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Out of the three cockatiels I had, I sold Gypsy (he didn't get along well with the other two), and Freida and Crackers both died unexpectedly.  They are both buried at my parents' place where we have a full blown "pet cemetery" with 7 dogs, 2 parakeets, 2 cockatiels, 1 toad, 3 cats, and probably some others that I'm forgetting!    Fred (our original rooster) will go there when he's gone, too!  He's a special guy, so he gets special treatment! 

Julie

Was poking about in the shed today and found my old whip from a couple of years back, thats when I was a young and fearless  ringer,  chasing scrubbers in the bush.

It was made for me by an old bloke who lived on the bank of the Culgoa river, from the hide of a Roo he shot, then tanned the skin by the old Wattle Bark method and made into a 12 plat roo hide whip.

After reminesing Resmerisen   ah remembering the old days I threw it over the railing thinking I'll have a crack at that tomorrow.

Was disturbed just now by what I thought to be Fireworks and ventured outside with cold drink in hand to have a look as to where the display was.

Would you believe ?


THAT a light breeze had sprung up and I had left  about a foot of the thong the with fall and cracker hanging over the railing and that was enough to get the old whip cracking away.

Those among you who disbelieve this tale should contact either Furph or Poddy for the truth as they are both horribble gentlemen sorry I mean Onarable blokes
The Soot

Yeah right you mob

bloody whip cracking in a (light) breeze ????????? come on it would need to be a little stronger than that (not much though)

Poddy did you put the bigger rims on when you went across found I had to regrease the axles on mine on a trip over there and wore out 3 sets of wipers

cheers

Travelling from Hebel through to Gore near Warwick with 6000 crossbreed sheep in the early 60's was no easy feat and our plant ran to 5 drovers, the first 3 weeks was spent isolated from people while pushing the mob along hard to find stock routes through heavy mulga country.
every day our cook a young bloke in his early 20's used to drive our old Brdford 4 ton truck about 6 miles and he would then run out rolls of ringlock fence around trees to build a large enclosure to pen the sheep at night.
after a few days we pushed the mob out of the scrub and onto the banks of the river main river running through that country not sure which river it was but every day after setting up the camp the cook would set a net we always carried with us and most days when we pulled the net there were a number of fish man oh man what a change from mutton and thst was usually sated after killing day, at least we had fresh meat for a couple of days after killing usually chops the first night and for brekky then a nighjt of stew with the left overs on toast next day, all this done in camp ovens what we didnt use fresh was dry corned and I have eaten corned mutton up to 11 weeks after corning, all we used to do was turn the corning bag every day and the meat lasted for weeks no fridge or esky back then and vegies came out of a tin, I still love to eat corned mutton and stews made with tinned vegies, the only dried food back then was peas and they had to be soaked over night to soften them.

Bed was an old metal shearers stretcher with chain wire as the springs and an old swag rolled up in a piece of tarp with your blankets (no sheets) and in winter you just invited the working dogs usually tied to the legs of the stretcher into bed with you and placed your feet on them to keep warm dogs didnt seem to mind and in most cases were in the bed when you crawled in yourself, didnt take them long to learn.

after 16 weeks we delivered 6021 sheep to Gore after 6aking delivery of 6000 and that was after eating a shhep a week yeah I know the maths dont add up but thats the way it happened you always seemed to get extra and they in most cases were what was picked up along the stock routes.

Only a young bloke myself in those days and was lucky enough to meet many old timers born around the turn of the century who were happy to pass on a lot of experience about camping and cooking as well as recipes for camp oven cooking and the bug bit and has stayed with me ever since
Judging by the amount of visitors I get when I fire up the camp ovens at home nowadays the recipes are still good and the plates are always empty at the end.
Bugger it the old Galah has raised his ugly bloody head again
Furphy

Well Furph, as usual you spin a good dit, you can sit around my camp fire any night..... er,  as long as you bring yer own tonsil lubricant.
In the early 60's I worked with a road construction crew west of Coober Pedy. We made several of our camps at disused stock watering tanks in the desert which consisted of huge corrugated iron roofs feeding into water tanks then troughs, usually stagnant. However written in charcoal on the timber supports of these roofs were messages like, "Bill Smith passed through here on bicycle 10/10/1929". etc etc. These tanks were VERY remote and sometimes I wonder if this graffiti was genuine.
Further north we camped at the site of a well dug by a bloke called Tietkin in the mid 1800's. He was trying to establish a stock route from Adelaide to Darwin but couldn't find water ! His camp site was well preserved with his rusty old shovels and pannikins still lying around, no tourists out there to souvenir them!
Temperature wouldn't drop below 100deg day or night for weeks on end no bull.
pd