The Good Life It’s called the good life though I’m not sure why, The taxman and the elements sure can try, To break a man’s spirit when all else seems fine, To the body of this country, farming’s the spine.   To most farmers it’s all they’ve ever known, And they’ll tell of good and bad crpos they have grown, To watch the sheep stagger to a dam almost dry, Can make the strongest of grown men cry.   Or to truck them away when all is lost, Most times you rarely recover the cost, Then there’s the years when there’s just too much rain, And you can’t get on the paddocks to sow the grain.   Or there’s the times when the season’s just right, The feeling of hope you can’t try to fight, The heads are all full and it starts to turn brown, Then with one thunderstorm it’s all on the ground!

I thought it was time for another poem as seeing as a few farmers around here have been shearing, I thought this was appropriate. Enjoy.   Shearing – by Lorna Madson I still recall shearing at Dad’s place, All those early starts, Learning to skirt the fleeces, Pulling off the daggy parts. I remember Dad sewing up sheep that were cut, With a needle and big piece of cotton, Sometimes we helped him yard up the sheep, Or bring in some the dog had forgotten. There’s a definite art to throwing a fleece, One that i’m still yet to master, The only time I ever tried, Was a complete and utter disaster! It was always a guess as to when we would shear, Dad never knew quite when they’d come, But you always knew by their thirsty look, When they were about to do the last run. Mum prepared meals and worked in the shed,

We have been having plenty of storms this harvest so it seemed fitting for me to share this next poem with you.       The Storm by Lorna Madson As the storm clouds gather and the thunder rolls about, The wind drops off, it’ll rain there’s no doubt, The question is how much we will get, There’s a few who haven’t yet finished harvesting yet. The thunder gets louder and the lightening gets worse, The dog’s taken off, and the boss starts to curse, It’s still hot and sticky when the first big drops fall, The boss goes inside, dog won’t come to his call. The smell of the rain on the hot ground is beaut, Then the power goes off, now that’s really cute, The kids get scared and the cat wants out, Thunder’s so loud, everyone starts to shout. With candles, you bath kids and get them all fed, Then quick as

It’s been a while since i’ve put up another poem but I was talking with someone who really enjoyed the poem in Heart of Gold. But for the book we had to shorten it and could only use a few select verses. So now I’d like to share the proper version with you.  Enjoy. (Sorry for any typos, I had typers cramp by the end of this.) (Thanks to my Aunty Lorna, who wrote her poems when she was living in Pingaring) Australiana Boronia bushes heavily scented, Australian crawl, the stroke we invented, The Murray River and Golden Mile, The savage attack of the crocodile. Lightening Ridge where the opals are mined, Bundaberg where the sugar’s refined, The beauty of the desert peas, Widespread bottlebrush and acacia trees. Bushfires that make the best men nervous, The Royal Flying Doctor Service, Stations that sit in isolation, Arid land watered with irrigation. The endless soaring of teh big wedgetail,