HERE COMES THE BALIFF PART TWO
Here Comes the Bailiff is a true story of a city girl who fell in love with a returned soldiers and made a go in the newly opened Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area.
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In 1928 Griffith has commenced to grow, tow new hotels, new shops and the shire council had been proclaimed that year and the first president was Jack Kelly.
Most people had a horse and sulky to gravel to town and Ted was able to pick up a light utility for five pounds deposit.
Ted said we have to go easy on our living expenses of three pounds a week and I picked up a straw mattress dirt cheap for us to sleep on and deck chairs as we might get tired of sitting on boxes and a hanging meat safe.
We travelled half way to Yenda and at the Bilbul Post Office Ted turned right, the powdery red dust rose in choking clouds.
The house, our home had two small windows and a door, the outside was undressed timber, cracked and holey and the ceiling unlined and a rainwater tank and close by was a muddy dam, to draw water for washing.
Looking towards one direction was Griffith and the other direction Yenda and stretched the lonely miles of distance of desolation, a lonely place for a city girl and the neighbour's miles away, no phone, no electricity and a wood stove to cook on.
The success of growing rice was working long hours, early in the morning till dusk, seven days a week, week after week and the window of opportunity to sow rice was October.
We have come a long way since the early days, but what we have today is that growing rice has become too expensive on account of the price of water, the drought of 2007 when the Commonwealth government came up with the Murray Darling Basin Plan to buy water from irrigators for the environment.
Our dams were built to drought proof inland, Burrinjuck for the MIA, Blowering for Coleambally, Wyangala on the Lachlan River, Hume for the Murray and Dartmouth Dam.
Water allocation for NSW irrigators for the start of this coming season stands at zero per cent as of July 1.
South Australian water allocation stands at 100 per cent.
Who drained our dams in times of drought and left our farmers high and dry?
I would like to acknowledge the wonderful story of Here Comes the Bailiff by Doris Cheesbrough.
Fran Pietroboni, Griffith
RESIST MEAT BAN CAMPAIGN
Billions of dollars are being spent developing synthetic meat.
With inner-city vegans and others of similar thinking calling for the total ban of killing (murdering) livestock for food, it is certain that in time it will have a highly adverse effect on farmers' livelihoods.
It is strange how they could contemplate eating such a product when they actively contest the use of genetically modified crops.
If they get their way and eventually ban meat, it will lead to the near extinction of most farm animals, denying billions of them the right to have an existence.
Further, possibly half or more of Australia not suitable to cropping will become useless, thus significantly reducing the capacity to feed the human population.
Farm animals mostly live a good life, free from the constant fear of being killed in a horrific way by a predator, as is nature's way.
I believe we must make a concerted effort to counter the constant negative narrative from them for our sake and that of our animals.
Leigh Campbell, Oura
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