Thoughts for our NSW drought stricken farmers

4 posts to thank our farmers for being our amazing produce providers
and to acknowledge the unique challenges they face in doing so.

Dry clay bed

Recurrent natural cycle of droughts, floods and bushfires in rural Australia in the early 20th Century as seen through the eyes of ‘Hanrahan’, a pessimist farmer of Irish descent.

SAID HANRAHAN (Abridged version)

"We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,

In accents most forlorn,

Outside the church, ere Mass began,

One frosty Sunday morn.

The congregation stood about,

Coat-collars to the ears,

And talked of stock, and crops, and drought

As it had done for years.

“It’s lookin’ crook,” said Daniel Croke;

“Bedad, it’s cruke, me lad,

For never since the banks went broke

Has seasons been so bad.”…

And so around the chorus ran

“It’s keepin’ dry, no doubt.”

We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,

“Before the year is out.”…

In God’s good time down came the rain;

And all the afternoon

On iron roof and window-pane

It drummed a homely tune…

It pelted, pelted all day long,

A-singing at its work,

Till every heart took up the song

Way out to Back-o’Bourke.

And every creek a banker ran,

And dams filled overtop;

“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,

“If this rain doesn’t stop.”…

And stop it did, in God’s good time;

And spring came in to fold

A mantle o’er the hills sublime

Of green and pink and gold.

And days went by on dancing feet,

With harvest-hopes immense,

And laughing eyes beheld the wheat

Nid-nodding o’er the fence.

And, oh, the smiles on every face,

As happy lad and lass

Through grass knee-deep on Casey’s place

Went riding down to Mass.

While round the church in clothes genteel

Discoursed the men of mark,

And each man squatted on his heel,

And chewed his piece of bark.

“There’ll be bush-fires for sure, me man,

There will, without a doubt;

We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,

“Before the year is out.”

John O’Brian  1919

Extract from 'Alfreshco - foreshore flavour' 
Eat   Talk   Share
WITH THANKS TO
The ‘produce providers’of yesterday and today,
and innovators who have refreshed
the Australian cuisine. 
Without Great Produce,There Can’t Be Great Food.

To be released in November 2018

"We need the Rains"

Clara waxes lyrical - "We need the Rains"

 360 degrees horizon 

Following a visit to catch up with G's family in Dooen - Wimmera - Victoria
Dooen Pub is alive and well today and still fulfills a vital purpose as a meeting place for farmers, residents and travellers to tell their tales, share time with others to renew their faith that the arid earth will be quenched in time. Clara

Wheat silos near Dooen


 

Dooen Hotel opened in 1876
 (Photographed 2004)

 

 



"We need the Rains"
Clara -  Easter 2001  - for G

Dooen Pub

What'chya been doin' all this time

Since they built you in 1876?

On a vast dry plain beside this endless road
Only silos to interrupt the wide horizon.
"We need the rains," you must have said,
and still do now.


You've quenched the thirsts, heard the tales
Of those brave folk who toiled and sweated
Endured the drought yet kept their faith 
That the parched earth would yield its golden bounty.
"We need the rains," they must have said,
and still do now.


Horse and cart; semi-trailers, cars 
Bring a thirsty crowd to drink, to tell their tales 
Share time with others to renew their faith
That this arid earth will be quenched in time
"We need the rains," they must have said,
and still do now.