[ SHORT STORIES ] - farm - philosophy -

1.Thinking
2.Another Weird Month "In the Pocket"
3.Idleness
4.Dogism
5.Stories from the Great War
6.Snakes
7.Death of Nell, Part Human Dog

1. Thinking

What a great and mysterious process! Planet earth, once a barren rock, eventually delivered humans by the not understood means of evolution, and since then, we humans have then added civilisation. All of our efforts have come about by thinking and the resultant thoughts. When the torch light of the human mind is directed to a problem, marvelous solutions have appeared. Jumbo jets fly reliably and passengers don't even consider or even have the thought of the technical problems that have had to have been overcome for 500 tons to fly 400 passengers at 600 miles per hour from one side of the planet to another in 20 hours and in safety. The internet looks so natural but the coming together of so many areas of human thinking to direct a controlled stream of electrons by binary mathematics to me and my computer screen is incomprehensible! Individuals have spent their whole lives just working on one problem and when a solution is reached, the general public buys it, uses the consequences and takes the benefits, and forgets the effort which has gone into it. Thinking is applied in technology and good thoughts can eventually be proven over the bad ones because they work. Thinking is also personal and we apply it in our ordinary lives but I argue that the process is still equally powerful. We live on the cutting edge of time. Our lives are not static and decisions must be made from one moment to the next. An issue arises, we think about it and come to a conclusion. Unfortunately not all of us look at the situation dispassionately and clearly. Too often many of us just follow the established and inert pattern of hackneyed phrases, clichés and platitudes. Perhaps we could look at scientists and musicians because these people have proven good and inspirational ideas to see how and where their ideas came about.I suppose that I have two general ways to the reservoir of ideas. One can come anywhere, anytime, while doing anything and a so called good idea will come into my head. The other is upon waking and a good idea is just there waiting. These good ideas are exceedingly precious because one good idea can inspire and dominate us for the rest of the day, the week or the rest of our lives. Receiving ideas seems a passive thing. The subject matter or situation is know, the question is posed and we just wait for the new idea to land from where we do not know. That subconscious space is like a void behind a door left open. I never feel responsible for an idea, I didn't put it there, it just arrived, but I am responsible for what I do with the idea. One thought can motivate us into action and its consequent results. Some time we have a problem and no thought seems to come for a solution. Day after day the problem grows and so does the tension and stress. It is commonly argued that this tension is a bad thing but I would argue that it is necessary. The tension I hope is like a pressure cooker and the resultant reluctant thought will be eventually born. Other times we have the thoughts but due to inertia we don't act upon them. Sometimes we are literally terrified to break the patterns of our normal and becoming redundant self. These can be taboo and dangerous thoughts we dare not even mention. This inaction leads to I believe depression. We have the thoughts but fail to act on them. If we have a certified good idea in our head, it is demanded we must act upon it. If it is a bad idea, it will eventually be forgotten, and die. A good idea demands at least the first step be taken and this will lead to its sequence of another idea or more action. If a problem occurs the solution may seem impossibly far away but all that is needed is the immediate first step and the consequences need not yet be know but will eventually follow. Maybe the lesson is just general life experience which leads to a greater knowledge of life. Evolution occurs for species and life also seems to be a learning experience as we evolve from one idea to the next. How else can we resolve the sometime difficult problem of telling the difference between a good idea and a bad idea as initially they may look the same but by the experience of life. Another general rule is that when in doubt, do nothing. Time will define more clearly the problem and the needed solution becomes clearer. If thoughts are so powerful, maybe they can even transform our ordinary lives. A place need always left open in our mind for the arrival of thoughts. Maybe if noted closely and acted upon with propinquity, that is at the right time and place, they are serendipitous, that is that no matter what, good fortune will always follow. The sun is always shining, the traffic lights are always green, we meet the stranger and receive the message and the inexorable flow of time continues on with us welcoming each moment. Evolution continues to what we hope is the eventual redemption of this beautiful blue green planet and we play our little part in the whole scheme of things and it all progresses smoothly. We can only hope! Oh blessed reverie!

