FIREWOOD.
As told by Moonman, (Man in the Moon).
This is a tale of when I was a young fellow employed as a "tailer" behind a bullock team.
It was a time when freight was transported by horse or bullock teams.
My job was to handle the replacement stock, take care of any lame or injured animals and set up the camp for the night. This included gathering firewood for the cook’s campfire.
On this particular day, as feed was getting short on the stock-route I had let the stock run free, intending to gather them up towards nightfall.
In the meantime, I decided I had better get in a store of firewood, as there was little available in the area of the country we were now entering.
Harnessing the horse to the wagonette, I set out to gather firewood. In the summertime, although the days were very hot, the nights became very chilly. We needed the wood not only for the cook to make the meals on, but also for warmth.
This day it was very hot! Temperature was around 45 degrees Centigrade (113Fahrenheit) in the water bottle.
This sort of weather the goannas become active, so I decided to take my 12 gauge shot gun with me.
One load was ready to take back to the camp, when I saw this big goanna hounding the stock.
Taking aim with the shotgun I fired.
Wellll……….. The darn goanna took off like a "Bondi" tram. It shot into a hollow log but the goanna was so big the log split into firewood.
Moonman shakes his head. The darn goanna was not hurt a bit, neither the shotgun nor the log hurt it even one little bit.
It had just received a fright. But believe me, it charged into that hollow log with such force that the log shattered to smithereens. I was able to gather the debris of the split log and we had three months supply of firewood.
Gospel, it’s true. J
NOTE: Prof had better explain some of the words used.
Freight: In the early days freight was carted by horse or bullock teams. Horse teams in harness varied from 4,8 or even 16 horses. Bullock teams were frequently bigger as the bullocks were not as strong as the horses. Their advantage was that they would hang on when horses gave up when the going was tough. J Fans of horses might wish to debate this but Prof saw both horses and bullocks working hauling timber and saw the bullocks working where horses were no good.
Bondi tram: This was when trams were pulled by cable in Sydney and were notorious for taking off when the brakes failed or when a cable snapped. They took off at uncontrollable speed.
Gospel: A reference to swearing on the Bible that what you were saying was true. I would not like to say Moonman was a liar but he often mishandled the truth considerably:)
Wagonette: The wagons that hauled the freight were very high-wheeled flat top wagons. The wheels could be approximately 5-6 feet high. The loads of wool or wheat would be stacked correspondingly high, making the loads very high.
I am cannot be sure what was the weight of the loads but believe they were around 10-20ton, including the weight of the wagons.
A wagonette was a small trailer, sometimes used to carry supplies, injured animals, etc.
Depending on its size it would be pulled by one or two horses
Some wagonettes were covered in and were used by the drover to camp in when the weather was bad.
Temperature reference: When there was no shade the temperature was often referred to as what it was in the water bag or bottle. Also used as an indication that it was very hot indeed. J
Tailer: Pretty self-explanatory; known as a stockman, wrangler and under other names in different countries.
Station: Stations, also known as ranches, sections, quarter sections, selections, leaseholds, etc. This is in a country where a station property may be measured in square miles.
Worldwide Copyright John W. 1998,2001
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