VAL AND THE CHOOK MAN

VAL AND THE CHOOK MAN

Val was a big, brown Koori man.  His mother, Auntie Ev, was an Elder of the Paakindji (pronounced Barkinjee) Peoples and keeper of Traditional Knowledge. Val knew a lot about the way of the bush, the six seasons of the Aboriginal people, the fourteen different names for kangaroos, how read the weather, hunt and the stories of the Dreaming.  Val worked in a big office in Bourke and he had a “boss”.  He didn’t call her anything except “Boss”.  Sometimes he would walk into her office and say, “Boss, you got an hour or two, we need to check the river”.  And the Boss knew that Val had something important to tell her and perhaps she would be back very late because the district was as big as France and the rivers, the Darling and Paroo were two hundred kilometres apart although there were other small rivers and creeks such as the Warrego, Cuttaburra and the Barwon in between.  So the Boss said “Okay Val, have you got the Esky?  I’ll pick up a few chops and meet you out the back in ten minutes”.  Then the Boss did some shopping, some meat and bread and a pack of water bottles.  She knew after her first trip with Val that this was the proper thing to do.  Always in the Esky there were clean knives and forks, plates, salt and tomato sauce, matches and a few other essential things for a picnic.  The first time she had gone out with Val to “look at the river” he complained a little bit, “Boss, where’s the salt, where’s the tomato sauce?”  Sometimes the Boss thought Val had tomato sauce with steak underneath.  But she didn’t mind, every time she went out to “look at the river” she learned something new and important.

This time they travelled north to Enngonia near the Queensland border and then east into the spinnafex country.  Once Val slowed his car and turned around quickly.  He stopped the car and in the soft red sand there were small prints coming out of a dune and crossing the road.  Val saw everything even when driving fast.  “Bettong” said the Boss on queue.  “You’re learning Boss”, said Val “but a bit far from a waterhole”.  Then they went on to a station called “Ellerslie”.  They called into the homestead and Nancy came out to meet them.  “Give us a hand to bring in the ration sheep and then we talk” Nancy said abruptly.  She sent the Boss to bring up the stragglers from behind the small mob of sheep.  Val opened the gates.  When the ration sheep were in their new paddock Nancy said to the Boss, “You make a good sheep dog”.  The Boss smiled, that was a compliment indeed.  When they were all sitting in the shade of the verandah sipping hot, black tea Nancy said, “About this ‘Cap and Pipe the Bore’ business, we don’t hold with that.  Look at all the birds and bush animals that use the water.  Our bore drain has been running for a hundred years and now they want to close it”.  Nancy was not very happy with the government’s new reforms.  She thought politicians were mostly not very intelligent people which was why they were politicians, “Couldn’t hold down a proper job” muttered Nancy.  Nancy had a lot of opinions and somehow she was related to Val. She worked Ellerslie with her husband Mal who called her “Mate” and her son.  “Well, better come up to the spa and have a look”, she said.  So Nancy in her utility, Val and the Boss in his “red baron” (Val was the only person who didn’t drive a white government car) drove along some bush tracks to where an old artesian bore had been made.  Nancy and Mal had made a small concrete swimming pool where the water flowed out from the ground and called it their “spar”. The artesian water was hot.  The Boss walked around a bit and then asked Val to bring the equipment.  When Nancy saw they were going to be busy she said “Okay, I can pick you up on the road in two hours”.  But it was more than two hours before they reached the road.  At first every five metres, then ten meters Val and the Boss measured the water temperature, the pH, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, bicarbonate, sulphate, chlorine and nitrate and wrote everything down in the Boss’s field book.  As the artesian water became cooler at 70 meters they began to see small animals in the water. As they went further there were more animals of different species were seen and under different trees the species changed again.  Val brought the video camera from his car and started photographing the different animals along the bore drain.  Val and the Boss walked the 12 kms to the road where Nancy was parked under a tree waiting.  “Gives you something to think about, doesn’t it”, she said and then added a few more rude words about politicians.  Nancy drove Val back to the spa to pick up the red baron and the Boss continued along the bore drain.  When Val caught up with her they crossed from the soft red country onto a large clay pan and immediately all the animals changed again.  At the end of the bore drain there was a ground tank for stock.  Nancy followed them in her ute and they were all tired at the end as the sun set.   On the way back Val made a camp fire by the light of his car headlights and they ate their barbeque “lunch”.  It was almost midnight when the Boss reached home.

 

“What do you think, Boss?” Val asked the next day.  “Still thinking” replied the Boss “I’ve been reading some of the scientific reports about the salt impacts caused by the bore drains and if they are capped and piped graziers will have better control over total grazing pressure”.  “Humph” said Val.  “Nancy has a good point, Val,” the Boss said “but I can’t see how we can fight people who don’t understand the land.  I have work on it”.

