The Dalwallinu Council Boys

I thought I should include my latest published poem in my blog, now that I have re-discovered my password! It was published in the WA Bush Poets and Yarnspinners monthly publication Bullytin, August 2015 edition. For the benefit of readers, Dalwallinu is a wheat belt town north of Perth on the edge of the pastoral land, the last of the agricultural area that is suitable for crop growing. It is 248 kms from Perth on the Great Northern Highway. Meekatharra, the base for the Flying Doctor radio is also on the highway and is 764kms from Perth and the station that we were on Oudabunna, was between the two towns, the turn off to the station at Paynes Find being on the same highway and about 370kms from Perth and 30 kms from Paynes Find, which, at the time we lived there, had only a tavern and petrol bowsers. Our radio codes were Oudabunna 8WIR - Eight Whisky India Romeo and Meekatharra was 8VKJ - Eight Victor Kilo Juliet. The time period is the 1960s and most of the Great Northern Highway north of the wheat belt area was gravel and rough. The Dalwallinu Council at that period was grading and repairing roads out in their farming district.

The Dalwallinu Council Boys

The Dalwallinu Council Boys
Were rebuilding roads anew,
Out in the bush with their council toys
Around the farms of Dalwallinu.

One hundred or so miles up north,

At ten o’clock for morning tea,
Pedal radios tuned and blared forth
Tales that women extolled with glee.

In the gravel, the dirt, the scrub and the dust,
Machinery all stopped their sound.
Smoko you see, the tuned radio a must
For the Dally boys to get their next round.

The women spoke of their troubles,

Their frustrations, their tears, their joys,
Unaware of their secret listeners,
The Dalwallinu Council boys.

The boys heard that Fabulon was useless,

And butter had melted with the heat
And to alleviate weight and the stress,
Splits up the door jamb would defeat.

The Dally boys home troubles the same,

As they listened amongst gravel and tar,
And promptly agreed on a nickname,
The Session of the Galah.

They learnt of lunches ‘n smokos, ‘n windmill runs,

Of mewsling, of crutching and shearing,
Of broken down vehicles, bucking horses and brums
Of sick dogs ‘n dead dogs ‘n drought appearing.

In stitches and with laughter rolling,
The Dalwallinu Council Boys sent a letter,
The Session of the Galah it was extolling,
To tell they hadn’t heard any better.

The women were really delighted

Of such a glowing epistle,
Each morning they happily recited
‘G’day’ to the boys out in the thistle.

 ‘Way south where the city was busy

Was boss Royal Flying Doctor base.
They heard all this radio tizzy
And decided they had to save face.

Dalwallinu Council received a letter,

To discipline its council boys,
To the women they even went one better
The pedal radio was not one of their toys.

So their cuppa tea listeners were banned,

And with a sigh the women did tune
Into their usual morning tea session,
And no ‘G’day’ to break the gloom.

Next time when travelling to the city

As one passed through Dalwallinu town,
A letter was dropped in the gritty
Machinery of boys that were ‘down’.

The Session of the Galah did continue,

Its listeners with delight a radio must,
Dalwallinu Council Boys already knew,
Listening out in the gravel, the dirt, and the dust.

 

Passwords

This remembering my blog's password has got whiskers on it. I could say the same for all passwords for whatever I do online it requires a password. Now my head is full of passwords. There have been at times many things I wanted to write in my blog and many articles I wanted to attach to my blog. oh well, never mind, let's look at the good side of things. Dad's Story has been self published. Brother John and self designed the cover for this self -published photocopied book!

 

The things that happen!

My Honours thesis that focused on Warrawagine Station

The other request was from an Anton von Sierrakowski who was chasing the Russell Timms who had Warrawagine Station in the East Pilbara in the 1970s. Anton had spent some time there, including a muster, and would like to get in contact with them. I searched the white pages and came up with two R. Timms in Perth. One is a Russell, so left my request on the answering service and hope its who Anton wants! I studied the Station records and work books of Timms time on Warrawagine, and this was part of my Honours thesis and later  doctoral thesis - The Historical Geography of Six Major River Basins in the North West of Western Australia since Pastoral Occupation. Hmmm, universities always like their long titles!

   

Some people read my blog and contacted me on my email. I was never more astonished in my life. Okay then. What did they want. Well, they were voices from the past, my writing past. The first was a little lady from New Zealand, Lee Cleaver who is much interested in purchasing my work Eastward to the Avon. Ron Giblett had some copies left over I know a few years back, but unfortunately they all have been sold. As Ron had been a naughty boy, laying claim to have written the book when he never put word to paper, only provided most of the genealogy and other historical data except related to the good ship Success, which I found, I had to contact Copyright Council to sort it all out. Cheeky man using someone else's hard work for his own gratification. No doubt because of that, Ron doesn't want to speak  to me, but Lee wants a book, hard copy hopefully, but as that is not to be, I can copy my own copy of the book for her.

Eastward to the Avon, publisher Ron Giblett

So I have included the cover of the book here and the title page! Just so that I can prove I did write this, Copyright Council did request an acknowledgement of my work. I waived receiving any part of the book sales, leaving that for the Giblett family. And the things that happen? I couldn't get the books to locate the way I wanted them in this poast. Darn!