2. Another Weird Month "In the Pocket".

Reality seems to give me a hard time and this last month has been even more unusual than most. A whole fish appeared on my back deck. I know that this must have been accidentally dropped by a bird but it is a most unusual thing to happen. It was only small about 4 inches in length and would have come from a nearby creek. Just a few days after this, just behind the house, I discovered a ghastly inverted echidna. I saw on the ground this flesh red ball like thing. Upon looking closer, I find that it is an echidna that has just the previous night been caught and eaten by a dingo. It must have grabbed its nose and then started eating it from there. Some how the natural tensions of an echidna makes it invert as its insides are eaten out and what I found was the flesh coloured inner skin on the outside and all the spikes pointing inwards. Its in my shed if anyone is interested. A few days later I'm in Gympie and I have a moment to spare before the opening of the post office. I notice a car with the number 999 and I casually remember the fundamentalist Christian who was in my staff room when I was a teacher. He had purchased a new car and it had the number plate number of 999. I asked him what did he think of that? He said that he didn't mind because if ever his car was inverted and the number becomes 666, the sign of the beast, it would have been the work of the devil and to be expected. I went to the post office and returned to the library car park and as I was driving out, I noticed the car in front of me with the number 666 and I think that that is a bit unusual, when I then noticed the car beside it with the number 666 as well, I start to wonder what is going on. I then drive to a friend's place just out of town and I happen to notice a just a very few number plates of only a very few cars, but what goes past but the number 222. Yes I was very careful with my work when I got there. A lady visits me and we go to my shrine where she gives a little talk on spontaneous free speech and its challenges. During her stay, a sign is carved and hung which says "Reality Ends; Normality Begins". The day after her departure, a radio dramatisation starts written by Gertrude Stein, a famous jewish lesbian, [same orientation as my visitor], written in the spontaneous style of the free flow of thoughts and its quirky story line. My visitor spends a night sleeping in the lounge but the next night returns to her bed room complaining that the ticking of the clock is annoying and makes sleep difficult. The very afternoon of her departure in the morning, I return home and while winding the spring of this faithful and reliable century old family clock, the spring breaks and the clock is now very silent. A week of storms commences. One storm has the rare event of hail only, and no rain, while the sun is still shining. A hail only sun shower I suppose. Another storm makes the electricity go off at 7pm after only about 6 hours of electricity supply from the previous blackout. It is 3pm the next afternoon when another storm is threatening and it looks as if there will be no return of electricity until at least tomorrow. I then telephone a friend who is coming for dinner and ask him to purchase a bag of ice to keep the fridge cold for another night. The storm comes and it is severe with huge hail stones. One I measure with my vernier calipers to be over 4 inches in diameter. What an experience it was being on the verandah while these huge blocks of ice come blasting out of the sky. The noise of the crashing on the verandah roof was deafening. My visitor tells me that it is the loudest noise she has ever heard. It is terrifying to think of being caught outside while these missiles are being fired. They crash into the concrete driveway skirt and bounce away or imbed themselves into the soft ground of the lawn. Luckliy it doesn't last long and the onslaught is over. We go out side and collect a bucket full of ice and put it in the fridge. I then ring my friend again and say, don't bother purchasing the ice, as it has already been delivered and is now in the fridge. Yes there are a few dents around the place and even a broken pane of glass. The new verandah roof has 5 distinct dents, but luckily no broken glass or damage to the cars and thankfully my satellite dish still works. The electricity was off for about 40 hours. The longest loss of electricity I've experienced here until it returned slowly. At first there was just an intermittent red glow in the light bulbs but slowly the glow increases to clear incandescence, the fridge starts to work and we are back to "normal"? We'll just have to wait and see. Post Script. I may be weird, or pathetic and some things are best not spoken but I have to admit that on the day that I completed this little story, we were invited, even almost insisted upon to visit some lesbian friends in the evening. Only one car went past and I couldn't help but notice as I waited for it to pass over the one lane bridge infront of me that it had the number 999.

