About the cows

We had two cows, as I remember one was soft brown and I think her name was Daisy, the other is not so clear anymore, but was taller. It was my Sister and my job to milk the cows before and after school.
Considering we had four miles, that is about 8kms to ride our bikes, or if we got a puncture, walk to school for punishment, (our fault, as we usually rode 'off the beaten' track) but that is another story..
Any way whatever the weather the cows had to be milked, and often they were a fare way from the house. One day we had a long way to walk and for some reason I decided I was going to ride my cow home. My Sis had some rabbit traps ( another story..) in her hand and wacked my cow over the rump with the traps, and she took off like a rocket with me on top and nothing to hang onto. You know I carn,t remember if I fell off! But I do remember I was pretty mad. Bit blurry not you get the idea!

Fun Times

We were such fortunate kids compared to children today, we had such freedom to roam and things to do.

When the wheat fields were well grown, so quite high, we used to make little tunnels, flatten out the wheat, and every here and there, flatten little rooms, it was such fun! Our own little world of labyrinths and mazes.

In the out season, farmers used to run sheep on the harvested wheat fields around our house, and if a ewe had a set of twins, we were allowed to take one raise it with bottles (we had two cows, that's another story) of cows milk, sadly it had to be put back in the next years flock, but then there was always another one. This countryside is pretty much what the land looked like where we lived.

Funny things that happened

Still at the house I last wrote about, as children my older sis and I had pretty free reign, and wandered quite extensively. There were a few small hills probably 4 kms from our home in the middle of the wheatfields, and we used to love to go there as there was a small rubbish dump where the locals (not many of them) dumped their rubbish.
We used to find all sorts of interesting things there, one one of our travels in between the two hills was a small valley, and in the valley was a field of bright red poppies.
We were amazed of course, but never realized till years later that it was an illegal opium poppy field, quite hidden away from everyone as no-one ever ventured there.
One of our trips, we were fossicking in the little dump, which was out of sight of the valley, there was this weird huge white thing that suddenly rose from behind some bushes. Well, we never ran so fast, literally jumped over fences, the whole 4 kms home, and oddly never told our parents about the poppies or what happened. We didn,t go back.

We move again

We moved from the house in the middle of a wheat field with the orchard and the gum trees all around, and the many farm sheds housing the farming machinery, and the little dirt track leading up to it, to the next house not far from the Murray Valley Highway, but down a very, very rutted dirt track in which only my Dads old 19 28 fords wheels would fit!
The house again very old, no electricity as the last two.
The Dam at the back fed water into our tank by way of a huge windmill, and then gravity fed to the house.
One day when the tank was dry due to a leak needing to be fixed, my Dad found a very dead decomposed possum on the bottom! Keeping in mind that we were never sick, makes you wander what all the fuss is about, about not drinking our tank water today! next episode next time.......

Magical Day

Today was a truly magical day, my lovely niece took me to

the enchanted woods, and treated me to a lovely picnic under

the trees with a blanket of leaves on the ground, mind you we

were comfortably esconced a mattress and rugs and cushions,

along with many yummy goodies and coffee, and a story from

the "Faraway Tree" it was truly a memorable day.

.

Fantasy

There is a fairy garden
along a crooked way,
Your reach it by the path of sleep,
Or by the road of play.


There is magic, if you have the key.......

Build a Strongbox

Build for yourself a strongbox
fashion each part with care,
When it,s as strong as your hands can make it
Put all your troubles in there.

Hide there all thoughts of your failures
And each bitter cup that you quaff,
Lock all your heartaches within it
Then sit on the lid and laugh.

A Little More about Home No. 2

We had all the usual animals when living in the bush. Chooks and ducks among them. For some reason they were going missing, and one day Mum saw a huge eagle going for one of the chooks.
Now Mum had never used a rifle in her life, but she ran inside and grabbed Dads rifle and his box of very precious and expensive bullets, and started firing at this eagle in the sky.
She used a lot of Dads bullets, and surprise surprise one of those bullets hit the flying target and down the poor thing came.
Mum was so proud of herself, but Dad when he saw how many bullets Mum had used was not so happy!
My sister and I went to a tiny school with no more than a dozen children, and we were given this huge clydsdale by a neighbor to ride to school, we must have looked rather cute on this huge animal, but sadly we didn,t tie old Model up properly and she decided to wander off. It was many month later that dear old Model was found safe and well.

