Life in the bush
Mar 13th 2017, 8:05 am
#91
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Re: Life in the bush
Bushfires were a permanent threat in the bush,but rarely an imminent danger. In the fifteen years I lived there, I only recall one time that our property was actually in danger. We (the whole family) were on our annual holidays in Mum's parents' cottage down on the south coast, when Dad had to rush back home. The situation was so hairy that we had to stay on the coast for about three months; I faintly remember being enrolled at the local school - I must have been about seven.
The only defence the graziers could muster was the burning and cutting of fire-breaks - clearing space until it was too wide for the fires to jump. There was no water except in the dams (open-air storage-pits), and no chemical fire-retardant of any kind. Exhausting work for all the residents in the affected area. After six months without rain - twelve, in droughts, when the rains had failed - the grass and trees were tinder-dry, and too easily set alight by a spark from a steam-train or (sometimes) lightning.
The only defence the graziers could muster was the burning and cutting of fire-breaks - clearing space until it was too wide for the fires to jump. There was no water except in the dams (open-air storage-pits), and no chemical fire-retardant of any kind. Exhausting work for all the residents in the affected area. After six months without rain - twelve, in droughts, when the rains had failed - the grass and trees were tinder-dry, and too easily set alight by a spark from a steam-train or (sometimes) lightning.
Mar 19th 2017, 9:36 pm
#92
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Re: Life in the bush
On another thread, we're talking about meat-safes, in the days before fridges. I think we must have had one in the bush, before we got our first kerosene fridge some time in the '40s. I have a vague memory of a 2x2x2-foot wooden "safe" with gauze sides hanging on the back porch, but I'm not 100% sure that would have been big enough to carry a whole dead sheep. However, I guess it must have been.
I have a clear memory of a lead-lined bread-bin the size of an Eski. Could it have really been lined with lead? Sounds a bit dangerous...
I have a clear memory of a lead-lined bread-bin the size of an Eski. Could it have really been lined with lead? Sounds a bit dangerous...
Apr 7th 2017, 12:51 am
#93
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Re: Life in the bush
Dry lightning strikes are a serious problem, I've been to three in the last few weeks. Coupled with the wind the storm clouds bring they can very quickly become a large fire front. We've been lucky so far this season & managed to contain them to relatively small area burns.
Apr 7th 2017, 7:30 am
#94
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Re: Life in the bush
Cresta. You wonder how many of the bushfires are caused by cigarettes. Where we lived, every man smoked roll-your-own ciggies, and there were several more-or-less official "smoko" breaks during each working day. Then there were the visiting shearers and occasional swaggie passing through - every one of them smoked. None of the women did, though, that I can remember. Sometimes when their men were busy, the wives would roll cigs, light them and pass them over. In all that, there must have been one or two matches not quite extinguished.
Apr 15th 2017, 2:33 am
#95
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Re: Life in the bush
We used a wood-stove at home for the whole 15 years I lived there. Very handy, having boiling hot water "on tap" during all waking hours. And for our showers - for those interested - we had a chip-heater that gave us three minutes of hot water. The "chips" were old newspapers + kindling. The newspapers came out on the train three times a week, and I don't think we ever missed a day. My mother once told me Dad got a pound a week plus keep, from the time he and his brother moved onto the property until the day his mother gifted the place to him ten or so years later. I guess "keep" must have included daily newspapers. We never had much spending-money, but certainly never wanted for food.
Apr 23rd 2017, 2:24 am
#96
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Re: Life in the bush
During the sheep-shearing season, itinerant shearers - most of them highly skilled - would drift in from outside the district and hire themselves out to the graziers. Our Mum cooked for them, though they always ate in their rough quarters. There was a fairly strict social division, which makes me smile now. The famed Aussie egalitarianism didn't carry far, in reality!
