I've decided to do more with my blog, just one small part of my resolution. I need to get to know how to manage it better, like dividing what I have written so far into categories and ideas, news and poetry and such. And I need to learn how to connect to other blogs and how they can connect to me. More readers so to speak. Well, I'm just saying...
I also want to break down the contention between my family members. Its there, its real and its very sad when one is blamed for something one wrote but was taken the wrong way. Satan at his worst no doubt!
New Year was quiet and blissfully cool after several days of a dreadful heatwave with temperatures 40 plus. Ugh! My son finally was able to get the air cooler going, which almost sent us all to sleep as the cool air wafted into each room! I spent some of the time in that coolness writing in my journal the story of a young man on a station in the outback that I had met years ago. One whom I saw as being honest, hardworking, had integrity. He moved with his family to this station from the interstate, taking the role of manager to get a certain station back into production. It was badly degraded, cattle and horses were in an appalling condition, vehicles rattling and stalling from lack of mechanical welfare, fences in great disreapir and broken, watering points sadly neglected as were the buildings of the homestead complex. He really had a job on his hands. I visited the placed for a week a few weeks after they had arrived and witnessed the mess, to my horror, of what had once been a grand and very productive station. This young fellow rolled up his sleeves and called in the troops - extra helping hands. His lovely wife rolled up her sleeves and along with the care of her two youngsters on School of the Air, found a governess for them and got stuck into it. One could see where changes had taken place. Watering points received first attention, then the fences. In one short week while I was there, cattle were mustered and sprayed for cattle tick, drafted and culled, getting rid of the too old, separating the bulls from the heifers, organising steers for fattening and so on. Horses had already been rounded up and given extra feed to cope with the job. Vehicles were lined up in the old shearing shed and under an overhaul plan. Two new Toyotas were purchased by the boss so the young man could get on with the job. In the homestead and numerous other buildings, rooms were scrubbed, curtains hauled down and either dispensed with and replaced with new ones, or washed, years of grime and gunk scrubbed from the windows. The lawns, which had grown at sputnik speed, the young lass mowed herself, returning them to a smooth green, pot plants appeared to be displayed under the cool verandah. In places things were looking homey. Many items, old food products and such, were carted off to the station tip from the huge storehouse and new items were being replaced on the scrubbed shelving.
I felt that this family would go far. The leaseholder was pleased with his manager, who later went on to win cups, to add to his already large collection, at the local rodeo. The manager was a rodeo rider of some skill. I left and returned to the city. Photos I had taken were sent to the family after development. A few weeks later, to my distress, I received the message from his wife that this young man had been killed in an automobile accident. His boss had purchased him a new Landrover this time and he was driving it back to the station from the town when it rolled and flipped, killing him, leaving a young widow and two young children! Sometimes life seems to dole out some very hard knocks but Heavenly Father was ever watchful. I often wonder what happened to the young man's wife, a lovely person, for she had moved back interstate with the two youngsters, leaving no forwarding address.
Another small resolution is to try and find her.
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