Crow Stoning

Crow Stoning

Stone the Crows

"Stone the Flamin crows" he cried, "The country's gone to hell,

the 'cobbers' are all 'cobras' now, a sorry tale to tell,

The Cuff'n'Collar boys have won, and sold the family farm,

the Orcs have overrun the Shire, and caused all kinds of harm.

Now its Porches for the city spivs, and no Fair Go for All,

the battlers do it very tough, their backs against the wall.

There are two kinds of aussies now, comfort and survival

where everyone was once a mate, now everyman's a rival

Money doesn't talk, it screams, and drowns all other voices

the people are seduced by greed, and see no other choices.

Nothing now is sacred, there are no dreams they cherish

yet proverbs clearly warns 'without vision, the people perish'

Some love a sunburnt country, this dry and wide brown land

but the True-Blue culture's fading, if we don't take a stand.

Some say that only Owners have the right to speech that's free,

I say a Fair Go is FOR ALL, and that means you and me!

- A Fair Dinkum True-Blue

The Milking Shed:

You want us to pull WHAT?

The milk came white hot into the bucket, or with a flick of the wrist..
into the eye...

Attaching leg ropes didn't require a Certificate IV in Occupational
Health and Safety.. just a head tougher than ironbark.

The separator could be set so that the cream would stand a knife up
in it.. but it never lasted long enough to test.

Hunting Stories.

It's huntin' time agin..
My favourite holidays were at my relatives farm.. life was so raw there.
On the edge of the little desert, this was no plush, graziers homestead..
this was your wide brown land, wiry, deep belly laugh, stick-at-it farm.

There were old farm buildings with rough timber-slab walls and straw roofs.
Next to the steel and galvanised iron replacements.
I don't know the name of comic who does the 'Men=Hunters' routine..
"A man shopping for a shirt is hunting... find shirt.. kill shirt..
take shirt home" but he was onto something.

We waged war on the bull ants... using our thongs in our hands we
would beat them back to the ant hole, but still they kept coming..
we upped the ante with 10 gallon drums of water to flood the
bastards out... but still they came..

Their relatives, the White-ant army, eventually took the house..

We shot roo's from the back of the old dodge ute...
We shot possums spotlighting at night.
One night the mums had a fit when we got back..
we were covered in blood from one Ghost-Dancing possum
who wouldn't die and fall out of the tree..
In daylight you could stand under the forked branch the
dessicated carcass was caught in, and almost make out
our outlines in blood spatters on the ground.

We caught and ate yabbies.
Everything got eaten.. except the ants and that one possum.
As kids we had a ruthless streak.. we would stand at the
entrance of those thatched-roof farm buildings with tennis
racquets and try and ace the birds that nested there.
I'm talking 10 year olds in the 60's.

A few years later I was camping with teenage mates down in
Gippsland.. lush, green Gippsland.
My mate had his four-ten shotgun..
he was standing in the clearing outside the tent with it.
(he was a bit of a tearaway.. smashed our hanglider at black rock,
nearly killed himself in a bad bike crash.. chicks loved him..
a real bastard... ;-)

He looked up in the trees above him...
took aim.. and fired.
A bird fell at his feet..
..as we both looked at it..
an arc formed from tree to ground to sky..
as its mate swooped down, and in mid flight...
touched its dead partner where it lay on the ground..
and flew away...

My mate followed it with his eyes, then shook his head.
I never saw him use the four-ten again...

Che Guava
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Life is a journey of self discovery.