A Forefather's Legacy

People come out to work on stations for all sorts of reasons. But for some people it’s in the blood. It’s something their forefathers have done and now it’s their turn. This is the story for Shaunica Cheu. The heritage in her family of working on stations extends right back to her Great-Grandfather and it has not skipped a generation since. It’s only natural that her family have been fully supportive of her pursuits.

“When my Dad worked on stations they had to catch the brumbies and break them in and then that was their work horses”.

But despite the way her forefathers had entered the industry, Shaunica’s start was quite different. Bored with high school and the school yard politics she dropped out 6 months short of graduating. She went on to do a Geoff Toomby horsemanship school especially designed for indigenous students. After that she completed a Certificate II in Tourism but that wasn’t really what she was interested in. She wanted to work on a station so when the opportunity arose to apply to be part of the Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association Indigenous Pastoral Program she jumped at the chance. It meant leaving behind North Queensland and her family but it also meant new adventures.

Cave Creek Station opened up the path for Shaunica to enter the cattle industry but a week short of her 18^th birthday tragedy struck. Her Aunty had passed away and then a few days after her 18^th birthday her Grandmother also died. At a time when she should have been celebrating she instead was mourning.

“My Grandma took care of me. She took care of me when my mother couldn’t and my mother took care of me when my Grandma was in hospital a lot”.

Her family was always close and had always been very supportive of her and whatever she wanted to do. Even when it came down to bull riding. Coming from a rough riding family they could hardly say no. Most of her uncles and older cousins rode broncs in rodeos. It was another lot of cousins that got her in to bull riding. The only time her mother and grandmother objected to her participation in the sport was when she fractured her wrist trying to break her fall coming off a bull.

“I didn’t know why I couldn’t bend my wrist back so we drove to Cooktown at midnight. By the time we got there it was 1am and I had to sleep on the benches in the hospital until the morning when they could x-ray it”.

When you look at Shaunica it’s hard to believe she’s 18 let alone that she’s been bull riding for 3 years. And she’s not about to give it up either.
“I love it!” she says with a beaming smile.

Since beginning at Cave Creek she has thoroughly enjoyed herself. Between meeting new people and going to rodeos she enjoys her work and ticking off units for a Certificate II in Rural Operations. She loves to look after the poddies and feed the dogs.

“I like working with Rohan. He’s fun to work with and he teaches you a lot”.

There’s no sign of this pint size dynamo giving up being a jillaroo any time soon.

“I love the nature and being in the country”.

Shaunica aims to one day move up through the ranks and she hopes that more girls, especially indigenous girls, join the industry. And with someone like Shaunica to look up to there’s hope yet!

The Growth of Person and Pasture: Jodie Ward

Jodie Ward has long been passionate about the cattle industry. Although her direction within it has changed somewhat over time her enthusiasm for it has not. Here is her story…

 

What attracted you to the cattle industry?

Mum and Dad always had eighty or so trade cattle as I was growing up on a small buffel grass block in south-west Queensland, so weekends for me always involved mustering, fencing or just plain checking in on the cattle.

After finishing school I had enrolled in a Bachelor of Applied Science with the University of Queensland but after being accepted I promptly decided I needed to do some exploring first so  headed off to the wide open plains of the Barkly.

Where and for how many years did you spend in the stockcamp?

I only spent two years in the stockcamp, one on the Barkly, and the other near Marlborough in Queensland.

In all honesty, my official introduction to the pastoral industry was not ideal. In the first month the headstockman on the station I was on passed away in a car accident and his 40 year old replacement liked to influence with fear. As a pretty timid and quiet 17 year old, being told “if you stuff up in front of the boss again I will take you out into the bush where no-one can hear you scream” (all of which was said with a smile on his toothless face), did absolutely nothing for me. I went to pieces and became a shivering and shaking mess. I was that terrified that I couldn’t think straight. Thankfully he only lasted a few months without laying a hand on me.

The next replacement was a lovely gent who saw that I was a bit broken and did all he could to build me back up but by that stage my confidence was pretty disintegrated. A 10 year old would have been able to do a better job than I was doing. Thankfully the end of the year came quickly and I slunk home to Mum and Dad, a little bit proud of myself for sticking it out and not coming home before the end of the season, as had been predicted by others.