3.Idleness

spring 2004. I own a farm where I have the occasional visitor who does some work in return for keep. The interesting thing here is that I grow trees and have been doing so for the last 30 years. Many years ago this originally rainforest site was cleared for agriculture but now it has provided me with an open field so to speak to plant my trees and to restore the landscape. Although there is plenty of work in planting and maintaining the trees, the real issue is the time delay between the planting and a theoretical eventual financial return on all the work sometime into the indefinite future. The real challenge is psychological and the pay off is in a philosophical outlook. Tree planting is a deeply reflective undertaking because the action of planting something has such a delay before growing to beautify and heal the landscape, produce a product which is both beautiful and ecologically correct and best of all, eventually to supply me with an income that I can even feel comfortable about. I live in the humid tropics; well almost anyway, where for much of the year it is hot and humid. Work as normally understood is not always possible due to the oppressive conditions. The midday heat fills the normal person with a torpor, and a sense of powerlessness and apathy. Everything slows down and it is important to go with the heat and to use it as the means to become languid. To struggle against it is dangerous as one can develop a heat induced madness called tropo. I recommend to live with the heat and to even enjoy the debilitation and enforced idleness and reflection the midday heat decrees. To relax and allow my metabolism to slow right down due to the heat and to give my mind free reign and to doze I find most worthwhile. To theorise on the purpose of life and the beauty and vigor of the tropical world allows me to pass into that blissful hypnogogic state and all under the knowledge of my beautiful trees growing every moment a little bit more to my, and everyone else's benefit every second of the day and night while I'm just lying here taking it all in. Zealots are always trying to drive us from our complacency by the allure of consumerism, the tenet that more is better than less and by the spurious moral argument against laziness. In my uninsulated tin roofed timber house where as hot as it gets outside is as hot as it gets inside, I will not be getting airconditioning. In summer, heat reigns supreme and where ever that takes me in my daily midday snooze, I greatly enjoy it and am even sustained by these heat induced reveries. Surely life is about joy and the creation of our own little paradise. I'm not against work but it just has to be seen in its correct perspective. One good thought can motivate a whole lifetime and an inspiration can save eons of mindless work. When working, I suggest to always maintain your poise. Try to work as slowly as possible so that there is always a little space in your mind for the inspirational idea to land which can arrive at any time, place and circumstance. If you wish to sit and think, do so, it may be more important than the action. Pleasure is here and now in every moment and we are in no rush to go off to pursue an elusive pleasure elsewhere. Roll on summer, I hold no fear for your impending oppressive heat! I like to give my visitors the opportunity to enjoy what I call the beauty of rustic australiana and to become introspective, thoughtful, and philosophical. Maybe they can even think about their own life's direction in a relaxed and unpressured environment. For those who want to leave the civilised world behind, I even have a cave in the rainforest that has occasionally been used by those wanting to at least try the life of an ascetic. I also have a small self contained hut on the edge of the rainforest at the end of a short walking track. A reasonably civilised converted dairy [grannie flat] behind the house and a spare room in the house. I'm located in south east Queensland

4. Dogism

Dogism is the study of the psychology of dogs and then relating it to the human situation. It assumes that there isn't too much difference between the nature of dogs and humans.

The greatness of the dog is that it has the ability to recognize in humans something that is greater than itself. Some how the dog acknowledges this difference by worshipping its master, those that treat it well.

Dogs have made a study of humans and know well much of their behavior particularly where the dog has an interest. It knows that food is found in the fridge and that the car is for driving in to have fun. I believe that a dog could be taught to drive a car. The controls would be attached to its nose, leaning forwards is to go faster, and to pull back is to go slower and to stop. Left and right turns are obvious. Unfortunately though, the dog could never be taught how to fix the car. It would be just too difficult, and well beyond their limit of understanding. As humans we can experience something similar. With our healthy mind, we can sometimes look at our bodies and be struck by its beauty and complexity and our total inability to repair it whether it is broken down by injury, or old age has made in decrepit.

Now if a dog could write a treatise on what it is like to be a human, a dog could write an interesting story but I believe that it would be basically in great error. It wouldn't mention things such as money and going to work every day, and it would not understand why we don't sit down and eat all the contents of the fridge straight away and why we don't have parties all day every day. The point I wish to make is that a dog, a member of the third kingdom and humans most devoted follower, would just produce a load of junk when writing about us, members of the forth kingdom. The analogy that I draw is that us humans often write treatises on the next kingdom above us, the fifth. I suspect that mostly what is written is just a heap of junk and also basically misses the point. I use the dog/human relationship to give us just a hint as to what the next kingdom may be like. The word I like best is labyrinth but I could also add complicated and paradoxical. How I use this kind of thinking is looking at how us humans as members of the forth kingdom, treat members of the third. We have dominion over them and so can take their lives if we have a so called good reason, such as they are needed for eating or if they are a nuisance. We cannot needlessly cause them harm by being cruel and so there is an organisation called the RSPCA (royal society for the protection of animals) to protect them. Two kingdoms below us, and we can do what ever we like. There is no organisation called the RSPCP (plants instead of animals). We just cannot conceive of it.

