Tull

Its gates and grid welcomed us.

Wallabies and roos jumping across the paddocks

Rabbits hopping all over the sheds area

Foxes crossing the garden in the middle of the day

Feeding apples and carrots to the horses on the property

Walking through the gum forest

Finding turtles around the ponds

It was a joyous chorus of animals celebrating life.

The drought hit first with shrinking the ponds,

Every day empty turtle shells were discovered .

Then man took in his hands to change paradise

And started to shoot the wallabies at night

To gas the rabbits warrens and to poison the foxes.

Suddenly we were surrounded by licensed killers,

Even to walk the dogs in the evening was dangerous  

One never knew if one was not in the sight of a shotgun.

All the more for the preservation of sheep and cattle.

Then came the weekly trucks to load the cattle to the abattoir

Which was heart rendering in itself.

Followed by the lambing season

When birth went wrongly and

Ewes and lambs are left to rot on the ground.

Then the overgrazed paddocks turned to dust

And the trucks came again

Taking with them this time the sheep.

By the end it had become arid and deserted.

It was time for us to rejoin civilized suburbia.

3/2/2012

©L. Bailliet