A DROUGHT PANTRY FILLED WITH LOVE!
Farmers Rob and Jess couldn’t feed their kids if it wasn’t for an incredible grassroots project saving families in the Aussie bush
Jess Taylor was already battle-weary from the endless fight against the worst drought in history when she asked her son Harry what he wanted for his sixth birthday last year.
Then her heart broke when he replied, “Just some rain, Mum.”
The Taylors – Jess, 37, and husband Rob, 36, together with their four children under eight
– along with thousands of other farmers received a tiny bit of prayed-for rain last week.
But it won’t end the drought or put food on the tables of an endless list of farmers who are doing it tougher and tougher by the day as the drought takes a stranglehold across large parts of NSW and Queensland.
The Taylors’ 600-hectare farm, at Bugaldie in north-western
NSW, had not seen any good rain ain since 2016.
Harry’s heartbreaking plea last year was one of the catalysts for the highly successful Baradine Drought Aid Pantry, which was set up after a generous citizen heard of the boy’s call and took it upon themselves to drive from the coast with some essentials.
MUCH-NEEDED LIFELINE
“He just packed up a trailer and drove out here asking where we were,’’ says Jess. “It was quite extraordinary.’’
From there blossomed a concerted effort from the Baradine branch of the Country Women’s Association (CWA), and the drought kitchen now supports more than 450 people from 140 families.
It’s had more than 3000 individual visits and counting, including the Taylors, who are down to 60
breeding cows and 500 ewes from their once-thriving stock of 200 cows and 2000 sheep.
And with Rob’s only other source of income, shearing, also collapsing because there are no sheep to shear, the Taylors’ table would be bare most days.
“The drought pantry has been vital for us,’’ says Jess. “With less than $500 a fortnight, how do you feed everyone? But we always make sure we only take what is essential – there are people worse-off than us who need it more.’’
Her comments are a constant in an ever-changing landscape. The bush spirit has not been killed off, but it’s struggling with the load. And everyone is thinking of those less fortunate.
Also struggling is the Baradine drought pantry. Even the best intentions are only as good as the support, and the pantry has again run low as stocks dwindle and the pressure on families only seems to increase.
Baradine CWA vice-president and drought pantry coordinator Nea Worrell says the pantry formally kicked off last July when a good Samaritan arrived with 10 boxes of goodies for families.
The CWA set about distributing the items and realised they had a bigger job when word got out. They now have 22 local CWA members and 28 volunteers to hold the fort every day.
And it’s not just what’s on the shelves that’s important.
“I “It’s ’ amazing how many people walk in here, don’t say a word and just dissolve in front you of,” explains Baradine CWA president Irene Worrell.
“We give them a cuddle, a cup of tea and lend an ear, and many times they walk out with a smile on their face. They’re trying to be strong.
They are strong. But i it’s ’ a heavy load.”
Nea and husband Gordon, 77, together with their three sons Adrian, Gary and Warwick, have been working the land for decades, and have never seen a drought like it.
“We have been through drought before but never anything hi like this,’’ she says. “It’s now just dust. Never seen the dust storms like it either. People are weary. They are still battling but they are weary.’’
ON THE FRONTLINE
The CWA ladies and volunteers know just how tough it is on the drought frontline, and they do welfare checks on their registered families if they haven’t heard from them for a while.
And they have a range of services they can offer anyone who walks in and needs it, including forms for government grants of up to $3000 per family and referrals for mental health issues.
They have even shown some of the single men on the land how to cook properly.
“We found out all these men were working from 7am to 7pm and going home and eating Weet-bix,’’ says Nea. “Well, we just couldn’t have that. You can’t have Weet-bix for tea every night after doing 12 hours. It is not sustainable. You will keel over. You can see they have a bit more of a spring in their step.’’
Irene adds, “We know the men find it hard to let down, but they are still coming by for a cup of tea with the ladies and a chat.
It is very important.’’
It’s also not just the farmers who are doing it tough, because when those on the land are short of a dollar they can’t spend it in town, and that means those communities are facing a bleak future.
