Former home - Yarra {Reg's home 6th grade - high school}About two thirds on the way through sixth grade my family moved again. This time it was to an 800-acre sheep farm near a small hamlet called Yarra which was about 8 miles west of the city of Goulburn. Since I hadn’t completed sixth grade I was not admitted to the Goulburn high school and had to repeat sixth grade at the little one teacher one room school house in Yarra.
Yarra
The school teacher, Mr. Ted Rilay, had to teach a variety of kids ranging from Kindergarten to eighth grade. Ages went from 5 to 16. The most difficult time of all was trying to arrange sporting events. Games like Red Rover, Two Steps, and a form of dodgeball, were very popular with everyone. However, it was difficult for six year olds to compete against a six foot tall sixteen year old, the oldest eighth grader at the school.
Most of my teenage years and most of my teenage experiences took place in the next five years while living in this sheep farm. The house itself was rough built with a corrugated iron roof. There was no power, no water, no telephone, and of course no plumbing. The toilet was what Australians call “a dunny” consisting of a pit dug in the backyard somewhere. The only water we had was from runoff from the roof into 500-gallon tanks located diagonally on opposite sides of the house. The house had barandas on 3 sides which were overgrown with Wisteria. Consequently the gutters were always filled with wisteria debris such as leaves and twigs. If I was home or if we heard about the approach of a storm in some way, one of my tasks was to climb up on the roof and clear all the debris out of the gutters so the water would run cleanly into the tanks and not back up and overflow into the yard. This was a criminal waste because during the summer when there was virtually no rain, we at times completely ran out of water in the tanks. About a quarter of a mile away there was a creek with two deep water holes. During times of scarce water all of us kids had to trek down to these water holes with four-gallon kerosene tins with the tops cut off and rough wire handles looped across the top, fill them with water from the creek, and trek them back up the hill to the house. Some of this water was immediately boiled and then was used for everything from making tea to boiling vegetables and washing dishes. Very occasionally we would fill all kerosene buckets and bring up enough water for some of it to be dipped into the bathtub. Since we had no running water there was of course no showers or even taps or faucets in the house. The procedure was that the first couple of cans of water heated on open fireplace were tipped into the bath and the first family member (usually my mother) got in to take their bath. In succession each of us would take turns, usually involving carrying a bucket of steaming hot water in to refresh the existing bath water hoping there was still __________ clean enough at least to get a thorough wash.
Since we had no power we had no formal means of communication. Eventually my father bought a battery-powered radio. The battery in this case was a car battery. It would power the radio for about a week and then one of my brothers and I would have to carry the battery a mile across the fields to a local train station. We would send it by train into the city were it would be recharged. While it was recharging a second battery would be put on the next train and that was to pass ____________ and we would then pick that one up and haul it back across the fields to home. These treks sometimes got quite interesting. There was a clump of pine trees in the middle of the largest _____________ in which magpies nested. During nesting season they are ferocious protectors of their nesting area and dive bomb cattle sheep and particularly humans. They would seem to come out of nowhere with their beaks stabbing at your head. We quickly learned to wear caps to stop our skulls from being drilled by magpies flying at 30 mph and dive bombing us.
The water tanks were getting pretty old by the time we moved to the house. The Little Dutch Boy had nothing on me. While he stuck his finger in a Holland dyke and prevented the entire countryside from being flooded, I stuck small sticks wrapped in cloth into small holes that appeared on the side of the tank and leaked away the precious water that would have been our life saver during the hot summer months.
It was at Yarra that I had about 90% of my experiences with poisonous snakes. It all started the day we arrived. We were unloading baggage and furniture and getting it into the house through a small front garden. On the left hand side there was an old tennis court, mostly gone to seed and covered with weeds. A half decayed black wattle tree sat at one end of the court. Along with our personal belongings we had got our cat, a black and white Tom. After being released of the confined quarters of his carrying cage, Tom sped around the yard with delight. We observed that he went under the tennis court and began a little dance in the weeds near the wattle tree. It appeared as if he was after a butterfly, for he danced on his back legs and slapped with his fore at something that _______ in front of him. I went down to check it out and was scared s@$%less to see a giant (6-foot plus) brown snake darting its fanged head at Tom who was _________ just out of reach. I screamed to dad who had luckily by this time untapped his shotgun. He rushed under the court, saw the snake, threw a stone at Tom to scare him away, and shot the snake blowing out ______ with _______ # 6 shotgun shells. But that was only the first one. We’ll come to the others as my experiences at Yarra continue. Dad hunted around the vicinity of the house to see if there were other snakes but couldn’t find any so we resumed moving in. The house had been empty for some time and we were a little surprised that we didn’t find snakes in the house itself, seeking a cooler environment away from the hot sun. The house was built on stilts – about 4 foot high on the downhill side were laid the tennis court, about 8 inches high on the uphill side towards the orchard. Although the area from ground to baranda had been originally encased in fibro board (that is asbestos sheeting) to prevent snakes and other undesirables from getting under the house, the sheeting had been broken in several places. The cool under the house proved to be tempting for the chickens we later raised. They laid their eggs by the dozens in nests under the house and although we were urged to do so, none of us kids would crawl under the house to fetch out the eggs. It turned out just as well for both carpet snakes and brown snakes actually lived under the house and feasted on the eggs. It would have been a nasty surprise to come across one or more of these while trying to crawl on one’s belly to a restricted crawl area.