Title page of Eastward to the Avon      

The beauty of it all

Mining Town of Tom Price from Mount Nameless

I was going through parts of my journal and came across some beautiful photographs I had forgotten about. They were taken in the Fortescue of the beautiful Hamersley Range and a  massive, lovely cone-shaped hill of Rio Tinto Gorge. the Hamersley Range is really spectacular with its range of colours, depending on the position of the sun.


Within the Hamersley Range at Tom price. Taken from the
 top of Mount Nameless

When I took these photos, grey-haired and 55, I was on my field trips in the North West of our large state of Western Australia, one in 1996 and the other 1997.   As I was pursuing a doctoral degree, it meant visiting everything, interviewing people and photographing everything. Iron ore mine was the dominant production in the North West, with Mount Tom Price the leader. I interviewed the manager of the mine  'Where was that iron ore going to and what was it made into?' I knew that in the past iron ore was used for vehicle engines, our wood stoves, cookware for both indoor and outdoor, machinery for a  variety of industries and so on. Antique cast iron cookware has lately become popular. Some fencing products are made from cast iron, and some machinery and piping. This I knew before I ventured the million dollar question. His answer stunned me. He thought I was a grey-haired old dame that could be bamboozled into thinking they were doing great things and I wouldn't understand! But I knew differently. Billions of tons of the stuff were shifted daily by massive trains over a kilometre long, snaking their way across the dry, spinifex landscape to the isolated but very busy ports on the coast.

Hamersley Range from Mount Nameless

I knew that the old iron ore was antique and that the new iron ore, mixed with alloys, made fencing, piping, machinery parts and so forth. So what did this manager of this huge mine have to tell me, anything different? 'Why, haven't you seen that giant carrier berthed at Port Hedland?' he asked. 'Our iron ore goes to Japan in these carriers and builds even bigger ones.' Guess my eyebrows rose at that reply, for I had hoped to receive something more technical. I replied 'so the iron ore has gone to Japan to build the big carriers that cart more iron ore to build even bigger ones of gigantic proportions?

The giant carrier berthed at Port Hedland

' 'Yes!' said this twit enthusiastically. I think I left that office a very unpopular woman, for I made my final remark: 'Well, isn't that rather a Catch 22 situation?' My poor Hamersley Ranges were suffering to build these giant

Entrance to Rio Tinto Gorge

ships was the way he put it, never mind about anything else. Come on iron ore magnates, what are you doing with our beautiful country of Western Australia? Look at the most interesting design of the cone-shaped hill at the entrance to Rio Tinto Gorge, which is another entry to Tom price from the Great Northern Highway. And on the coastal highway we have the interesting cut in the landscape of Wunjina Gorge. After all, these beauties exist within a very harsh and inhospitable environment where the sun bakes the countryside in extremely high temperatures every year and cyclonic gale force winds at periodical intervals scream across the landscape uprooting trees, demolishing scattered properties, and leaving behind sometimes devastating floods, but  bringing the most welcome rain. Let's care for our strange but beautiful land.

Wunjina Gorge



Just thinking

When I went to Office Works the other day, it was a trip I enjoyed, with my car window down and the perfume of damp earth, Eucalyptus trees and other bush vegetation wafting through. I wanted to jump out of the car and go strolling through the scrub like I used to do when I lived in the outback and then in the farming region. City living is a necessity when one gets old, living close to hospitals, chemists, specialists, doctors and of course shopping precincts. But nostalgia calls all the time to return. It seems I must content myself perhaps to little trips, scribbling my bush poetry taken from my memories and keep busy so I don't get blasted homesick all the time! I would love to be in the Murchison, particularly in the winter and spring, not necessarily the summer thank you when the sun beats down on one's head fare to push me through the baked ground! But to see the willy willy's spring up, swirling around filled with twigs and dirt and anything else it picks up, kangaroos umping away from my intrusion, the leaps causing puffs of dust or an inquisitive emu treading warily towards my stationary person. Until I moved! Here where I live I often get the smell of the jarrah trees wafting down from the hills, and the familiar itch occurs and I have the desire to wander through the Darling Ranges, checking out the plants and dark-trunked jarrah trees, granite rocks and such. Have you ever been bush reader? You don't know what you are missing. I feel for the kids of the city today, who do not have the freedom I have had when growing up and in my married years, where I roamed freely wherever I wished to go. Youngsters today cannot do that, unless it is a controlled visit to the bush. Perhaps I am not making myself easily understood, but as kids we took off into the scrub wherever the fancy took us, never worrying about getting lost or of 'absolute rotters' who may be hiding. Such things never entered our heads. We would roam anywhere and mostly barefoot. I do not recall getting feet full of prickles! Quite often I roamed on my own, amongst the granite rocks up in the Darling Ranges seeking the elusive and precious orchids, donkey, spider, pink lady, blue enamel. They were never picked, but enjoyed. It is wonderful walking through the bush and smelling the rich aroma of the blackboy. In my younger years, damaged blackboy trees were used for lighting fires, within reason of course, as the gum clogged up the chimneys. A delight though, when having picnic or camping out for the aroma of burning blackboy was delightful! Dangling from their writhing positions from shrubs and trees hang the fringed lily to enhance one's view. Underfoot were the yellow bellybuttons, amongst them the mulla mulla's, or pussytails another name for them, the common name.