She also washed their clothes, if I remember correctly. At work, most of them wore "Jackie Howe" blue singlets (without shirts), named for a champion shearer of long ago. I've just confirmed that on Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Howe The entry there says, They are still popular today among Australian males. I don't know how old the entry is: are they indeed still worn, by shearers or anyone else?
She also washed their clothes, if I remember correctly. At work, most of them wore "Jackie Howe" blue singlets (without shirts), named for a champion shearer of long ago. I've just confirmed that on Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Howe The entry there says, They are still popular today among Australian males. I don't know how old the entry is: are they indeed still worn, by shearers or anyone else?
Apr 26th 2017, 4:12 am
#97
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Re: Life in the bush
On The Old Codgers thread (in TIO), somebody wrote about fly-spray, liberally used in the days before air-conditioning. That reminded me of Tilley lamps and fly-paper - that sticky stuff that hung down from the lamp with hordes of flies stuck to it. We had batteries (100-volt?) for electricity, which Dad ran for an hour each evening and powered the lights, so I don't know why and when the kerosene Tilley lamps were pressed into service. We kids got yelled at if we ever left a room with the light on - and I drive my wife crazy when I go around the house now switching fans and lights off. Our next-door neighbours in the bush had a 240-volt set-up, and their home was always a blaze of light - except when they went to bed, when the generator was shut down and they had no lights at all.
May 8th 2017, 5:32 am
#98
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Re: Life in the bush
I've just been exchanging emails with my two brothers on the subject of our toilet facilities out at Hannaford. When Dad leased the property, all we had was the dunny out the back; and at night we pee'd off the verandah - onto Mum's jasmine plant, mostly. Jasmine smells a bit like urine anyway, if I recall; maybe we hoped she wouldn't notice. But when he died ten years later, there was a flush-toilet inside the house, installed by the lessee and with water from the house-dam - which I think must have been topped up from the artesian bore a mile away.
I was at boarding school when the bore was being drilled, and when water was finally found at 1200 feet (at a cost of a pound a foot), it was reckoned important enough news for me to be told about it in a telegram. It was the only time I ever got a telegram during my six years at school; I think you could send twelve words for the minimum price, and a penny or two per word after that.
I was at boarding school when the bore was being drilled, and when water was finally found at 1200 feet (at a cost of a pound a foot), it was reckoned important enough news for me to be told about it in a telegram. It was the only time I ever got a telegram during my six years at school; I think you could send twelve words for the minimum price, and a penny or two per word after that.
May 15th 2017, 11:11 pm
#99
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Re: Life in the bush
I beg your pardon, Sparkles. I didn't mean to "bump " a post or thread - and indeed I don't know what exactly I did wrong. And I don't recall the content of the post you removed; could you let me know please? Thanks.
This whole thread is for those immigrants on this Forum who want to learn something about "life in the bush", without necessarily having any information to contribute. Each post attracts almost 150 visitors, on average, which is well beyond the usual range of 30-40. If you'd rather, I can let the thread die. There's not much in it for me, after all. Let's know, please.
This whole thread is for those immigrants on this Forum who want to learn something about "life in the bush", without necessarily having any information to contribute. Each post attracts almost 150 visitors, on average, which is well beyond the usual range of 30-40. If you'd rather, I can let the thread die. There's not much in it for me, after all. Let's know, please.
May 16th 2017, 4:43 am
#100
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Re: Life in the bush
I beg your pardon, Sparkles. I didn't mean to "bump " a post or thread - and indeed I don't know what exactly I did wrong. And I don't recall the content of the post you removed; could you let me know please? Thanks.
This whole thread is for those immigrants on this Forum who want to learn something about "life in the bush", without necessarily having any information to contribute. Each post attracts almost 150 visitors, on average, which is well beyond the usual range of 30-40. If you'd rather, I can let the thread die. There's not much in it for me, after all. Let's know, please.
This whole thread is for those immigrants on this Forum who want to learn something about "life in the bush", without necessarily having any information to contribute. Each post attracts almost 150 visitors, on average, which is well beyond the usual range of 30-40. If you'd rather, I can let the thread die. There's not much in it for me, after all. Let's know, please.
