1 Gate, 2 gates, 3 gates……………
November 6, 2014
I always have a bit of a giggle to myself when the odd visitor whinges about the gates on the drive into Kilcowera. All three of them. There has been many a suggestion about putting ramps or grids in to make the experience more user friendly. Hard luck! The middle gate on the way in was a real doozy – unless you knew just how to treat it, it would give the unwary a pretty good workout. You bring one side to the middle, head over to the other half and by the time you have it in the middle the first half has swung open again. We in the bush call these athletic gates. Rest easy – it is perfectly balanced now and operates in a perfectly boring and mundane manner. One chap commented it was worth the camping fee just to watch his wife doing battle with it!
Back in the eighties there were 14 gates on the road to town. But being young and enthusiastic this didn’t deter us one iota. After all the bloke always drove and the missus and the kids did the gates! The only exception was if the missus was getting a bit long in the tooth or was done up in her finery and had high heels on. But this was a rarity. The other exception was when the missus had to both, drive home in the dark and do the gates because himself had a load on and was snoring in the seat next to her!
We had one gate not too far from the house at the back of the horse paddock, made of wire and logs. I swear it was the heaviest and most cumbersome gate ever invented. Only a few years ago Greg replaced it with a swinging gate so our visitors had an easier time with it. But I know the ulterior motive was so the bloody thing would be shut properly, not in some half baked way because they couldn’t work out what to do with it!
This is something we have noticed over the years – people can undo a gate, but getting it back together the correct way is much more challenging! I suppose we all have our fields of expertise.
Doing a water run on the place also entails opening and shutting lots of them – sometimes up to twenty ! The Dingo Barrier Fence boys have perfected the art of not going through anymore gates than they have to on their inspections of the fence. After all they don’t have to pay for the fuel and it’s not their car they are driving. They will drive 10 times the distance to get somewhere and to get out of opening and shutting a gate. And there are always two of them, so it’s not like it’s one bloke has to open the gate, get back in the car, drive through and shut the gate.
We just live with them, they don’t bother us too much, the gates are there, they need to be open and shut and that’s all there is to it.
How to unload this large truckload of hay???
September 27, 2014
Well, it’s mustering time again and that means buying some hay to feed them as we move them through the yards and into new paddocks. The newly weaned weaners stay in the yard for a week or so and get taken through the yards 3 or 4 times to educate them and get to eat some yummy hay every evening. The cattle that we will be selling also get fed in the yards for a few days until we have enough of them to fill the truck. We usually buy our hay from St George which is 600 km away so the freight is super expensive as is the hay.
…….. Anyway the job took most of the day, rolling the hay off and the using the old tractor to stack it up, then an electric fence around it to keep the passing trade out.
Maintenance of airstrips – just another job!
March 12, 2014
Not long after Greg and I tied the knot in 1980 we did the prudent thing and put an airstrip in – it was about 900 meters long, wide enough and did us well enough for the first 10 years or so. Then we decided to learn to fly and buy a plane, so a second strip was put in – a cross strip for the first one. This one was 1200 meters long and very wide, to really comply with RFDS standards. Now both of these airstrips are in the most mongrely sandy country and 10 mls of rain renders them unusable, but that’s where they are and that’s where the hangar is so that’s that! We have put another on in about 10 kilometers from the house on much better country and so far I have used it a couple of times and visitors have used it as well. It’s east – west and about 1300 meters long.
But back to the original ones, when we put the second strip in I had this 1200 meters by about 30 or 40 wide to pick up sticks from! So every day I would put an hour or two in marching up and down with a rake and buckets doing the stick trick. Our two girls were aged about 8 and 6 and woe betide them if they ever said they were bored or had nothing to do! Off we would go to the airstrip, picking up sticks, telling stories and making up riddles to jolly them along!
Also our flying instructer seemed to have a hatie on the big long strip and even if the wind favoured it, he would often insist we land on the shorter one. I think it was because it was so long we really didn’t have to try too hard to land in the first quarter of the strip and pull up in a timely manner. We could just plonk her down halfway along and still have stacks of room in front of us. They like to make things hard for the poor little trainee! But still my first solo flight ranks right up there in my top 4 life experiences! NEVER forget your first solo, do you? Just looking over at that seat next to you, that is empty, makes you feel very alone!
But the maintenance of our airstrips is never ending. We very rarely grade them as the country is too sandy and we would just end up with an enormous gully, but we do drag them with an assortment of things – old steel, wagon wheel rims are the best thing. We try to do this just before it rains, so that they “set” nice and hard. But as often as not it doesn’t rain and all we get is wind and then it’s heartbreaking to see the airstrips just blowing away and the more this happens the lower they get compared to the surrounding country and erosion by both wind and water is a very real problem. Also during very dry times we can’t let visitors use the strip as they would more than likely bog their planes in the dust and dirt. I still use it but my plane is very light and I know just where to go and where not to go on the airstrips!
After we get rain the woody weeds and the paddy melons come up all over both of them, so I’m out there with axe, shovel, and poison trying to control them ( kill them!!! ). And that’s where I am at right now, there are gazillions of little woody weeds out there that I have to eliminate. The smaller they are the less poison I’ve got to use ( it’s very expensive ), it’s just finding the time to do the enormous job which is difficult.