and yellow clothing. Unfortunately my sheep do not have any Number Plates so it’s hard for visitors to work out which of the sheep near the house is the one that will take out (for some unknown reason) your left kneecap.

Now that the grass is much taller Maxine doesn’t have to rely totally on the ‘Commando Crawl’ up to the shed and the feed bags she knows are stored within. Again, they are yellow. I thought sheep were supposed to be colour blind. Even me carrying a Yellow Bucket will get a response. Her eyes brighten, she begins to drool, and she will not leave me any farther away than one or two metres. It is a fact that once she has been able to get her head into the bucket, any bucket, it takes the equivalent of six horsepower to extricate her from it, and that can even be an empty bucket.

Maybe instead of biggest loser competitions I could try to enter her at the Dogs considering the distance she can cover in twenty seconds, but they would need to recover the rabbit in something black and yellow. She’d do well in a weight for age event if there were any really fat greyhounds around. Of course losing would be out of the question. Anyone for a good Mutton Stir-fry?

To add to the problem my Mum believed that for everyone, an apple a day was the best medicine, that and a good dose of Caster Oil whenever I threatened a sickie from school. But my peculiarities are a different story. What led me to write that is because Bread is not the only thing they all get. Add an Apple a day to that recipe, one each, I’m very fair like that, or a Pear if they are cheap, or a Carrot for moonless nights.

But like the sales pitch ‘That’s not all’. Every afternoon when the sun hits a certain angle on the horizon they all gather, including Dumb and Dumber, near their yard (a bit of fenced off arena under the car-port) ready for their cup of highly palatable feed, suitable for growing ruminants, or as a supplement to grazed pasture - ‘Malt Pellets’.

Grazed pasture? They’ve got 10 acres of the stuff, over an acre each, half of it knee high with 52 varieties of grass, weed and stubble. What else could they wish for? No? Stupid here pretends that they live permanently in an all-you-can-eat diner. Little wonder Maxine’s tummy has left a groove between the food trough and her favourite tree.

I mentioned that I’d done a course about small farming at Hawkesbury T.A.F.E, but like everything else with some of the Tutors it was a case of ‘if you can’t do it successfully then teach it instead’. You spend months of your life learning something you can’t really use, like marking lambs with your teeth or why all worms are Latin, and learn little of what sheep are really like, or what they really need. You need to learn everything fresh, hands on and the hard way.

You learn nothing of the important stuff like: Do sheep have a sense of self? Have they a concept of play? Can they really grow longer fleece using classical music?

This drought of course is not making it any easier for you or me. The arid acres, the deficient dams, fodder famine and wilted Wisteria. Shortage, scarcity, want, absence, need, words heard daily on the TV. But our mate Kevin is now the PM, his supporters promised that when the Liberals fell so would the rain. Here I am Kev avariciously waiting, arms outstretched and face skyward, for 1mm a day just for myself.

GODFREY ZONE

A HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE

Or maybe‘Ovine horribilis’

So dear reader this monthly saga continues although some of you may have considered it balderdash from day one and consigned it to the bottom of the bird cage to soak up more.

So said ‘The Courier’ – 10 Acres of prime land close to town and local facilities with Dam, Power and Phone connected. I thought close to Ballarat? Worth a look? The price was something I might be able to handle and plus what I had seen over the last two years to connect the essentials it was affordable. Having experienced a lot of realty hype over a couple of years it looked a little too good to be true.

It was about thirty clicks following the Agent (that tells you not to sign anything?) through towns rich in history but devoid of personality. I was a-cumin’ round the mountain when I first sighted Linton ‘the historic gold town’ Passing along the main drag I got that ‘home’ feeling, from the Olympic sounding Linton Sporting Complex to the Railway Hotel (Is there a decent village or town that does not boast either a Railway, Royal or Commercial Hotel?) I liked the look of the town. It seemed, unlike many small villages on highways, ‘that it had a heart’, admittedly a bronze swaggie and a couple of black cut-outs of a drunk looking at an empty glass and a watchful sheep but it felt comfortable. Alas we passed through this village too, where was my Shangri-La, my Utopia, my Prozac?

Like Rocky Horror it was a lurch to the left that did it, 89 Kilometres to Geelong? Past the inexplicable curved streets, past the late ‘Oscar’ in his A-Frame Humpy and 5 K’s later we finally arrived at the block for sale.

A rare vacant block with some healthy Wattle trees on it. Far superior to the straggly gums and blackened stringy barks everywhere else. Admittedly they were laid out in rows that nature never intended but I guessed I could live with that.

The moment I saw the military precision of the wattle trees and my neighbours perfect front yard I knew where I wanted to be. Little did I know what I was in store for, us city slickers, but to avoid procrastinating all the way to the crematorium I made the decision to buy.

It was fortunate I decided that I would come down every month or so, to bring some junk to store and having never fully-owned property before to proudly waddle around hugging trees and calling out greedily ‘their mine! their mine!’

It’s lucky, because on the third trip down arriving just on sunset I was relieving myself against a tree when behind me there emanated such a blood curdling sound my pee almost froze in mid air. The feeling was immediate shock and impending horror as I peered into the darkening bushes. Musically I would have said it was somewhere around lower B flat at 100 decibels. Having recently seen ‘Attack of the Killer Sheep’ my hands shook and legs trembled at the sight of an incredibly obese animal, with menacing black face and matching stumps, literally leap out of the bushes and pin my shoulders to the ground.