The house itself had an open baranda on three sides. An attempt was made to close in the baranda on the western side – the uphill side of the house. During the summer it was a lot cooler to sleep on the baranda than it was in the bedrooms and good use was made of the enclosed baranda space. Leading off from this enclosed base was the laundry room. A room about 20’ by 20’ with a wood burning stove on which sat a ________ for boiling clothes and washtubs to one side. The room was also used to store firewood during the winter – at least during the first winter. In the second year we were there we cleaned out all the old firewood for it turned out to be a great hiding place for __________ poisonous spiders and snakes. Nevertheless my older brother John civilized the laundry by constructing a small desk out of an orange crate and using that as his work area for completing the school assignments and studying for the Leaving Certificate Exam. Another _______ from the laundry led directly into his bedroom and one had to pass through this 10 by 12 space to get to the bathroom. The bathroom had a cement floor which was wonderfully cool in summer and which I’ll come back to later on. A galvanized iron bathtub rested on 4 ________ legs and was the only concession to bathing in this room. ______________ the far side of the bathroom into the backyard and to access one of the water tanks which provided most of the water for bathing. As one entered the front of the house one entered the largest open area, again about 20’ by 15’ which served as a dining room and family room. A large stone fireplace was the main source of heat for the entire house. The fireplace was wood burning, that meant a significant amount of time each afternoon spent splitting logs for firewood and kindling. It was a chore that we all participated in at various times. All the bedrooms led off this central family area on one side of the house from the other a door led to the kitchen. This was a large cast iron stove and oven, again wood burning, set on a small cemented area. There was room for some shelves and a kitchen table, where often we sat in the evening learning to play cards – mainly poker and euchre. The master bedroom where my parents slept faced under the front of the house. A second large bedroom ___________ to that along one side of the house. It had an exit door under the baranda and we fit a double bed and a single bed in that room. The double bed was shared by my two youngest brothers while I had the luxury of a single bed. Another small bedroom lay between our room and the bathroom, again about 10’ by 12’, and this was my sister’s bedroom. Throughout the house the floor covering was linoleum and furniture was minimal.
Supplies were either sent out on a regular basis by train and off-loaded at the local railway station or preciously carried by my mother as she took the train to town, in the morning, shopped, and carried packages home in the afternoon. The most difficult task was preserving food. Fresh meat was kept in a meat safe hanging in the outdoor baranda. This was a square metal box about 30” by 30” by 30” and with tiny perforated holes so that the breeze could blow through so the meat would not spoil from excessive heat. We had no refrigerator. In the second year my father bought an ice box. It seems a little strange that it was a wonderful addition to the house. However it meant that every day after school two of us had to go to the railway station to meet the afternoon train and pick up a double block of ice wrapped in wet sacks and carry it a mile or so across the fields to the homestead. We were rewarded with chips of ice to suck once we got home that of course on the trip across we always lifted one corner of the wet sacking and licked and sucked the exposed corner of the ice blocks. In our fourth year a major change occurred. Dad got rid of the ice box and put a kerosene refrigerator. This meant that now instead of carrying blocks of ice home from the railway station we carried 4-gallon drums of kerosene. Like all those early refrigerators there was a very small area for freezing ice cubes and a tray. One of our greatest joys was to come home and find that our mother had taken the ice cube tray and put in it a solution of orange or lime jello powder and water, sticking little toothpicks into each of the cubes on the tray. That meant when we got home we could actually break out the “ice block” flavored deliciously and scrumptiously cold. They were probably appreciated much more than the chips of ice formerly that was the reward for carrying ice from the railway station but it also meant we could dispense with the meat safe because the refrigerator was able to keep all sorts of products safe and cool.
We had two dairy cows and daily my sister’s main chore was to milk them in the morning and in the evening. During the early times when we had no means for preserving the milk, we drank as much of it as we could before it started to curdle and had to be thrown out. Our mother would also make custard virtually every day and no matter what we had for dessert – fruit pie or jello or bread pudding it was always with custard. About 25 yards to the west of our house there was a small building made of limestone which had in former days served as a storage and cooler bin for dairy products.