Our Many Places of Residence No 2

Our first place of residence was the little shack in Glenorchy near the Grampians, from there we moved to a house in the middle of a wheat field in Mystic Park West in the Mallee, I have so many fond memories of this house, it was in a grove of gum trees, with farm sheds all around in which the wheat harvesting machinery was housed.
We loved to play with old machine cogs with grooves all around them on the sandy roads around the house, they left interesting marks, like tractor tyres, we also played marbles, digging littles holes for the marbles to roll into.
We had an orchard at the back of the house, and my sister and I would sneek out of the house at night, and eat oranges under the trees, it all seemed so exciting as children.
The people who owned the house had a dam dug out just behind the orchard, watching it being filled was amazing, it seemed so huge to us, but in reality it probably wasn,t that big. From it ran a little channel that we used to swim in with the ducks, I really loved that place in the middle of the paddock.
My little sister was born while we lived there, I remember how much fun it was to see her start walking, what loveley memories, my Mum and Dad used to sing a lot together, we felt very secure, even though we were quite poor.

Going to School as a migrant child

Starting school was an ordeal, we did not speak the language, and in those days migrants were not exactly welcome. I remember escaping and coming home, and it was a longish walk in the bush, in the middle of school hours.
I really did not enjoy school, we were outcasts, and it stayed with me for all my school years.
Sadly my parents did not speak our mother tongue in the home, they wanted us to teach them what we learnt, so our Dutch, even though my parents could speak it fluently, we did not learn it properly. Hence I have endeavoured to teach myself, which I have been successful in to a point.

Arrival

We arrived in Australia, and moved to a little Town at the foothills of the Grampians, it was incredibly primitive, not that we noticed so much as children, but there was no running water, no electricity, and the "house" was no more than a shack, but Mum who had been used to all the above including an indoor toilet, thrived, she was absolutely immersed in the amazing Australian bush life, totally fascinated with the wildlife, maybe it was her attatchment to the lifestyle of the bush people of the time that has always endeared the outback country to me. One thing I remember, she had to wash (in a copper) all our clothes in dam water, and of course it all came out yellow, so the farmers told her to put ash in the water and it worked, not as white as one would like, but better.

A little more about me

I havn,t always lived in Australia, we came here my Mum and older sister on the ship Sibayak in 1950, my Dad had immigrated a year before to "get things ready for his family" I was four my sister 7, I don,t remember much about the long 6 week ship journey, but I do remember our departure.
Our close relatives were on the dock and we, that is my sister and I, a bag of speckled sugar coated almonds, lots of soft colours, this was very special for us as just coming out of the war years, luxuries were in scarce supply, and then each of us was given something I will never forget, a little metal car, I remember one was red the other blue, that was incredible, so exciting! Then the long voyage began away from our homeland Holland.

By Michael Jackson

If you enter this world knowing you are loved, and leave the same, then everything in between can be dealt with

Of Special Note

contentment is not the fullfilment of what we want, but the realisation of what we have.

All things fair and beautiful

I enjoyed a lovely day out by the sea with my daughter yesterday, what is it about the water that is so calming? I do believe that the negative ions the moving water emits has a lot to do with it as we are positively charged. In any case anywhere by water has a wonderful effect on me.

Time for reflection

Today I had a moment in my garden planting some new seedlings and weeding out the poor little weeds that do no harm really other than take away from the flowers that are trying to get a look in, but what was going through my mind was how fortunate we are to have such a good life even though the going is at times rough, compared to so many, here in this lovely country we should have very little complaints

MY GARDEN

I have a great love of Gods creations and this spills over into my garden, I find quite contentment pottering around weeding finding new plants and constantly changing it around, my dogs love it to, usually sitting right where I,m trying to work!

Don,t let the grass grow over the path of Friendship........use weed killer!

The love in your heart isn,t put there to stay, love isn,t love till you give it away.

The wings of a butterfly contain the dust of freedom