It’s why the Barradine drought pantry uses all their cash donations to create vouchers for local stores, so shopkeepers can also get by.
“We want Baradine to still be here when the rain finally comes,’’ says Irene.
“We don’t want all the shops to be closed. It’s a responsibility for all of
us to make sure they’re getting by as well. So we try not to take any customers from them, and the vouchers allow people to go into those businesses and buy the things they need.
“It is essential in making sure we all survive this.’’
To make a donation to help our struggling farmers feed their families with food, stock feed and financial assistance packages, please donate to the CWA in your state to your state or visit cwaofnsw.org.au, cwaofvic.org.au, qcwa.org.au and sacwa.org.au for more details.
‘You can’t have Weet-bix for tea every night after doing 12 hours’
Watching her gorgeous three-year-old daughters Alexis and Layla skipping around the backyard giggling away, mumof-four Michelle Peacock still shakes her head in absolute awe.
“At one stage I thought I may never meet them,” the 42-yearold shares with Woman’s Day.
“I knew there was a risk I could die giving birth to them, which was so frightening.”
Michelle’s chilling premonition almost came true after she needed
14 litres of blood pumped through her body to save her life during a six-hour caesarean.
After raising two daughters, Mckenzie, 20, and Tallulah, 15, Michelle, from Forster, NSW, suffered several tragic miscarriages, including a set of twins, before her and husband Konrad were thrilled to discover they were expecting the twin girls.
But their joy was soon overshadowed when Michelle suffered extensive bleeding and was diagnosed with placenta previa – a potentially fatal condition where the placenta lies low in the uterus.
SHOCK BLEEDING
“I called an ambulance and by the time I got to hospital I’d already lost two litres of blood,” she recalls. “The ambulance officer and I thought I’d miscarried for sure. I’d never
even heard of placenta previa and they weren’t sure how severe it was. I was just told if it happened again to call an ambulance and get straight to hospital.”
Once she recovered from the shock, Michelle says her pregnancy ran smoothly until her next scan revealed she had rare grade-four placenta previa, meaning her placenta was completely covering her cervix.
She followed doctor’s orders and took it easy back home, but just five weeks later, she suffered yet another horrific bleed, placing the twins’ lives back in danger.
“All the way to the hospital I just kept thinking I’d lost them and I’d come so far,” she says. “Then I thought, ‘If I had them now, they would be so tiny they probably wouldn’t survive.’
I was so frightened of what was happening to me.”
Her two little miracles survived and, after seven weeks of being confined to her bed in Newcastle’s John Hunter Hospital, Michelle’s suffered another life-threatening bleed and was forced to undergo an emergency caesarean.
‘I’d had 14 litres of blood pumped through me to keep me alive’
EMERGENCY SURGERY
Konrad, 42, was still making the emergency dash to the hospital when a terrified Michelle was rushed in to theatre accompanied by 30 doctors and nurses.
“I cried the whole time they were preparing me for surgery because I had no idea what lay ahead,” she says. “I was just so worried if the twins would survive, if I would. Next thing, I woke up in ICU and found out the twins were doing well, but I’d had a whopping 14 litres of blood [two people’s worth] pumped through me to keep me alive. The anaesthetist told me I’d lost so much blood the theatre looked like a massacre – he’d never seen anything like it.”
While Michelle faced a gruelling few days wait to meet her seven-week premmie girls Alexis and Layla in the special care nursery, she was over the moon they were in perfect health, weighing in at 1.8kg and 1.9kg respectively.
And the precious pair have continued to thrive ever since, meeting all of their milestones to become “the best of friends”.
While Michelle says it took her a while to get back on her feet and her stomach looks like
“a war zone”, she will always be eternally grateful for her precious family and the blood donors who saved her life.
“I’d never donated blood before but I will be, and a lot of my family and friends are too now they have seen what happened,” she adds. “All of the time I was in hospital people kept describing me as a miracle for what I’d got through, which was a bit hard to take at first. But for me, it’s the girls that will always be my precious little miracles.”