Life on the Land

For a period of 12 years, we were “pretend” farmers, with a property best described as, a really big back yard, or a really small farm.

The property was located at Maryborough in Central Victoria, and consisted of 200 acres of hungry country, totally unable to support our needs without outside help, this help came from our other occupation as “School Photographers”, taking photos of schoolchildren, not schools.

This property needed a lot of work to transform it from run down farm, to our lifes dream of self sufficiency and rural bliss, while we fell a bit short of the latter, we did manage to spend 12 happy years here.

Life On The Land

You’d reckon he would have known better

Than to settle for “life on the land”

With all of the cautions and warnings

But he just had to try his hand.

Where to settle’s the question

That starts uppermost in his mind

Australia’s a bloody big country

But most of the climate’s unkind.

Victoria’s rainfall is steady,

No thought of droughts down there.

But with two or three real dry seasons

The threat of his ruin is near.

His sheep just fall by the wayside

They simply don’t get enough feeds,

The bit of rain that he’s getting

Won’t promote any growth but the weeds.

In the evenings the dark clouds gather

As though the heavens will burst,

Still each morning’s light shows

His land is still dying of thirst.

The hay that was stacked in the hayshed

Is nearly all used up now

There are only the scraps that the mice left

To show for the sweat from his brow.

The frosts have settled in earnest

The white landscape looks very nice,

But it burns of any new grass shoots

Well at least it kills of the mice!

In between there have been times of plenty,

Plenty of locusts and plenty of mites!

To chew off the pasture he’s put in

And cause him more sleepless nights.

For all the setbacks and heartaches,

He says, “The life’s not that bad”

But despite the brave front he puts on

He ain’t got the cash that he had.

Right now the farms looking pretty

There’s a tinge of green showing through

But it’s short, and now it’s stopped growing

And there’s not a dammed thing he can do.

The garden looks neat and tidy,

The sheds all look straight and true,

The fences are in good condition,

There’s a crop in the ground, growing too.

Sounds like everything’s rosy,

It’s just there’s no rain, or cash flow,

To meet the bills as they come in,

That’s dealing the crippling blow.

Who’s helped him through all of his hardships?

Was it Dalgety’s? Or Elder’s? The Bank?

No, the girl that he married,

Is the one he really must thank.

These are the trials of farming,

To be weathered and beaten in time,

Have enough patience to hang on,

And everything works out just fine.

Peter Holt