The school teacher, Mr. Ted Rilay, had to teach a variety of kids ranging from Kindergarten to eighth grade. Ages went from 5 to 16. The most difficult time of all was trying to arrange sporting events. Games like Red Rover, Two Steps, and a form of dodgeball, were very popular with everyone. However, it was difficult for six year olds to compete against a six foot tall sixteen year old, the oldest eighth grader at the school.
Most of my teenage years and most of my teenage experiences took place in the next five years while living in this sheep farm. The house itself was rough built with a corrugated iron roof. There was no power, no water, no telephone, and of course no plumbing. The toilet was what Australians call “a dunny” consisting of a pit dug in the backyard somewhere. The only water we had was from runoff from the roof into 500-gallon tanks located diagonally on opposite sides of the house. The house had barandas on 3 sides which were overgrown with Wisteria. Consequently the gutters were always filled with wisteria debris such as leaves and twigs. If I was home or if we heard about the approach of a storm in some way, one of my tasks was to climb up on the roof and clear all the debris out of the gutters so the water would run cleanly into the tanks and not back up and overflow into the yard. This was a criminal waste because during the summer when there was virtually no rain, we at times completely ran out of water in the tanks. About a quarter of a mile away there was a creek with two deep water holes. During times of scarce water all of us kids had to trek down to these water holes with four-gallon kerosene tins with the tops cut off and rough wire handles looped across the top, fill them with water from the creek, and trek them back up the hill to the house. Some of this water was immediately boiled and then was used for everything from making tea to boiling vegetables and washing dishes. Very occasionally we would fill all kerosene buckets and bring up enough water for some of it to be dipped into the bathtub. Since we had no running water there was of course no showers or even taps or faucets in the house. The procedure was that the first couple of cans of water heated on open fireplace were tipped into the bath and the first family member (usually my mother) got in to take their bath. In succession each of us would take turns, usually involving carrying a bucket of steaming hot water in to refresh the existing bath water hoping there was still __________ clean enough at least to get a thorough wash.
Since we had no power we had no formal means of communication. Eventually my father bought a battery-powered radio. The battery in this case was a car battery. It would power the radio for about a week and then one of my brothers and I would have to carry the battery a mile across the fields to a local train station. We would send it by train into the city were it would be recharged. While it was recharging a second battery would be put on the next train and that was to pass ____________ and we would then pick that one up and haul it back across the fields to home. These treks sometimes got quite interesting. There was a clump of pine trees in the middle of the largest _____________ in which magpies nested. During nesting season they are ferocious protectors of their nesting area and dive bomb cattle sheep and particularly humans. They would seem to come out of nowhere with their beaks stabbing at your head. We quickly learned to wear caps to stop our skulls from being drilled by magpies flying at 30 mph and dive bombing us.
The water tanks were getting pretty old by the time we moved to the house. The Little Dutch Boy had nothing on me. While he stuck his finger in a Holland dyke and prevented the entire countryside from being flooded, I stuck small sticks wrapped in cloth into small holes that appeared on the side of the tank and leaked away the precious water that would have been our life saver during the hot summer months.
It was at Yarra that I had about 90% of my experiences with poisonous snakes. It all started the day we arrived. We were unloading baggage and furniture and getting it into the house through a small front garden. On the left hand side there was an old tennis court, mostly gone to seed and covered with weeds. A half decayed black wattle tree sat at one end of the court. Along with our personal belongings we had got our cat, a black and white Tom. After being released of the confined quarters of his carrying cage, Tom sped around the yard with delight. We observed that he went under the tennis court and began a little dance in the weeds near the wattle tree. It appeared as if he was after a butterfly, for he danced on his back legs and slapped with his fore at something that _______ in front of him. I went down to check it out and was scared s@$%less to see a giant (6-foot plus) brown snake darting its fanged head at Tom who was _________ just out of reach. I screamed to dad who had luckily by this time untapped his shotgun. He rushed under the court, saw the snake, threw a stone at Tom to scare him away, and shot the snake blowing out ______ with _______ # 6 shotgun shells. But that was only the first one. We’ll come to the others as my experiences at Yarra continue. Dad hunted around the vicinity of the house to see if there were other snakes but couldn’t find any so we resumed moving in. The house had been empty for some time and we were a little surprised that we didn’t find snakes in the house itself, seeking a cooler environment away from the hot sun. The house was built on stilts – about 4 foot high on the downhill side were laid the tennis court, about 8 inches high on the uphill side towards the orchard. Although the area from ground to baranda had been originally encased in fibro board (that is asbestos sheeting) to prevent snakes and other undesirables from getting under the house, the sheeting had been broken in several places. The cool under the house proved to be tempting for the chickens we later raised. They laid their eggs by the dozens in nests under the house and although we were urged to do so, none of us kids would crawl under the house to fetch out the eggs. It turned out just as well for both carpet snakes and brown snakes actually lived under the house and feasted on the eggs. It would have been a nasty surprise to come across one or more of these while trying to crawl on one’s belly to a restricted crawl area.
