I have just ordered & read “Sticks and Stones” published by the Border Rivers – Gwydir CMA, a follow up to ‘’Bush Tucker, Boomerangs & Bandages”. Even though we are outside the geographical area on their map, we share much of the same vegetation and are within the Kamilaroi/ Gomeroi nation boundaries. Both books […]
Im re reading a great Australian classic written in 1959 by Dame Mary Durack – Kings in grass castles. I thought the biography of her Grandfather & other pioneering relatives may give some insight into CMTs but Gomeroi lands are too far south and east to be relevant to the story. Around the time […]
So this scartree website is now in the hands of the modern gods – the tech people who run the world (or crazy domains at least). They will attempt to operate on the site to remove sufficient Inodes from its innards so we can stay hosted. There are often lots of flotsam & jetsam […]
Ive been getting a lot of technical emails from my web server about inodes & load speeds & VPS that I don’t understand but the general gist is I have way too many photos of trees on this website. Although Im still uploading photos with 800 pixels the size & quality of these pictures are […]
The rush of a combined shearing/lambmarking is over to be followed by a stop start harvest. Grain can’t be stripped when its wet and too much rain and cloudy weather will downgrade and devalue the crop. A dry sowing period followed by a wet growing season & then a dry harvest is the ideal. This […]
For the Gomilaroi diaspora (mob) Shearing time and lambmarking brings me into contact with more Trees in Trees as ewes and lambs are very slow and I’m mustering all the grazing paddocks (about 30,000 acres). The more I see, the more fascinating these TinTs are but the questions about their origins remain and the […]
I’m more conscious now of the close links between the Gomilaroi and Waiwun people and how they occupied the countryside pre 1788. When rivers fail in massive climate upheavals like the last iceage they leave their traces in the landscape. Here along the paleo river there are huge sand deposits with redgum lined lagoons […]
It’s a difficult time to be travelling anywhere in the world but we managed to get up to the Carnarvon Gorge in Qld last weekend. The revolving door that is our state border has closed again today which makes it inconvenient for towns like Mungindi, Hebel & Boggabilla but nowhere near as grim as […]
I’m gradually putting together a list of super-camps spread across the Murrumanaarr landscape. These camps are quite extensive and contain all the prerequisites for a comfortable life. The first priority is obviously water and the super camps have this above and below ground. Good billabongs are required to hold surface water and I think […]
When Frankie’s wife rang from Dubbo base saying he wanted to see us, we knew Frankie wasn’t ever coming home. The operation had bought him more time but now that was used up and we were trudging down those long antiseptic hospital corridors to say goodbye. I can’t remember what we’d told the kids […]