Later that week an invitation came for the Boss to attend a Rangeland Conference at the University of Queensland’s Gatton Campus.  So the Boss went north without Val and found the conference very interesting.  She also talked a lot to Dr. Amanda who needed student research projects because this is the best way to teach environmental science.  The Boss told her about the bore drain biodiversity and suggested that she could provide accommodation, subsistence and travel for a student who would study the bore drains in the soft red country, the hard red landscape and the grey river land country.  So they agreed, Dr. Amanda would send a student at the beginning of the next semester and the Boss would take care of the living costs and Val would introduce the student to as many bore drains possible.

 And this is why the Chook Man came to Bourke.  He had an ordinary name like Wayne or Barry but no-one has remembered it.  When Val met the Chook Man he was a bit surprised, “Welcome to Back o’Bourke, what do you do?” Val asked.  “Breed chooks, I like chooks” replied the Chook Man and that’s how he got his name.  Before he went to university the Chook Man was a chicken farmer near the north coast and was a Poultry Judge at shows.

The Boss had a big house with four bedrooms, one for Aunty Ev who stayed when she came to visit Val (who lived at the other end of the street with his wife and daughter, but Aunty Ev said their house was too noisy), one for the Boss, a work room and a student room where Peta, niece of the Boss, slept during school holidays and that became the Chook Man’s room. It had a computer, small television, bed, cupboards and a large, comfortable chair and a lot of fabric frogs that the Boss put away for safe keeping. Peta liked frogs a lot.   Val was a bit worried and said “Boss, is this man sane, I mean safe, he is really odd”.  The Boss thought for a little while and then suggested to Val “Perhaps Aunty Ev might like to visit for a week or two”.  And that’s exactly what happened.  As soon as Aunty Ev arrived the Chook Man decided he needed to go home for the weekend.  When he came back two weekends later he brought a large egg incubator with him and some rare eggs and set up a hatchery in the store room next to the laundry.

 So this became the routine, the Boss would go to work after giving Aunty Ev breakfast in bed and before the Chook Man woke up. Val spent time looking at the Land System maps and marked bore drains, the Chook Man turned his eggs twice a day and played computer games.  The Boss was not happy.

Val decided the Chook Man needed to do some work the hard way.  He took all the plates, cutlery and condiments out of the picnic Esky.  He put in twenty big cans of baked beans but he didn’t tell the Boss. Then he told the Boss he had best take the Chook Man out west to Tibbaborough to check on a hard red drain.  The Boss made a data sheet with Val’s help for observation and recording and then explained everything the Chook Man need to do.  All he said was, “Could you please turn the eggs twice a day?”.  He had to borrow the Boss’s swag as he didn’t have a sleeping bag.  “Be back in a few days Boss” said Val with a wink.  After three days the Boss drove out to the first ridge past the Darling flood plain to make a vehicle to vehicle call to Val so that she knew everything was alright.  Val was not happy about this, “No worries Boss, I haven’t put him to sleep yet.  He might learn something”.

Ten days later Val brought the Chook Man back.  He hadn’t had a shower and Val had hunted all their food bush style so there was only one can of baked beans left.  But ten bore drains had been recorded.  The Boss was a little bit angry but understood.  “He learnt to open gates, Boss, but not much else I’m afraid”, said Val.  The Chook Man spent two hours in the bathroom then the Boss took him out to dinner at the Chinese restaurant. The next day he went home for a rest.

The Boss wrote to ask Dr. Amanda why the Chook Man had chosen to come for the bore drain study and they were both very puzzled.  After a long time the Chook Man came back.  In the meantime some beautiful, fluffy, fat white chickens had hatched because the Boss turned them twice a day as instructed.  For a while they lived in a cardboard box with a feather duster for them to hide in, then Val built a chicken run behind the Boss’s garage for them.

Dr. Amanda would not allow the Chook Man to graduate because the Bore Drain Report had not been written so he had to come back.  Val gave all the data sheets to the Boss and she sat with the Chook Man explaining how to put the data into a spreadsheet for analysis. Val was watching but the Boss didn’t know until he came into her office. “I’ll do it Boss, just to get rid of him, he can do his report and go back to the coast”.  The Chook Man wrote his report on the computer in his room.  Sometimes he went down to the office to check a map.  Mostly he seemed very busy writing.  Eventually, he gave the Boss ten type written pages, one for each day he was away with Val.  The Boss looked a bit puzzled as she walked into her room, but after she had carefully closed the door she laughed, and laughed.  This is the first day of the Chook Man’s Bore Drain Biodiversity Report.