So I was all set to go to uni when the boyfriend of the time announced he was going to Glenprairie Station, a beautiful place, right on the coast, houses on top of a range, only an hour and a bit out of Rockhampton – thought they were still chasing an additional stationhand if I wanted to apply…. And just like that, the uni degree was forgotten and I was out chasing cows again down the hillsides and through the ponded pastures on beautiful, well-bred stock horses. Here I had a fantastic manager who nurtured and mentored me through my year there. That isn’t to say he didn’t yell and scream and jump up and down at me, but as well as that, he made sure I learned my lessons, took it on-board, and then let it go, trusting that I would not make those mistakes ever again. In response, I worked harder for him than I have for anyone else. By the end of that year, I felt like I was finally getting it. I could do what was required without assistance, and more than that, I was doing it well. My horsemanship and stock handling skills were the best it had ever been. I was getting places with my ‘difficult’ horse. I was getting pretty good at starting the hard-to-start mono and was confident at diagnosing technical hitches in the individual animal recording system. I felt as though I was valuable to the team.

It was a tough decision to leave it all behind and go to uni but the words of my old school career counsellor were ringing in my head loud and clear: “Eighty percent of females who take more than two years off studying never go to uni”… It had to be done.

What were your reasons behind pursuing a career with the DPIF?

While I thoroughly enjoyed working in a stockcamp, I was a bit precious. ‘Putting my body on the line’ wasn’t really my thing. I didn’t enjoy getting hurt, and being a slow runner and general all-round klutz meant that I was usually the one covered in bruises at the end of the day. So I wanted to find a way that I could still be involved in the pastoral industry without being in the stockcamp as such, and becoming a Pastoral Production Officer with DPIF, was just one of the ways I could achieve this. I had always had a strong interest in genetics and different cattle management techniques so this seemed like a good progression for me.

What sort of steps did you have to take to achieve your goal of working with the DPIF?

To be a Pastoral Production Officer I needed a degree in something like Animal or Rangeland Science. I studied the Bachelor of Applied Science (Animal Production), which took me 3.5 years because I studied externally for a year and dropped back my study load when my husband and I worked at Melaleuca Station. I feel this degree gave me a good background for the role I have now, particularly in the areas of beef genetics and reproductive diseases.

What sort of things do you love most about your job?

One of the absolutely best things I get to do in my job is run small workshops for stationhands about rangeland management.  Nine times out of ten (as I did myself) they’ve come north to chase cows and haven’t thought much past that, and when you tell them that it’s the pastures that are the basis of the industry, it blows their mind – and it’s fantastic to be a part of that learning journey.

Would you be able to name a few of the tasks you have had in your job?

Other than presenting workshops I have:

·         done a lot of pasture surveys (aka grass counting) for a number of projects

·         yard work for various cattle projects

·         data cleaning and processing

·         poster presentations at conferences

·         compiled articles and newsletters to be dispersed into the industry…

And a whole bunch of other stuff I can’t think of right now, but what I have done has allowed me to travel the length and width of the NT, having a good time while doing so with knowledgeable and fun colleagues.

Any advice for girls wanting to enter the cattle industry and pursue their goals?

If you want it, get after it. Make it happen.

There is more than one way to skin a cat.

 

The Cicada Cycle

For a number of years The Restless Jillaroo has been very, very quiet. My role on one station over the last 8 months coinceded with me working in town as well and living halfway between the two in more ways than one. But The Restless Jillaroo is coming back. I'm on a mission. Like the cicada that remains underground for years before it emerges and squeals at a high pitch with a zest for life, so too will this blog. I'm on a quest. The blog will follow it. Come along for the ride!

 

Miranda and the Mojo

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.

John William Waterhouse' "Miranda and the Tempset"

Kites

The kites I like aren't brightly coloured. They're more brown, cream and grey hues. They're not attached to a piece of string. They're free to go where they please. But they catch and glide on the updrafts just the same. They duck, dive and swoop in the air. The enjoy catching bugs and grasshoppers disturbed by the movements of the tractor. When a fire rages they collect the insects trying to escape the inferno. They pick up burning sticks and drop them on unburnt country to excite the insects some more. They prey on small animals like mice and frogs. I hate it when people call them "shit hawks". They have a name. A proper one of dignity. Whistling Kite.
I had one as a pet once. It had a broken wing. A coworker found it and together we helped it heal. We proudly carried it around perched on our arms. At one point we had to shift it to a cage outside but someone, and we've never been sure who but we had our theories, was traumatising it by kicking the cage everytime they went past. It went off it's food and water and our brave, little Nikita had to be put down. As the euthanasia kicked in I watched the light fade from his eyes while his heartbeat slowed then stopped with tears streaking down my cheeks. I rested him in a tuft of grass under a shady tree and said my goodbyes.
But his species still feast on carrion on the roadsides. Still daringly swoop in front of the tractor grasping arthropods as they go. They're the kites I like.