I'm sure the same rules apply to us. The next kingdom above can do what they like to us humans provided they obey certain rules. These rules we vaguely know of as The Laws of Karma, but we don't really understand them at all. I continue the analogy to two kingdoms above us, the way I put it is that they can do what ever they like to us, they don't even need to "fill out the forms". If we treat members of the third kingdom badly, particularly dogs, how then can we complain about the cruelty that Fate sometimes deals out to us? If we treat them well, then we at least can claim that we also deserve to be treated likewise. It seems a good safe life policy to treat all beings with maximum kindness, and hopefully Fate will look kindly to us as well.

A dog's devotion is a wonderful thing but do we really want it. My dog is devoted to me but more importantly I try and teach her to be a "good" and clever dog, to be a almost as clever as me, a human. Likewise, when humans meet a representative from upstairs, what is the first thing that they do? They devote themselves to this person. What a dumb thing to do. They should learn to be as clever as the one they acknowledge as greater than themselves. Therefore one of life's requirements is to always be as clever as possible in all situations.

Other applications for dogism.

Another application of dogism, is as proof of character. If I ever meet someone and I wish to prove that I'm of good character, I just bring my dog with me. Humans are notoriously deceptive and so when you meet some one, you just never know whether they are of good character or not. Humans can always pretend for a short time to be nice and it is difficult to tell this falsehood from the reality. If you have you dog with you, the stranger can see very quickly what the dog's character is because humans have the ability to read easily a dog's character just as they can read ours. A dog is not deceptive because what you see is what you get. If the dog looks nice, then it is most likely that it has come this way because it has been well treated by its master who as a consequence is also very likely to be nice. This is a general rule but it is no guarantee because humans can also be twisted and treat dogs nicely but not other humans but that wouldcertainly be the exception. I would still use this knowledge as a guide to someone's character.

Humans are extremely arrogant. Perhaps the worst example that I know of is by a scientist, perhaps the most arrogant group of all, who has written a book called the "Mind of God" That title seems to discuss things way beyond our level of comprehension.

5.Stories from the Great War

I’ve had the chance to speak to three old soldiers from this terrible war. Perhaps the one who told me most was my grandfather in law. He twice drove up from Sydney to visit us when I was married and on the last occasion to see our newly born baby daughter Emily. He drove a battered Morris Marina and said on arrival that, “the motor in it was identical to the one in a Gypsy Moth”[1.]

He said that he hadn’t taken the war seriously until he was marching up to the front for the first time and passing a cemetery with all the white crosses. He then realised it was a serious business. He said that he was very lucky to have survived. Once in a trench and sheltering under a sheet of galvanized iron, a shell landed beside him but didn’t explode because of all the mud. If it had gone off, it would have been the end of him. Another time, he was just so tired and exhausted, he just falls asleep and upon waking finds himself sleeping on three dead bodies. He was a gunner and in 1917 while involved in the terrible battle of Passchendaele. Along Menin Road, one of his mates was injured out in no man’s land. He goes out to rescue him and carries him back to a casualty station where they observe blood running down his leg. Upon inspection, it is revealed that he has been shot in the lower leg. The bullet passing between his calf muscle and the bone. He then goes off injured. To quote his exact words, “the atmosphere was so thick, I just didn’t feel a thing.” The next day, all his gun crew is blown up.

While recently reading the autobiography of Queensland’s second last survivor of the war, I’ve forgotten his name and the title of the book, I read a passage where he at the same time and place as the above mentioned incident, recalls an injured soldier staggering past his communication station with a hole in his leg but still able to walk. This must have been my grandfather in law as it would have been a most unusual injury.

He told me that he was involved in an incident that became a controversy. Late in the war, he is in the trenches when the Red Baron flies over his section of the line in his red Focker triplane in hot pursuit of another plane with another british plane behind. He grabs a lewis machine gun and fires at him as he races over head. The Red Baron then crashes or lands within 100 yards of where he is. Apparently a book was written entitled something like, “Who Shot Down the Red Baron?”. Ron Brooks, my grandfather in law said that the author interviewed him about the incident and that he is mentioned in the text. I haven’t looked it up to see what it says. Recently I saw a british documentary on the tv about this incident that contained some re enactments. In this they interviewed several Australian soldiers who were holding a lewis gun and they gave their account of the events in a comic and broad Australian accent. I imagined that they were playing the part of Ron Brooks, gunner.

