Chris Ferguson: A Day in the Country Each month we hear from a different rural writer.
SEEING RAIN WATER TRICKLE INTO THE ARID LANDSCAPE AROUND HER, CHRIS FERGUSON SENSES HAPPY DAYS AHEAD.
WE CAN’T WIPE the grins off our faces — my partner, the Ginja Ninja, and I — as we load some of our cattle onto a truck that’s returning to our station at Yantabulla in north-western NSW. After more than 500 days of handfeeding, we are all on a first-name basis so perhaps the spring the cattle have in their step this morning is because they’re infected with our excited mood, but I like to think that they know they’re going home.
Rain that fell in south-western Queensland months ago has made its slow, winding way more than 700 kilometres down the Warrego River into Cuttaburra Creek and inundated the GN’S property between Bourke, NSW, and Hungerford, Queensland. It’s something to see, that warm, muddy water flowing gently through dusty grey channels in an arid landscape, leaving a trail of green in its wake. Like magic.
When there’s rain in the Warrego River catchment we watch the Bureau of Meteorology’s river-heights bulletin like teenagers with a new Facebook account. The sheer wonder of the situation isn’t lost on us; we are on our farm near Grenfell in central NSW, watching the path of rain that fell over 1000 kilometres away, hoping that it will make it to our place. While there are indicators to give us an idea of how much water is coming, differing conditions mean that no two floods are the same. This time, the channels and waterholes were dry. There were gaping cracks to fill before the water could find us.
Hope is a difficult emotion to manage and my optimistic self can take a battering at times. I have to work at focusing on the day-to-day and not think too far ahead. I tell myself not to make plans and then lie awake at night doing just that. My neighbour and I message back and forth in the weeks following the Queensland rain; we’re hopeful, sick of the dry and worn out to hell and back. We’re trying not to get our hopes up. The tone of our messages changes, though, when she sends me aerial photographs of the water arriving at Yantabulla; happy days, will send cows and then we can have a day off, it’s been an endurance test, and how lucky are we!
After all these years, I’m still surprised by the difference that rain makes. In the dry, inland soil of the Yantabulla basin, water is where the accumulation of life begins. As the grey clay becomes saturated, seeds that have lay dormant for years turn the landscape green in little more than the blink of an eye. Brittle lignum bushes that stand taller than me and appear dead suddenly sprout leaves and then flower. The mosquitoes and flies arrive, followed by flocks of birds that swoop the air, feeding on them like shoals of sardines. Water birds grace the lakes and channels and, if you listen carefully, brolgas can be heard honking in the distance.
Being a grazier in flood-out country means working with nature. There is no ploughing or planting or altering the environment to suit our needs. After a flood we wait for the vegetation to come to life before we bring the cattle.
By late in the afternoon the truck is close to Yantabulla and the driver can’t help but laugh when, in his side mirrors, he sees the reflection of cows with their noses lifted to sniff the air. Don’t we all recognise the scent of home? Chris Ferguson is a grazier and shares her experience of life in the outback at @lifeinthemulga on Instagram.