Faced with the yellow rolling eyes of a completely berserk sheep I screamed at it, it froze, tilted its head, licked its lips, sniffed me, started chewing its cud as though to make room for one of my feet but finally decided I was not something it should ingest.

To be honest when I was first assaulted by it, the sheep was carrying so much wool I couldn’t make out its gender, and I spent some time with gentlemanly prudishness following it around eyeing off a daggy butt whenever it stood still. You would probably know, you more experienced shepherds, that when a very large, unshorn sheep is facing you, gender is not something you can pick easily, it’s not like they wear a bra or use lipstick, and I’m not the type to try a disguised grope.

The first couple of times I couldn’t make out if it was an embarrassingly under-developed ram or a ewe that needed a training bra. To be honest, until I had done a T.A.F.E Course on small farming I’d never had the need to really confront a sheeps’ crutch before.

On the next trip down I decided that I would have to involve myself with it physically. I would need to roll it on its back. Would I survive the ordeal of taking on a giant 80Kg tea cosy? In I went, head sideways to flank, both of us simultaneously, Oh! Hell! Who was wearing thongs at the time and received a well intentioned stomping on at least three toes? I should have put boots on, what would give way first, the sheep or my lacerated foot? Like a bomb, once dropped it couldn’t be taken back. What resulted was a sort of cease-fire, it was resting quietly between my knees but at the expense of two bleeding left toes. It looked at me as though to say ‘How very dare you’ and there they were - a well developed udder with two teats.

Hi there - may I introduce MAXINE.

GODFREY ZONE

2: AND I WANDERED IN?

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

IN THE BEGINNING

A few years ago after suffering a messy time in Sydney I made the decision that I should get out of town, a ‘tree-change’ I think they call it. (If I had half a squillion more it might have been a ‘sea change’).

I remember that at aged 10 my Sister and I were given unerringly accurate information by a Gypsy fortune-teller. (Women who can predict the gender of an unborn child by the direction of spin of a magnified needle.) Of course the information included something about living long and prospering and retiring to a stone cottage in the country surrounded by a lifetime of mementos.

Well, I haven’t prospered and have yet to experience the end of life but I am in the country preparing to build something. Well two out of three is not quite a complete failure. The box loads of stuff which my sister still insists is useless rubbish have sort of followed me and stored somewhere between Sydney and Ballarat.(I’d had a few too many wines to recall exactly where)

Back to the main plot. Undecided as to what county or what country I should settle for retirement I began a series of nomadic travels through the Eastern States directed by the Real Estate pages.

North to Queensland. I had acquired a paltry sum from a settlement years prior which I would invest in land, I had a slightly thicker paltry sum sitting in Super waiting for me to call out for it. Queensland was soon ruled out when I realised that richer and older grey nomads were heading to the land of price tags in Japanese where tanning saloons were cheap and plentiful (you had to get a tan before you went out to get a tan), getting Plastic Surgery was as easy as joining a Book Club and nobody noticed if you applied make-up with a brickies trowel. Apparently having lips like a Grouper and eyelashes that flicked flies away is very fashionable in Sufferers Paradise.

The only exception would be ‘Schoolies Week’ when people 50 years younger than the average age of the population come to town to stir up the ‘wrinklies’. It is pretty much the norm on Queensland’s more affluent coastline to see the RACQ towing electric cars and surf-lifesavers, who must have guts of iron, giving mouth to mouth to beached whales in Speedo’s.

A second good reason to rule out Queensland came in the form of a television documentary about Cane Toads. I believe that dust would be preferable to squishy feet whenever I thonged around outside the house. I’m not a golfer so using them for practice shots was out of the question too.

So back to New South Wales. The State of Excitement which some call it that requires you to have a six-figure income to qualify as working-class.

Except for a stint in Puckapunyal in Victoria (where I caught Mumps after which I vowed never to come south of the Murray again) the state of NSW has always been my home. When I looked around the State I was not inclined to spend what little I had on 3 acres, 10Km from a deserted town (which made Linton, Victoria look like Flinders Street Station) midway between Bourke and Broken Hill. The town, who I won’t identify to avoid them any embarrassment was that big it had a converted petrol station now called ‘Hotel, General Store, Post Office, Take-away and Massage Parlour and a Pool Table where the Pumps used to be.

Even though, unlike Macarthur I vowed never to return to Victoria, I had mellowed after 40 years and was encouraged by the size of my bank statement. Money obviously is more powerful than Mumps.

So three circumnavigations of Brumby Country and here I am, a city slicker from north of the Murray, full of high fallutin’ big smoke ideas, frustrated with ‘straight away’ meaning within a week or so, looking for something to get involved in (hence this thing) and slowly, very slowly beginning to lay back and enjoy things just washing over me and not drowning in useless trivia (except for this column). I thought I was a ‘recluse’ (52 out of 60 on the introversion scale) until I came here. Now it appears I’m one of the more extroverted residents by comparison. Someone has to get a life, I hope it’s me.