Monday, March 4, 2013

Monto Blaze Aid for 2 weeks

Each morning at 7am we had a muster meeting to decide where the teams were going that day.  We usually had 6 teams.  A team usually amounted to 5 or 6 people, mostly men but not only, who once allocated a job drove to the property, up to 50km out of town, and work from 8:30am to about 4pm usually clearing and standing up fences but sometime stick picking paddocks or other work as required by the farmer. The farmers family usually provided morning tea and lunch, nice. The days were long and the work could be strenuous and at the end of the day a beer was really appreciated. We worked 7 days a week but individuals were encouraged to have a day off in every 7 worked. Back at camp each afternoon we had a few drinks before dinner was served. The local town ladies and some of the wives prepared the meals. I prepared my own because their usual menu was not my normal fare.

Whilst there a second flood came through and isolated the town again, cutting the roads north and south, undoing some work we had already done.
 Clearing fences
Standing fences up again