MY BREAKFAST COMPANION
If I am engrossed in reading something (perhaps The Bulletin?) he will let me know he is there. Oh yes! He is impatient for me to notice him, for he wants to be fed. Not later, but now. This instant. I know he is not popular with bird lovers. They say he frightens off the small native birds like Blue Wrens (which I love) and others. But this Mickey seems harmless to me, with his jaunty, cheerful manner. So I say, ‘Oh! It’s you again…’ as I put down my cup, survey my breakfast tray and decide on the morsel that I shall give him today…hot buttered toast that I know he loves. I break off a tiny portion and place it on the table a few inches from my tray. He flutters from the verandah balustrade to the back of a nearby chair and warily checks the field, looking this way and that, listening, checking again before he darts to the table, picks up the crumb of toast and flies off. He is back in no time, giving a bit of a chirrup from his position on the chair, and this time confidently alights near the fragments of toast, near me, and one after the other, devours each piece, throwing his head back heartily as he swallows his meal. This bird knows I am his friend.
YOUR OWN TEETH
The young share-farmer was chatting to my father. In the old days, the depression years of the thirties. They had discussed the drought, the never-ending lack of rain; the rotten price they were getting for cream. ‘And did you notice I’ve got me new snappers?’ he...
CONTENTMENT
CONTENTMENT When asked what was the main attribute that contributed to her longevity, my ninety-eight year old grandmother would retort quite defiantly, ‘Contentment!’ This rather puzzled the younger ones, as she had led such an isolated life on a country dairy farm,...
REMEMBERING OLD SCHOOL DAYS
How I love reading of the old days in the Tamborine Bulletin! Not only does it inform me; it sometimes takes me back to my childhood at Buccan and my school days at Logan Village. This time, I was transported to the one-teacher school where headmaster Mr Alec Brown...
THE CROWS AT BUCCAN
Recent news about crows menacing humans reminded me of my school days when Marty, Joan and I would walk barefoot the five kilometres from our home on Buccan Hill to the Logan Village School. The first hundred or so metres down the long hill were safe enough, but then...
THE MEAT ANTS ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL
We walked barefoot to school at Logan Village. The gravel road near the Quinzy Creek bridge was sometimes covered in large meat-ant’s nests. These big red ants packed a powerful sting of which we were most aware. Joan and I skirted round the nests, but one day, Marty...
THE SILVER THIMBLE
We were leaving the district. Leaving the farm that had been home to four generations of my father’s family. The Great Depression still raged and times were tough for a small dairy farmer of 1937. They would try their luck in the city. A share farmer was arranged, a...
VALE BARRY HUMPHRIES
What a great entertainer! He has enabled us to enjoy such mirth! Such talent! He will be missed. Years ago, when my daughter Katy was a teenager, we were having a day at the Brisbane Exhibition. We had not long passed through the gates when I almost bumped into this...
YOU ARE JUST STARTING TO LEAN A BIT WHEN YOU HAVE TO BLOODY-WELL DIE!
That’s what my father used to say when he was in his eighties. And now I am at least THINKING it. Yes, it is true. It sometimes takes a lifetime to really understand some issues...or someone. Perhaps it is because when one gets older, one might have more time to...
FAIR EXCHANGE
The doorbell woke me from my midday nap. I groggily answered the front door. The pleasant looking young man smiled at me. ‘My wife and I were going past your place,’ he said, ‘and we noticed all the oranges under the tree. I wondered if you could spare a few? They...
SUNFLOWERS
As she does, my daughter Katy brought me a bunch of seven huge sunflowers. She knows I love their brightness. But more than that, they remind me of my early school days.Barefoot, we would walk the five ks from the farm at Buccan to the one-roomed school at Logan...