The house itself had an open baranda on three sides. An attempt was made to close in the baranda on the western side – the uphill side of the house. During the summer it was a lot cooler to sleep on the baranda than it was in the bedrooms and good use was made of the enclosed baranda space. Leading off from this enclosed base was the laundry room. A room about 20’ by 20’ with a wood burning stove on which sat a ________ for boiling clothes and washtubs to one side. The room was also used to store firewood during the winter – at least during the first winter. In the second year we were there we cleaned out all the old firewood for it turned out to be a great hiding place for __________ poisonous spiders and snakes. Nevertheless my older brother John civilized the laundry by constructing a small desk out of an orange crate and using that as his work area for completing the school assignments and studying for the Leaving Certificate Exam. Another _______ from the laundry led directly into his bedroom and one had to pass through this 10 by 12 space to get to the bathroom. The bathroom had a cement floor which was wonderfully cool in summer and which I’ll come back to later on. A galvanized iron bathtub rested on 4 ________ legs and was the only concession to bathing in this room. ______________ the far side of the bathroom into the backyard and to access one of the water tanks which provided most of the water for bathing. As one entered the front of the house one entered the largest open area, again about 20’ by 15’ which served as a dining room and family room. A large stone fireplace was the main source of heat for the entire house. The fireplace was wood burning, that meant a significant amount of time each afternoon spent splitting logs for firewood and kindling. It was a chore that we all participated in at various times. All the bedrooms led off this central family area on one side of the house from the other a door led to the kitchen. This was a large cast iron stove and oven, again wood burning, set on a small cemented area. There was room for some shelves and a kitchen table, where often we sat in the evening learning to play cards – mainly poker and euchre. The master bedroom where my parents slept faced under the front of the house. A second large bedroom ___________ to that along one side of the house. It had an exit door under the baranda and we fit a double bed and a single bed in that room. The double bed was shared by my two youngest brothers while I had the luxury of a single bed. Another small bedroom lay between our room and the bathroom, again about 10’ by 12’, and this was my sister’s bedroom. Throughout the house the floor covering was linoleum and furniture was minimal.
Supplies were either sent out on a regular basis by train and off-loaded at the local railway station or preciously carried by my mother as she took the train to town, in the morning, shopped, and carried packages home in the afternoon. The most difficult task was preserving food. Fresh meat was kept in a meat safe hanging in the outdoor baranda. This was a square metal box about 30” by 30” by 30” and with tiny perforated holes so that the breeze could blow through so the meat would not spoil from excessive heat. We had no refrigerator. In the second year my father bought an ice box. It seems a little strange that it was a wonderful addition to the house. However it meant that every day after school two of us had to go to the railway station to meet the afternoon train and pick up a double block of ice wrapped in wet sacks and carry it a mile or so across the fields to the homestead. We were rewarded with chips of ice to suck once we got home that of course on the trip across we always lifted one corner of the wet sacking and licked and sucked the exposed corner of the ice blocks. In our fourth year a major change occurred. Dad got rid of the ice box and put a kerosene refrigerator. This meant that now instead of carrying blocks of ice home from the railway station we carried 4-gallon drums of kerosene. Like all those early refrigerators there was a very small area for freezing ice cubes and a tray. One of our greatest joys was to come home and find that our mother had taken the ice cube tray and put in it a solution of orange or lime jello powder and water, sticking little toothpicks into each of the cubes on the tray. That meant when we got home we could actually break out the “ice block” flavored deliciously and scrumptiously cold. They were probably appreciated much more than the chips of ice formerly that was the reward for carrying ice from the railway station but it also meant we could dispense with the meat safe because the refrigerator was able to keep all sorts of products safe and cool.
We had two dairy cows and daily my sister’s main chore was to milk them in the morning and in the evening. During the early times when we had no means for preserving the milk, we drank as much of it as we could before it started to curdle and had to be thrown out. Our mother would also make custard virtually every day and no matter what we had for dessert – fruit pie or jello or bread pudding it was always with custard. About 25 yards to the west of our house there was a small building made of limestone which had in former days served as a storage and cooler bin for dairy products.
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