Hereford cattle at Cardenyabba Lagoon, Kilcowera Station.

Another interesting person we had here was Letterbox.  A very capable man, a big burly bloke, very smart and a top musterer.  He had a little weakness though which sometimes prevented him from turning up for the job.  If he wasn’t here on time you just knew that he wasn’t coming.

 

When he first started coming out and doing a few days mustering for us we thought we had really struck it lucky with Letterbox as he was so good at the job and he and Greg got along really well.  After he’d been here awhile he took it upon himself to look after the grass around the shearers’ quarters where he bunked down.  We would often hear “I’ll just slip down and move the sprinklers around the quarters” What a diligent man! A gem!  Or it was “I’ll move the sprinklers in the sheep yard or the cattle yard”  Righto Letterbox!

 

Well it transpired that L was a fairly thirsty sort of a fellow who was mightily fond of what he called his green frogs – cans of VB and he just needed a few to get through the day – and he did move the sprinklers too.

 

One Melbourne Cup day we were bringing a mob of cattle in to the yard and still had 5 or 6 kms to go before the race, I had resigned myself to not seeing it and was a bit glum.  I love the champions of the turf and horse racing.  Looking around at the mob of cattle I saw that Letterbox was nowhere to be seen.  “Huh, b*st*rds gone off to move the sprinklers, I’ll bet!” flashed through my brain.  About a half hour later he returned with a couple of green frogs for everyone and a radio so we could hear the race that stops a nation out in the middle of the paddock.  What a good man!