In about1984, my parents took my daughter Emily to Sydney. While there, I wanted her to meet her great grandfather but I was told that it wouldn’t be possible. On the first night of her being in Sydney, he died.

I met on a few occasions, Jack Burrows an old friend of the family. As it turned out, he enlisted about the same time as my grandfather, they sailed together on the same ship arriving in Egypt as reinforcements for the Gallipoli campaign and camped at Helipolis at the foot of the pyramids. Both went on to France in 1916 for the Battle of the Somme. My grandfather at Poziers and Jack at Frommers. Both very severe battles with many Australian losses where both were promoted to officers in the infantry. For my grandfather, officers training school was at Oxford University which must have been quite a change from the family blacksmith shop in Rosewood which was where my grandfather commenced his working life. Both married english girls from London and both returned to Australia just a few days before 1920 on the same ship which is where they meet. Both worked for the PMG and lived in adjoining suburbs in Brisbane. Jack lived a healthy life until he was over 100 years old and most of that time in the same house. He didn’t speak much of his experiences but he did say that in 1918 during the great German offensive, they were marched in to hold the line. The British army was in retreat and in chaos. Some soldiers just kept on running while others when given a rifle, did make a stand. This is where I was told that he won the Military Cross[2], and the line was held. He said that at the end of the war that he was, “totally wrecked” [mentally and physically]. He said that on the morning of the Armistice, their line was being shelled right up to the last minute and people were still being killed.

When my grand mother was dying in hospital in 1985, there was a wreck of a lady in the bed beside her. She had completely lost her mind and was totally incoherent. I was told that her husband had died on the morning of the 11th November 1918. What a horror it must have been to hear of the signing of the Armistice here in Australia and the joy it must have given to think that peace has now returned and then to learn a few days later that your husband was one of the very last to have lost his life on that very morning.

My grandfather probably had the most difficult war of all if that can be imagined. His battalion had the second highest number of casualities of the Australians. Something like three thousand or was it five thousand in a full strength of a thousand. Sometimes their numbers fell to as low as 300 but they still had to fill the line as if they were of full strength. He died when I was quite young and I didn’t really get to speak to him about it. I did ask him a few childish questions and he did answer them but I was told very firmly by my mother that “the war must never be discussed”. I did pick up a few things along the way though. When my grandfather had a headache, I was told that was because he still had some shrapnel stuck in his head. Obviously not true but it all added to the unspoken family myth. I have a copy of his medical history. He was injured at Bapaume, a few days after returning to the front as an officer. A bullet graze to the face and an injury to his elbow. My grandmother was psychologically unstable and the families main role was to keep this under control as much as possible. She did have a older brother who also served. I was told that he was injured twice. On one occasion, while lying on a stretcher and waiting to be loaded on to a ship to be returned to England, his father comes across him while working on the docks. He recovers, survives the war, comes to Australia in 1926 with another brother, works at Cooran grubbing out stumps and while here spends a night in the KinKin pub [the closest hotel to where I have lived for the last 30 years], returns, moves to Paris until September 1939 [I even have two post cards],

again returns to London and purchases an antique shop and during the next war, sells an engagement ring to my father who at the time is serving in the airforce. The ring was destined for my mother in Brisbane. Their family’s London home was bombed by what I was told was a “direct hit” and totally destroyed in the blitz of 1940.

Never to mention the war was almost normal at the time but I have picked up a few bits of information along the way. A book was written about his battalion by one of the officers. It is full of platitudes and jingoism but there is mentioned one act of kindness that my grandfather was responsible for. It involved sending up to the front line some dry socks that the soldiers appreciated in those difficult and muddy circumstances. On returning to Brisbane, they live at Wellington Point near his parents. He travelled by train to the city for work. He becomes a vegetarian but buys a house closer to the city at Greenslopes because I’m told “he can’t stand the smell of the abattoir the train goes past”. He had two aunts, one was a spiritualist and the other a theosophist. I conjecture that they spoke to him before and after the war. He also joined the Theosophical Society and this is probably the basis of my out look on life as well. Their outlook is similar to new age ideas which in fact have been with us for a long time. Their former house is just behind the house of my parents and perhaps that is one of the reasons he moved to this suburb.

I still own a few remnants from the war. His three volume paybook, book two still covered in the now dried mud from Passchendaele and a few photos and some postcards. Some of these have been donated to the war memorial. One of the post cards was of interest to them because it was written in french since apparently he made an effort to learn the language. I also have my grandfather in law gunner’s stirrups and riding crop.