Happy Anniversary

This year marks 10 years for me in the Northern Territory. I've seen some good times. I've seen some bad. I've been knocked out by horses and cattle. I've broken my back. I think at one point I may have even broken my leg. I've been bogged in mud. I've been in a chopper doing a bit of cattle work. I've been from the edge of the Kimberleys to the edge of the Barkly Tablelands and everywhere in between. I end some days covered in blood. I end some days covered in dirt or mud. I end some days covered in oil and grease. I've swum in croc infested waterways. I've cut up countless cows and bullocks for beef. I've processed over 70,000 breeder cows across 12 different stations. I've raised approximately 80 poddy calves. I've chained srcub with a D9. I've kept a 700km square property ticking over. I've fought dozens of fires. And I learnt early on that there is a million different ways to skin a cat and that no one skins a cat the same way. There's not one part of me that ever regrets coming up here and hardly coming home. I've done it all and had a ball.
I've met some fantastic people along the way. I've met some I'd rather forget. But there are two people that stand out above the rest. I met them in Rio's, now known as Club 23 (at least I haven't been around long enough to have known it as Wings) and they have been there for through thick and thin ever since. When I saw them I thought "These are my type of people". I bet when they saw me they thought "What's this drunken, college tart up to?" But never-the-less, they tolerated my annoying presence.
Two years passed and we had lost touch. Till one (yet another) night on the turps at Daly Waters. I was greeted immediately by warm hugs and big smiles from Shorty and Stace.
Ever since they have been there in my life. Shorty providing me with a roof over my head and food in my belly whenever I have needed it and she's never been afraid of giving me a kick up the arse when I needed it either. And Stace is the best mate by my side here in the NT. Alcohol fuelled nights and lunches wherein I miss my plane and not to mention the countless rodeos.
So I raise my glass of my now non-alcoholic beverage to two special people: To Shorty and Stace. The Cowgirls Mama and the Rodeo Queen. Love yas!

Once a Jolly Swagwoman

My earlier blogs being longer and less refined, some parts of which may not be remembered by readers means I will quickly relate an excerpt from "Tigger the Reluctant Townie - The Last Supper (and the First Siren)".
I was in Darwin about a year ago visiting my best friend since infancy as it was to be her last weekend in the NT for some time. She said she had a bed available for me to sleep in at her apartment but I didn't want her to go to any trouble and told her I'll just roll my swag on the floor somewhere. Upon unclipping the swag straps it was discovered that my bed roll had been harbouring a plague of crickets which were now jumping about my friends 3rd floor apartment. The swag was banished to the balcony for the night and I belatedly accepted the offer of the spare bed... after squishing all the crickets.
The New Year rolls around and here we are in 2013.
Before the Christmas break I moved all my stuff in to my future residence and went on my merry way back to my mothers. Upon returning I found my swag, which I ever so intelligently left outside for the duration of four weeks, to be a little wet. I shrugged my shoulders, willed myself to get over it, the swag has seen worse days and besides, I have a proper bed to sleep in now.
I had spent the entirety of the previous year since leaving Providence Station in May living out of my swag. It was my bed every night with only a few random exceptions. And because almost every night was spent sleeping in it, it only got cleaned on occassion (gross I know). The first time it got cleaned was out of necessity for hygiene, the second was thanks to an infestation of fleas caused by Lacey running around underneath the floorboards of my accommodation. Little troublemaker she is!
But with a big weekend approaching it has dawned on me "I need to clean my swag" so I dragged its flooded weight under the lean-to in the hopes this will help it drain. Then came the scary bit... I unclipped it. And along with the usual crickets that seem to attracted to my bed there was mould. And lots of it. White mould, green mould, black mould. All growing from their little spores, drinking from the damp patches. I can't believe I let myself be so careless!
My workmate just laughed at the sight as I put blanket after blanket in the washing machine, carrying each like it was a petri dish of active gangrene bacteria. I guerneyed the canvas and hung it to dry over the rails of the cattle yards. The mattress got a few squirts of floor cleaner, a dumping of rain and a good hose down and left to dry in the shed on a stack of pallets.
Once all was relatively clean again I rolled it all up and threw it in the back of the ute and headed on up to Darwin. As the evening wore on and I was offered a sleep on the futon for the night I gladly accepted. After all, despite my efforts, my swag still smells of mould!