The Art of Being A McCartney

A Day In The Life

Life flourishes day in and day out. Sunshine or rain, drought or flood. One animal or plant enjoying what another doesn't.

Kangaroos push out young faster when the season isn't the best and crocodiles will move upstream, or down, when the river floods or recedes to get the best food source. Life adapts to its surroundings and seasons, listening with an innate sense us humans can only dream of having.

I love animals. I've birthed calves and foals and watched chicks struggling to escape eggs. Even witnessed emu chicks with long necks and legs popping from the odd avocado green egg or two.

Had a kangaroo joey as a pet once. Somehow saved a dingo pup from turbulent floodwater, tamed him and made it daddy's best working dog. I've seen cockatoo young squawking for their mummas high up in the hollow branches of gum trees. The hollows perfect for nests. Once, I shimmied up then back down the trunk of the shorter gum with one too.

I've feed, twice daily, dozens of poddy calves, all sucking on teats attached to big Darwin stubby bottles full of milk..

I fuss like a mother-hen over my two precious horses, even though daddy said they were working horses and shouldn't have coats nor braided manes...

He relented on this point thankfully. Horses were my sunrise and sunset. He didn't begrudge me the time, and oft I would have him show up at the bare bones stable I fashioned myself to settle on a bale of hay and sit and watch quietly. Watching as I practiced braiding a mane, or tail, or both. We would ride together, for miles. Chatting as we ambled and letting the horses have their heads to nip grass underfoot as we meandered along swollen creek banks or pushed upwards to take in the view from the highest ridge.

Animals are easy. What you see is what you get. But men....I've seen men at their finest; and at their very worst.

The finest, respect me, even if it's only a slight nod with knowing deference, after I have been right up alongside them at the business end of bone draining farm-work; When they acknowledge that I didn't whine while completing full day rides, for weeks on end, to find, flush out and muster a thousand head of cattle.

The finest, when they listen and undertake this girl's orders when it's only me there to give them, or when they get back to the job at hand after I've slung cutting barbs at them on their lazy days; On days after maybe a night of heavy drinking, to get tardy bums moving.

The worst...The worst of them would surreptitiously loosen saddle girths or slap my horse on the rump with a whip thin stick while I was rolling along on a loose rein and rolling a sneaky durry. Run me off into scrubby trees or push their horse against mine, edging us to closer to the river bank and possibility of a drop to the flow below. All the while they would swear strips to anyone that listened about a reed thin girl bossing them around.

Daddy couldn't be there all the time, all the miles, all the places. It was impossible. He was within miles of course, just not there in those moments.

Those bastards didn't last long, sent packing firstly by me. Then they would approach my father for a second chance. Thinking he would see sense... See that a girl wasn't worthy of being a cattleman. He sent them packing too.

Daddy, or Dad when I worked alongside him in the yards, warned the seasonal stockman if he wasn't about, I was boss. I was a good boss, told so by old drovers and young bucks alike. I was in a man's world and worked as hard as they all did and most acted accordingly.

Another inevitable is death. On the land, with harsh conditions, breeding and using livestock always has its losses. Shooting a horse that has broken a leg or having to cull an animal for a meal, it isn't nice but it is what it is.