When my grandfather left school at 12 years, he worked at his uncle’s and grandfather’s blacksmith shop at Rosewood. When he enlisted, he put down as his trades as blacksmithing and engineering. By 1915 he was a qualified engineer with the PMG. Underneath his house at Greenslopes, I collected a rare tool called a debarking bar. You can see by looking at it that it has been hand made in a forge. It is used as one would expect for the debarking of logs in the timber business. I grow trees on my farm here in Cedar Pocket and this tool is most useful for me. Whenever I use it, I can’t help but wonder about how and why it was made and as well, all those other untold stories and incidents, many of which though were probably even beyond the finding of words to describe.

[1.] The Gypsy Moth plane was a sequel to the more famous Tiger Moth biplane of the 1920’s and 30’s.

[2.] I think that this is another myth. I think that my mother told me that he won this medal but I now believe that he was only mentioned in dispatches.

6.Snakes

I’ve been bitten. My wife was bitten in my presence. A workmate I was working with was bitten. The previous owner of my farm, eldest son was bitten and died. I’ve seen a cow die from snake bite in only twenty minutes. The result of the autopsy from the death of a neighbour’s horse was snake bite. To watch tv in the neighbour’s house, the noise of all the snakes slithering in the ceiling is a distraction. The last time I walked the walking track circuit here I saw 4 snakes and also on the previous walk. I’ve stepped on snakes with bare feet, I had them slither over my foot, I’ve picked them up by mistake and I’ve had them fall on my head. I’ve even swum into one while swimming. I’ve seen one strike the window in the kitchen and the venom has run down the full length of the pane of glass and I’ve seen my dog almost bitten, but not quite. A kid in my class at school had seen so many of his dogs die from snake bite that he believed that a dog always gave 3 kicks before finally dying. While driving along one day in the rain and eating a meat pie with my left hand and steering with my right and I peering through the windscreen wipers backwards and forwards motion, I saw a snake appear from the car’s grill and climb onto the bonnet of the car. It took me a moment to recognize this strange apparition as it was swaying in the wind and rain and for me to recognize what it for what it was. It then lost its “grip” and flashed past my driver’s window.

I have the occasional visitor from an organisation called Willing Workers On Organic Farms where visitors do some work in return for keep. They sometimes ask about snakes and if I tell them some of my stories, they wonder if they will last the distance. I say that if I have done so, so far, they shouldn’t have any trouble. What I’ve said is all true but it isn’t really as bad as it may seem, but then again I haven’t told all my stories either. The visitor who found a snake in her bed I’ll keep to myself though!

7.Death of Nell, Part Human Dog

Nell was a dog of mine who has just recently died. It was Friday the 4th May, 2001. I had just picked up a visitor, Cornelia from Gympie and later in the morning we went for a walk up to the cave. Nell and the two other dogs [Elkins and Zest, two city dogs belonging to my daughter Emily who are having a country holiday with me], came all the way to the cave. This was a bit unusual for Nell who for the last few months had only been walking to the steep rock just past the big tree and waiting there for my return, but this time she probably came a different way because since Geli's father [a friend of mine who lives just down the road, has an 87 year old father] wants to walk to the cave, I've made the track a bit easier by having a new deviation bypassing the big rock and Nell must have noticed it as she followed slowly behind. She stayed at the cave as we walked on to the lookout. On returning to the creek, I noticed how slow she was and so I carried her back some of the way. We then walked back to the house and Nell followed along slowly behind. That night she ate dinner normally but on Thursday she was in a bad way. In fact one time during the day, as I walked past her and gave her an affectionate pat, she didn't immediately respond and it took quite a few moments to wake her from her deep sleep. On Thursday I had to take some photos for a talk I have to give on Friday week, in Gympie to a group called The International Wood Collectors Society and it will take 3-5 working days to develop the slides so it will be a bit of a rush to have it done on time. By Thursday afternoon I decided that because she was in such a bad way that I'd have to take her in to Gympie on Friday when I have to deliver the films for developing and Cornelia has also decided that she would like to depart as well. Thursday evening, I carried her up stairs to sleep on the verandah. That night for reasons I don’t understand, she twice takes herself downstairs and I have to carry her upstairs each time. Unfortunately on Friday morning a school rang and I had to go to school (only the second time this year) and the plan was to come home, collect Nell and take her to the vet. The vet I’m sure would certainly have said that there is nothing to be done and all he could do would be to put her down. I wouldn't have done it as she didn't appear to be in any pain but just with a poor ability to move herself. I probably would have left it a few days until it appeared necessary.