Day One: Left Bourke at 5.40 with V.C. Crawford driving.  At Enngonia we left the bitumen and took a dirt road towards Weilmoringle. Stopped abruptly on a sand hill.  Val rushed off into the scrub and came back with a large lizard that he put into the tray back.  “Breakfast”, he said and drove on a bit more.  Just after 8am we stopped by a creek.  Val started a fire and put the billy on.  It was quite a nice place until Val put the lizard on the fire.  The smell was awful.  “Good bush tucker” said Val, “want a bit?”.  “Ah, no thanks Val” I said.  “Couple of cans of baked beans in the Esky” said Val  “could you fill up the billy from the water hole when you finish?”  I said “Okay”.  I took the billy down the bank and filled it up.  When Val had finished most of his lizard he put the fire out with water from the billy.  We drove for about two more hours and then turned north.  The track became very stony.  “Wangamurri country” said Val.  I didn’t understand what he was talking about.  Just before midday we stopped at a gate in a tall fence.  Val told me to open it.  It was a bit stiff.  There were three more gates until Val stopped. “Currawinya” said Val.  “National Park now, on the edge of the Basin, here the mound springs come up naturally.  This is where the critters lived until the bore drains were built and the natural waters dried up”.  Val walked across a clay pan to a row of small hills with grass around them.  There were a few pools of water.  Val took some photographs but didn’t say anything else.  When we got back to his truck he said we should make Budgerigar by sundown.  We did, Val parked under a tree and took the letter about the bore drain survey from the Catchment Manager up to the house.  The dogs were barking and soon there was dust coming up another track.

The man looked hard at the emblem on Val’s truck and then at Val. “G’day”, he said “Thought you might be Parkies.  Any problems?”. “No,” said Val, “but you might want to have a look at this from the Boss”.  “Come up onto the verandah” the manager said. “Who’s that?”, he asked.  “Student from Gatton, came out to work on the bore drain project”, answered Val.  At lest he didn’t call me the Chook Man, I thought.  Val and the man talked a while and then looked at some maps.  Then Val came back.  “Lambing in the main bore paddock”, Val said “but we can do the small one over towards Thurloo.  We set off into the sunset on a very rough track beside a fence.  Once Val stopped suddenly again and got out to look at something on the ground.  “Pigs”, he said when he got back in.  “A big mob moving fast, might be a dingo loose”.  I wasn’t all that keen on camping with Val, pigs or dingoes.  Just after 7pm we reached a windmill with a big pool around it and a bore drain going away across the paddock.  “We’ll camp up there said Val, “can you bring some wood and I’ll find something to eat”.  Probably a wild pig, I thought as I looked for some sticks for the camp fire.  It wasn’t too bad that night, I had more baked beans and I didn’t want to know what Val was cooking on a green stick, at lest it wasn’t lizard.  I slept in the tray back of Val’s ute.  Val said as I was getting into the swag, “Is that the Boss’s?, Better make sure the kangaroo fleas don’t eat you”.  I think I was too tired to care.

Day Two: When I woke Valhad disappeared, the billy had tea in it and the camp fire was burning.  I opened another can of baked beans and drank the tea.  It was already getting hot so I was standing under a tree when Val came back.  He didn’t have anything with him so I asked what he had been doing.  “Having a wash up in the sand dune”, he said.  I must have looked a bit surprised that there was water out there.  “Blackfellows bath”, Val told me, “a good rub with the sand”.  I thought he was mad.  Val then started to bring the equipment from the truck.  “Come on” Val called out, “give me a hand here”.  So I went to help Val.  He asked me to unwind the 100 metre tape measure and put a stick in the ground by the bore drain every ten metres.  While I was doing that he said I was to look out for any tracks by the bore drain.  I found some about 50m from the bore head. “Sheep, goat, pig or roo?” Val asked.  I didn’t know the difference, so I told him.  Val looked at me but didn’t say anything except, “Okay, just don’t stand on them”.  I was actually so I moved away.  By the time I had rolled out the tape and put the sticks in Val was taking water samples and had started testing them.  He handed me a board with the forms clipped to it.  Date, time, place, property owner, property manager, paddock name, bore drain condition …

After the Boss stopped laughing she went to Val’s office.  “Val you villain, I think we need to take a look at the river”.  Val and the Boss sat looking at the Bourke weir which was reduced to a large puddle by the drought.  “Well I’ve got the data and I can run it through a couple of different analysis”, said Val.  “If you can get him to sign off on his journal we can put it as an appendix and send a real report in.  Anything to get him off our hands as soon as possible”.  “Did you really tell him he was wearing out my swag, Val?”, asked the Boss.  “Probably”, replied Val.  “Think I might have said quite a number of things Boss but mostly they were true”.

So the Chook Man departed and everything in the big office settled back to normal until one Friday night when Val dropped by the Boss’ house.  “Can I borrow your chickens for a couple of days?” Val asked.  “But you don’t eat white meat Val”, said the Boss surprised. “Well, I’m not exactly going to eat them” said Val.  So the fluffy white chickens were put into a large cage and went on a long journey to the Dubbo Show where they all won prizes.  Val brought them back safely to their chicken run and gave the Boss their ribbons. “I was thinking Boss that the Chook Man didn’t know anything about the bush, but he might have known about chickens”.  And they both laughed.

Endnote.  Although the work that Val did on recording the biodiversity of the bore drains received some recognition, most were capped and piped under the government scheme. Only the MacCarthy Bore Drain at Ellerslie can still be seen on a Google Map.