They’ve been teasing me since September. They’d stand in
that corner on occasion knowing that there’s not much I can do about it.
Typical two year olds. The day I started they were there. I went to go open the
gate but they ran off with their tails in the air. I attempted to look for them
from the back of my bitch horse but that was unsuccessful as riding my horse
was about as frustrating as when I finally remembered how big that paddock was.
Then today, it all changed. I drove past them only a few days earlier. I’d lost
the keys to my Landcruiser and there was not much chance I was willing to bash
my precious Prado through the paddock to try and get those three strays in.
Yes, today was different. I was in the Landcruiser. I opened the gate. They
just looked at me. I drove around them gently and next thing I had them walking
through the gate, across the road, up the driveway, straight through the yards
and out the other side, down the laneway and into the paddock where I have been
boxing up all the strays I’ve been finding. I didn’t expect these cattle to be
easy. Their whole life they’ve been treated with high stress stock handling
whether it be a quad bike up their arse out in the paddock or being sooled by
some clown wielding a waddy who is only brave enough to be on the opposite side
of the rails, stirring the cattle as they went. So for these particular
young’uns to go as well as they did surprised me.
The whole way down the laneway I watched the storms. Rain
falling on a mates place. Lightning making its mark. The sky darkening as more
clouds moved in.
It was a month or so back that I found some other cattle.
They too, despite their prior treatment, behaved quite well with a change of
machine moving them to a new location. Across the back of the paddock, up the
laneway, around the corner and into their new paddock. A cow and two sappy
weaners. In with all the others. Once I’d got the bore going I sent the water
down to the trough in their new paddock concerned that the dam might not hold
out for long enough before the rain comes. As I sat in the headlights watching
the trough fill, storms were on show all around me. Lightning took up the sky,
it drizzled constantly, the sun did its best to set in a spectacular orange
glow despite being restricted by the dark clouds.
Despite everything going on around me in my crazy, busy
life, I was quite relaxed and contented with just waiting for the trough to
fill. I was almost peaceful. I was tired from fencing all morning and cleaning
four other troughs on top of the one I was filling but I didn’t care. I could
have sat there all night. It was a lovely time to just sit and think. I
reminded myself of my second favourite painting, “Miranda and the Tempest”.
It’s of a woman sitting on a rock amid a raging storm. She’s just sitting
there, her auburn hair blowing all around, just watching a ship on the ocean
get smashed to pieces by the wild weather. I was Miranda, except without all
that added maritime drama. I also realised that working a job that does not
involve cattle had caused me to lose my mojo a little. I had my own cattle and
some occasional weekend cattle work that I reluctantly took but it wasn’t
filling the gap. I had been missing it without even realising it.
But now, Christmas is coming. There’s a list a mile long of
things I must do, places I must check and kilometres I must travel. I’ve got
six weeks of chaos ahead of me. I’m really not sure if I’m going to have time
to notice that my mojo is probably not far off cracking it all together and
packing its bags and leaving completely. No doubt by early February I will be
making desperate pleas in my sleep “Come back Mojo! I promise I’ve changed!”
Yet it shall remain unconvinced as I weep under an immature mango tree.
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| John William Waterhouse' "Miranda and the Tempset" |
