It’s dry as a dead dingo’s donger

Despite being blessed by Barnaby Joyce, there is no drought relief, just unrelieved despair.

Special drought envoy Barnaby Joyce. Picture: ANDY ROGERS

The Great Drought is destroying the farms and futures of so many of us in the bush. De-stocking empties the paddocks of sheep and cattle, and not all native animals survive, though the ferals are remarkably resilient. Elmswood is still home to a wide variety of unwelcome aliens.

It’s as dry as a dead dingo’s donger. Our rain gauges gather dust, our dams are empty sockets, our creeks are memories and our two rivers haven’t been rivers for years. Instead of coming from their flows, or the skies, our water is now delivered at huge expense by tankers. Despite being blessed by Barnaby – not only the official drought envoy, but also our local member – there is no drought relief, just unrelieved despair. Leading to an increase in local suicides.

Ignoring the perils of biological control – let us remember the cane toad was introduced to eat a beetle causing woes to the sugar industry – Barnaby remains an advocate of killing feral carp with a virus. Too often such cures have proved worse than the disease, and in any case it’s now a redundant notion. No need for a virus. Massive fish kills demonstrate how Joycean policies have destroyed millions of native fish. And even the accursed carp can’t survive without water.

Nor can the platypus. Once common within walking distance of the homestead, we haven’t seen one for years – though their fellow egg-layers, the echidnas, endure.

As for feral animals, I haven’t seen many goats or deer lately, but feral pigs abound, rooting through the rocky soil with their bulldozing snouts. Cross-breeds between the genuine article and escapees from a local piggery. Another menacing member of the menagerie are feral dogs; we see them most days and, thanks to the motion-sensitive see-in-the-dark cameras, at night. Feral cats too – and they seem to grow bigger each year. No wonder people report sightings of panthers and pumas, or cougars. (Legend has it that US airmen brought this species of big cat to Australia as mascots). I reckon that un-domestic cats loom larger because of natural selection. Rabbits, of course, despite myxomatosis and calicivirus. And foxes – forever after the hens. Eggs? Very popular at Elmswood, with black and brown snakes living in the chook pen competing with visiting goannas. And it looks like we’re having another mouse plague. Like rats, they’re ferals too.

Carnivores are having a great time of it. Whenever an animal dies in the paddocks, in comes the clean-up crew. Foreigners competing with the indigenous. Insects first, eating the soft tissue. Then eagles arrive, as do pigs, foxes, goannas. There’s more than enough to go around. Within days all that’s left are bones, shrouded in leathery hide.

Not enough space to list the feral plants. A successful biological control has the prickly pear under control, but we’ve got a lot of briar bushes, feral roses, and of course bloody blackberries. Great for jam, bad for paddocks. My heart goes out to the Northern Territory, which has a vast and dangerous infestation of African gamba grass, the subject of a recent horror story on ABC Radio’s Late Night Live. It kills everything in its path.

But back to the Upper Hunter, where rain, if it ever falls again, will panic kids who’ve never seen it. This will be followed by a formal canonisation – St Barnaby, patron saint of precipitation.

Talking of religion, the farm faces some ongoing problems with feral evangelists, particularly hardy perennials like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons. Both seem impervious to drought.