Cotton bush on Three Rivers station in the Murchison



Blackboys, Gooseberry Hill, Darling Ranges

White everlastings, Moorarie Station, Murchison



Kangaroo Paws and smoke bush, Kings Park, Perth



Royal Mulla Mulla or Pussytails, Murchison

Donkey Orchids in a park near me, Kelmscott

Pink enamel orchid, Darling Ranges

Smoke bush and a friends hand Toodyay

Blue Leschenaultia Toodyay



A little blue unkown creeper



Sturt Desert pea, DeGrey region Pilbara.

Memory is a ...

Well there you go! For quite some months I have not been able to get into my blog because I had forgotten the password and then of course, going through the help business I have no way to receive it on SMS. But tonight, I was visiting WA Poets Inc and my name is there as a member, when I clicked on my name, my blog came up and I sat there staring at it. The password popped into my head. Howzatt then, back to blog writing again. But not tonight as its rather late, but definitely soon!

Lots of rains

This is the third addition to my blog recently regarding rain. Rain and rain keeps tumbling down in the USA as ours seems to lift a bit. The result of ours in lower WA has been prolific growth in my garden and the result of theirs has been what we suffer from at times, flood, floods and more floods! We are warned and warned to be prepared, for the good and the bad. Give mighty thanks for the miracles and pleas for safety. Heavenly Father will listen. Then to add to the USA's woes, Obama is seeking war with Syria. Pray for the government of our nations that they may choose what is right! Pray for ourselves to choose the right! And prepare! Study self reliance and do something for the bad and be grateful for the good

Western Australia's weather chart
for late August 2013. Here it comes again.



A reward of a display of donkey orchids after all our
rains in Perth August 2013 (photo by Judith Fulton)

Floods in Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Missouri rain coming August 2013

These people lost their caravan to the raging
flood seen behind them. Missouri, September 2013

Like in Australia, cars get swallowed up in floods in Missouri

Rain keeps falling and devastating flooding continues in portions of Missouri, Kansas and neighboring parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas.
Multiple complexes of thunderstorms have rolled from west to east across the region this week, and additional storms will bring even more rainfall into the weekend across flood-weary areas.
Portions of central and southwestern Missouri have received more than a foot of rain so far during the first week of August, which is four times the normal for the entire month.
The rainfall has led to dramatic flash and urban flooding, as well as rises on some of the rivers in the Ozark Mountain region.
The Gasconde River at Jerome, Mo., set a record high level of 33.83 feet, breaking the old record of 31.34 feet set on Dec. 5, 1982. A near-record crest is forecast by National Weather Service hydrologists farther downstream on the river at Rich Fountain, Mo.
The Maries River in Missouri crested just below record levels. Moderate flooding occurred along the Neosho River in Kansas earlier this week.
The torrential rainfall has hit some communities so hard and so fast that some people were caught off guard.
During Thursday morning, many downtown streets were flooding in Wichita, Kan. Most streets in Fairland, Okla., were under water for a time as well.
A portion of I-44 near Waynesville, Mo., was closed at midweek due to inundation, but the road has reopened. Dozens of Missouri roads remained closed Thursday.
A 4-year-old boy died and his mother was missing after their vehicle was swept into deep water, according to Pulaski County Missouri Sheriff Ron Long. Two law enforcement officers were stranded near Highway 7 and the Gasconade River.
Communities and campgrounds along some of the streams and rivers in the region were evacuated Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Pulaski County Sheriff's Office is reporting that 50 homes have been destroyed and hundreds of others have been flooded.
The National Weather Service in Springfield, Mo., has described the flooding potential as "extreme," and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency.
Additional water rescues and evacuations have taken place Wednesday night in the town of Hollister, Mo.
The worst of the rain has fallen from eastern and central Kansas to central and southwestern Missouri, brushing northeastern Oklahoma and northern Arkansas. There has been and will continue to be a sharp cutoff to the rain to the north and south.
Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo., has received over 14 inches of rain in seven days, which is several inches greater than its entire average rainfall for the three summer months of June, July and August.
Popular tourist area, Branson, Mo., has received 8 inches of rain in 24 hours spanning Wednesday into Thursday.
Meanwhile, in St. Louis and Des Moines, Iowa, to the north and Tulsa, Okla., and Little Rock, Ark., to the south, less than one half inch of rain has fallen during August as of the morning hours of Aug. 8.
The location and terrain in the Ozarks region is prone to flash flooding.
In June of 2010, flash flooding claimed the lives of 20 people in the Arkansas Albert Pike Recreation Area.
Over the Ozarks, moisture from the Gulf of Mexico meets up with complexes of thunderstorms from the Plains. The rainfall is channeled rapidly through area streams and rivers along the hillsides.


...and Obama is doing his best to persuade congress to have military intervention against the Syrians and the atrocious attacks to rebels in that nation, if rebels they may be!