Driving home along Deserio Road , Nell's collar falls mysteriously [Just at this moment I have to have to interrupt the main story. Nell has died now almost three and a half years ago and I’m at last rewriting this little essay. Kay arrives now and at this very point, I put down my pencil and she tells me that their dog Gyzmo has just died from snake bite and would I please come over and help with his burial. Naturally I agree to do so. He was last seen asleep under his favourite shrub beside the house. Tens minutes later, he is discovered dead having rolled out from below the bush. Kay did hear a few whimpers but didn’t investigate. Now at this moment, Gyzmo is dead, at nine years, and now with Nell in dog heaven. Dogs give their lives so willingly to save their masters and mistresses lives. How tragically weird, that Gyzmo should die at this very moment. Nell and Gyzmo were not really good friends but were never the less very familiar with each others lives. Now back to the main story,] drops out from the bench below the glove box on the car’s dashboard and I notice that the odometer is reading an ominous 170707. I arrived home about 3.30 and she was already dead on the verandah where I had left her just outside the kitchen door. I sat beside her for a while thinking what I would do and the faithful and beautiful dog’s life that she had lead . Kay arrived about an hour later and I told her what had happened. A whole rainbow appeared over the eastern sky and even a second rainbow could just be seen above it. I went and dug her grave. It is just above the dam and on the southern side below the maple. I came back and told Geli who is having a Buddhist retreat this weekend. She said to leave Nell’s burial until the morning and I did so. At about 7pm the power goes off and doesn't come back on. At 4am, a electricity truck turns around at the house and 10 minutes later, it returns. This time I talk to the linesman about where the fault could be that they cannot find. It is strange going out and seeing Nell lying there. She looks alive but is quite dead. As soon as it is light I take her in the wheel barrow and bury her. It is the time to do it. I decide that in the next few days or perhaps after winter, I'll plant a maple there with a little fence around it to protect it from the cows and hopefully it will do well. Elkins decides not to attend the funeral and Zest, has an attack of screwlooseness at the last minute and runs into the bush chasing phantoms. I lay her on her back facing upwards and looking like a baby human before covering her and saying my final farewell. A few hours later and the electricity eventually comes on.

On Saturday morning I decide I will go and plant a tree above her. I have a smallish Queensland Maple and hopefully it will survive the winter and the risk of frost. I plant the tree and build a cow proof fence around the grave for protection from cows.

Sunday morning is clear and I decide to remove Nell's name tag from her collar and to place it on a picket at her grave. The morning is clear and sunny and as I walk to the grave it becomes cloudy. While there some cows come to visit, is it our of respect, but Zest doesn't think so and tries to bite one on the nose. The clouds blow up, there is thunder and in a moment it is raining. I walk back to the house in the rain. The passing of a great dog and the elements acknowledge her achievement and we hope the passing from one kingdom to the next. May I list some of her achievements? Singing to a hall full of people at a concert where a patron describes her performance as being the best act of the show. Singing on the radio and being recorded and her performance being repeated several times. Being photographed in colour on several occasions for the local newspaper although being tragically a black and white dog. Appearing three times in a nation wide magazine in colour and even a colour photo on the internet yet all this fame was handled with modesty and humility. She was obedient, intelligent, courageous, and with a warm disposition and great understanding of words and yet all this with only half of her brain. The other half of her brain was occupied with only one thought and that was to bite cows. Nell was an Australian cattle dog. What dogs they are, devoted, intelligent, obedient and loving. We deeply regret her passing at 14 years.

Nell and Gyzmo weren’t really great friends. Nell was a rugged dog designed for the rough and tumble of brawling with cattle. Gyzmo was frightened of cattle and always ran away from with them with them usually chasing him. Gyzmo was tall and lightly built and could run fast. Nell’s attitude to Gyzmo the younger dog was, “spare the bite and spoil the dog”, while Gyzmo thought that Nell was, “just a bad tempered old bitch”.

Contact: Bob Whitworth
ADD: 100 Deserio Rd, Cedar Pocket QLD Australia, 4570.
PH: 07 54866147
E-mail: forest@spiderweb.com.au