It feels like Armageddon. Or what I imagined it would be like after world war 3 bombs razed our land.
My eyes sting with the dreams and hopes of small families trying to “make it” on the land. I am choking on the soil that is their past, their present and any future they have.
I am out here trying to see if I can help the many who have crumbled under the weight of death and loss. But I feel like I need saving myself.
And now the new and very real threat of fire. Can dirt burn? Ironically the parched earth makes fires faster and more erratic. People have even less time to gather the detritus of their lives. Less time to keep each other safe. Less chance. Less luck.
When I get home with stinging eyes and a heavy heart my old mare trudges up the paddock to chew listlessly on the results of my frantic attempts to bring in enough money to keep us all going. Her eyes tell me she is tired of this struggle. And I feel in her spirit that we have far to travel yet.
I don’t know how much my daughter understands of how bad things are. How much does a young teenager comprehend of money, and it’s limits? She understands that she can’t ride her horse at home anymore because the ground is too hard and dry. She understands that she can’t ever miss feeding animals every morning and night, while I am working extra hours, because they will starve.
But I’m not sure she understands how limited the resources might become for her to continue to do the thing she loves most in the world. That bloody horse makes everything ok. Even the fetid, stinking creek water that stains everything it touches and is all we have in the house. And the humping load after load of hay and feed every week. And the wearing dirty clothes because we can only wash in town once a week and it’s expensive as hell.
They say country people are tough. But it’s not tough to go on when you don’t have a choice. There just isn’t anything else to do.
If you know someone in a drought effected area, get in touch. Tell them you are thinking of them. Better still, go visit them and spend some money in their dying town.
Standing in the middle of a dust storm it’s easy to feel like you have been forgotten. Left behind. Don’t matter.
I plead for those who today have watched their soil disappear on the wind because there was no grass to hold it down. And for those who tonight are watching what’s left burn up in angry flames. And those who are falling exhausted into bed tonight, who can’t sleep for worry, and who will rise in a few short hours to do it all again.
You can’t make it rain but you can reach out to country folk to let them know you care. You can go for a drive and spend your money in a struggling town. You can make sure every cent you spend on produce goes to an Aussie farmer, not an international conglomerate. You can talk about the drought, and keep talking about it, so we know we aren’t forgotten.
