Margareta Osborn | The Voice of the Bush

These articles have appeared in my regular column in Gippsland Country Life Magazine "between you, me and the fence post".

Click on the title of each entry for the full article.

Winter 2012

Today I thought we’d talk about things that go bump in the night. And, unfortunately, I’m not talking about ghosts.

A couple of friends and I had been to the cinema for a ‘girls night out’ and we’d just landed in my kitchen for a cuppa before ‘the girls’ headed home. The room was quiet (okay, a group of women and quiet really don’t go together, do they? Maybe it was moderately quiet …), the clock was edging towards midnight, and the kettle had just started to whistle, when one of the girls looked across at my kitchen floor and...

Autumn 2012

And so the school year is in full swing again with the children all trundling to town on the school bus. The summer holidays are a distant memory but the Easter break will soon be upon us. This leads me to reflect on rural holiday entertainment.

Here on the farm we are blessed to have the myriad of activities to keep the children amused during vacations. Horses, motorbikes, swimming and hay bales. Yes, hay. All the children I know, big and small, have an absolute ball climbing, sliding down and jumping on hay bales. Throw away the jumping castle for the littlies or pool table for...

Summer 2011

Life is a funny creature. It throws you all manner of head-starts, and then perversely tosses in a back-hander. A wise, outback bloke once told me, ‘it’s all very well to be standing on the top of the mountain but remember there’s gullies on either side’. Just when you think you’ve got it all sussed, a curveball flies in from left field …

Take a couple of weeks ago for example. We were in the run-off block cattleyards. Four of us - draughting cattle. All was going sweetly and the afternoon’s work resembled the lovely nursery-...

Spring 2011 - The Scent of Spring ... with Margareta Osborn

I was standing with my children at the bus stop. A balmy breeze was wafting around us, which put the previous fortnight of rain and cold well and truly to rest. I said to the kids, ‘Smell the air’. The eight-year-old inventor shook his head like mum was slightly mad. The six-year-old princess though, did as suggested, and I watched as an instinctive smile burst across her face at the sweet scent. ‘Can you smell it?’ I asked. ‘Yes! What is it, mum?’ She sniffed the air again. I responded, ‘That’s the smell of spring!’

Later in the...

Winter 2011 - Cattle Capers ... with Margareta Osborn

Cattle. Sometimes they make you money. That’s after you get them to the sale yards. Mostly it’s a simple enough job. Muster, yard, draft, load and you’re away. Other times it turns into enough of a debacle to rival any circus around.

Take the time we bought a couple of small Dexter cattle. My idea. I suppose the fact that one was determined to climb out of the cattle-crate as we were whizzing along the Princes Highway should have been warning enough. But we got him home, unloaded.

No problems at all. I’m smiling and saying to H, “see he...

Autumn 2011 - Dust to Dust ... with Margareta Osborn

Dust. The bane of any house-proud wife. There’s nothing worse than long, hot and dry summers with howling northerly winds that send half the surrounding paddocks onto every available inside surface.

But seeing here in Gippsland we haven’t had a hot, dry summer, more a fleeting glimpse, why am I talking about dust? It’s got to do with those pesky New Year’s resolutions we made. You know, the ones you can barely remember making, as you slid in sideways, glass or can of alcohol in hand, yelling to the back of 2010, ‘Whoo Hoo, what a ride!’ Or maybe...

Summer 2010 - Into the Great Outdoors ... with Margareta Osborn

I know when I fling open my back door and inhale the sweet scent of blooming roses, warm air and freshly mown hay; summer is on its way. That and the fact I can see some very suspicious items being flung by ‘H’ from the depths of the machinery shed.

First up the swags appear, followed by the tent. Old seed sacks containing camp oven and hotplate are next. The camp chairs minus their long lost trendy bag covers follow, backed up by my beloved item – the camp toilet seat. ‘H’ then lugs out the ancient three way fridge and the tool box full of ‘...

Spring 2010 - Utes, Bow Ties and wedded bliss ... with Margareta Osborn

Spring always makes me think of new beginnings and there is nothing more representative of this than a good old fashioned country wedding. In the country we have so many choices as to how we commence the road to wedded bliss and if my experiences can be taken as a representative example, we have an amazing array of wondrous, wild and wacky ways to ‘get to the church on time’.

Let’s start with the usual regulatory bunch of modern bridal cars such as Holden or Ford’s, depending on your predilection. It all goes well, until you get the situation in one wedding...

Winter 2010 - From Green Grass to Glass Boxes with Margareta Osborn

Last Monday we had an urgent reason to be in Melbourne. Not a common occurrence I can assure you for my husband is a child of the bush, and I’m running close behind. We were lent our friends apartment at the Docklands for the night. You know, in one of those five towering metal, concrete and glass structures overlooking the Yarra River.

On entering the apartment’s living room just on dark, my husbands jaw hit the plush carpeted floor as this particular apartment was located on the north eastern corner of the 20th floor. As far as the eye could see lights moved; in...