AN ABUNDANT SUMMER BEGINS.

Is it possible that our Queensland climate could be reverting to the type of summer weather this state hasn’t experienced for two decades? It is shaping up that way with excellent rain on the Granite Belt and a devastating storm hitting Brisbane a few days after my last Red November garden tour. Now my garden is growing like a jungle and the neigbour’s cattle are happily grazing our grass land. The Severn River is flowing and our dams are full.

I set out to take a walk with my camera on Saturday afternoon and met our flock of geese marching home to be penned for the night safe from foxes and other predators. They are always rewarded with a handful of cracked corn to encourage their return, although as a grazing bird their diet consists mainly of grasses and herbage.

Geese coming home.

I was heading down to photograph one of the dams when I began to see the occasional speckle of a white field mushrooms amongst the grass, so promptly returned for a basket and knife. Read the rest of this entry »

THE NOT SO SWINGING SIXTIES

When a younger generation looks back over a record of my life the thing I expect they will find so different from their own was the expectations that marriage brought to men and women when I married Stewart McIver in 1960. At this time in Australia a married woman was still expected to leave her paid employment to become a wife and mother. Often, it was also impractical for country women to take paid work away from their farm homes because they didn’t have any form of transport. The family car or utility vehicle was possessed by the man of the family.

My parents gave me a substantial dowry when we married, on condition that Stewart’s parents would assist him with an equal financial contribution. This enabled us to borrow additional money and purchase a mixed farm – dairying, grain, pigs and beef cattle at Walker’s Creek near Bell.

The first farm

This large square hill was in the centre of our property at Walker’s Creek. I took this photo when visiting the area a year ago.

The prevailing attitude of the time was that the husband was the provider and the wife’s role was to meet the needs of her husband. Below is a copy of a text that was still taught to high school girls in 1962 as to how they should greet their husband on his arrival home at the end of the working day. Read the rest of this entry »

A GREEN DROUGHT

The Severn River which forms one boundary of our farm flows south-west to join the largest river system in Australia, known as the Murray-Darling Rivers system. Like the Mississippi River in the USA it drains inland waters south to the sea. Early Australian explorers thought there must be an inland sea in the middle of Australia, as all the rivers they discovered on the far side of the Great Dividing Range drained westward. By following these rivers they found that they later joined with the Darling River to flow south and into the sea in what became the State of South Australia. Thus water from southern Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria flows south over several months before reaching its destination in South Australia. It is a slow flowing river and subject to periods of drought when it becomes nothing more than a series of water holes. A hundred years ago paddle steamers worked the river, carrying out wool bales and other produce from the interior. During times of drought they remained stranded waiting for “The river to come down.” During the past decade drought has once more dried this mighty river to a series of water holes.

Here on the Granite Belt at the northern end of this river system, we rely on summer storms to start the water flowing. Most years we get sufficient rain to bring our river down in a flood and on average, once in a decade we will get a mighty flood as happened in January 2008.

Flooded Severn River January 2008

Since this January flood we have received little rainfall and experienced a dry winter.  During these spring months, storms have only brought small falls. This has created a green drought. The countryside appears green, but there is little grass growth. The abundance of water in our frontage to the Severn River has provided me with the ability to irrigate my garden and Remembrance Field of Flanders poppies during this drought. Read the rest of this entry »