Your previous post was about raw milk and butter.
May 16th 2017, 6:24 am
#101
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Re: Life in the bush
If people respond you can, of course, respond back. However Rule 13 clearly states: Bumping Posts - Please do not bump your post in order to get it back to the top of the page. Posting by either quoting your own previous quote or simply by just posting again when no one has responded is considered bumping.
Your previous post was about raw milk and butter.
Your previous post was about raw milk and butter.
The rule against posting before anybody has responded to one's preceding post presumably also applies to tommy.irene for his jokes and fredbargate for his Gibraltar thread. It will be a pity to lose both of those threads, but rules are rules, I suppose, eh?
May 16th 2017, 6:36 am
#102
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Re: Life in the bush
I beg your pardon, Sparkles. I didn't mean to "bump " a post or thread - and indeed I don't know what exactly I did wrong. And I don't recall the content of the post you removed; could you let me know please? Thanks.
This whole thread is for those immigrants on this Forum who want to learn something about "life in the bush", without necessarily having any information to contribute. Each post attracts almost 150 visitors, on average, which is well beyond the usual range of 30-40. If you'd rather, I can let the thread die. There's not much in it for me, after all. Let's know, please.
This whole thread is for those immigrants on this Forum who want to learn something about "life in the bush", without necessarily having any information to contribute. Each post attracts almost 150 visitors, on average, which is well beyond the usual range of 30-40. If you'd rather, I can let the thread die. There's not much in it for me, after all. Let's know, please.
I also live out in the bush lol well actually I'm 20 mins North of Gympie on the corner of the Bruce Highway and the Wide Bay Highway. Quite close to a town but classed as rural remote by the govt..
With regards to your "Raw Milk" query. Here in Australia [well specifically QLD] it is illegal for dairy farmers to sell unprocessed milk for human consumption. They can sell "raw milk" for the purposes of bathing or consumption by animals. Some friends of ours follow a very strange diet pattern including drinking a pint of milk straight from the cow each day. They take a 20 litre pail to the farm and collect the milk themselves.
May 16th 2017, 7:13 am
#103
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Re: Life in the bush
Ah, you and Sparkles have been mind-reading again; but on this occasion you have mis-read me. Never mind. You may be correct in concluding that British immigrants in Australia are not interested in what life is or was like in "the bush", and that I have been wrong to think some of them might be. Raw milk and butter isn't everybody's cup of tea, I must admit. Feel free to lock the thread; I really don't need to keep it going.
The rule against posting before anybody has responded to one's preceding post presumably also applies to tommy.irene for his jokes and fredbargate for his Gibraltar thread. It will be a pity to lose both of those threads, but rules are rules, I suppose, eh?
The rule against posting before anybody has responded to one's preceding post presumably also applies to tommy.irene for his jokes and fredbargate for his Gibraltar thread. It will be a pity to lose both of those threads, but rules are rules, I suppose, eh?
May 17th 2017, 5:54 am
#104
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Re: Life in the bush
Perhaps this would be better as a blog Gordon? Thoughts?
May 22nd 2017, 5:08 am
#105
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Re: Life in the bush
A cigarette butt on the ground reminds me of the old joke:
Sgt Major: (to soldier) 'is that your cigarette butt on the ground !!!!
Soldier: 'It's OK Sir, you saw it first !'
Vic police will pull you over if they see a spark come out of your window at night, or as happened to me, from the car in front which then flies underneath your own car!!
Please let's not close a thread. Surely more legs in this one than many others now?
Sgt Major: (to soldier) 'is that your cigarette butt on the ground !!!!
Soldier: 'It's OK Sir, you saw it first !'
Vic police will pull you over if they see a spark come out of your window at night, or as happened to me, from the car in front which then flies underneath your own car!!
Please let's not close a thread. Surely more legs in this one than many others now?
