three out of four aint bad
i came home one evening to notice that our trailer which had been outside John and Mallees for about a week had a flat tyre. they borrowed it and i think john was thinking if the trailer stayed there long enough the tyre would right itself. i know that feeling because i exercise such a hope often. two days later keith had a tractor job to do a bit of slashing. it was a particularly exciting moment as it was the first time i had used the tractor for slashing and i was a bit sheepish to admit that of all the levers and buttons i wasnt really sure which ones related to lifting and dropping the slasher and activating the slasher drive. it was much too long now to admit that to the fellow who sold it to us. anyway after a bit of fiddling, and crunching it all worked. so i was pretty perky atop my yella tracta slashing dust everywhere. i was a bit dissappointed however when i heard this swoosh and slowly watched the front tyre deflate. i have to say a flat tyre is much more sensual on a tractor because you get to watch it. not like a car when you feel the wobble after the tyre has blown, or worse still if its a back tyre when you just keep driving not realising until the sparks alert you to something untoward. anyway not to be like that postponer john, i went to the wrecker and after four trips back and forth (which is another story) all was fixed and me feeling pretty on top of things.
twas only a the next day i got in the saab to go to work and got to the front gate, opened it to notice i had a flat tyre. the bounce in my organisational step took a big dip. i tottered off to work on one of those toy wheels that saabs have for spares and realised if i didnt get it fixed straight away then i would have a bigger problem.
came home that night to talk about life love and tyres on our beloved verandah when we looked at the subaru front tyres to notice they were as bald, as a bald man or someting equally bald. well we still havent got those fixed yet but we better soon to make it four out of four which is pretty weird and bloody expensive.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (1)Grasshoppers
I’m feeling a bit despondent about my vegie garden. I had planted a bunch of different seeds and had all these little seedlings were coming up and then they kept disappearing. I kept watering regularly because I thought the heat was getting too much. It has been pretty warm here lately. Any way, the other day I discovered a bunch of smallish brown grasshoppers hiding out in the spinach. They are only about 2cm long but boy can they eat! They don’t seem to be eating the established plants but really like the new leaves. Although they have left the rocket and coriander seedlings alone so far. I tried chilli and garlic spray and detergent and water spray but nothing makes a difference. I can only catch and kill a small number. There are all these little challenges when it comes to growing vagies.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (1)Cabin movements
This weekend we had Carmel and 3 of the kids she minds come to stay in the cabin. The weather was hot so yesterday Keith and I took her kids and the neighbours kids out to Ellery Ck Big Hole. We had a great time. Initially the kids were really nervous about going in the water but with time they ventured further and after a couple of hours we couldn’t get them out, even though they were all shivering with cold. Carmel stayed behind and slept because she was exhausted. Carmel is about my age and works full time as an Arrente teacher and she looks after 5 kids (grand children and neices) in an overcrowded house in a town camp. She is an intelligent hard working woman living in third world conditions. I don’t know how she does it. Aboriginal accommodation in town camps is atrocious. Keith took them home earlier today and I have been cleaning up and we are both pretty tired but it was worth it. Tonight Tom will move into the cabin for the next few months so he becomes our new “cabin boy” until Mil and Martin move up next year. He has the same job as Barry, a previous “cabin boy”, training aboriginal interpreters. He’s an interesting man and I think will maintain the fine tradition of cabin dwellers we have had the privelege of sharing this space with.
Frog Dreaming and Angela Pamela
We live beside a beautiful gap in the West Macdonnells called Honeymoon Gap. It was thus called because some guy in the army in WWII got married and took his new bride camping in the gap here for their honeymoon… and apparently it rained much of the time! Any way, in Arrente, the language of the traditonal owners of theis area, the place is called Mpwatye Arntaye, which loosely translates to Frog Dreaming Gap. Curiously, our neighbours have a small pool which they currently do not chlorinate and at the moment it is full of frogs. In the balmy evenings when we sit out on our verandah talking, eating and drinking wine, we can hear a veritable chorus of frogs (mpwatye) in the backgrund. It is quite wonderful!!
On a more serious note, last Friday the NT government gave consent to a mining company to explore land a mere 25kms south of Alice for uranium, known as the Angela Pamela site. This seems like madness to many of us in Alice. Uranium mining uses a huge amount of water and would be drilling into the same supply as the town. And it is desert out here! Limited water and dust everywhere! Mining would not benefit the town as there are already not enough poeple for the jobs and mining companies take away workers from other jobs. And ALice is meant to be a solar city, leading the world in solar technology, a far more sustainable and safe supply of energy. On the day the government annouced the exploration could go ahead at Angela Pamela, Peter Garrett was up here opening an important solar technologyy centre out where Keith works which will be trialling and comparing the different solar technologies. It’s a crazy world!
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