We discover another Uamby and another Michael Lahy

Olivia googled "Uamby" yesterday and up popped another "Uamby" at a place called Tullakool in Victoria. Not only that, but the family that own it are called Lahy. And not only that, the senior Lahy is called Michael. (Regular visitors to this blog will recall that a Michael Lahy pioneered our property in the 1820s and that he is buried down by the river, along with many members of his family.) I spoke to Chris Lahy just a few moments ago and got his email address to make contact. Stay tuned.

Drew and Bella sign in then shoot through

There is rarely a weekend during the milder months when we don't have friends form the city staying out at Uamby. Many return often. But few come out during the enervating heat of summer (max. 46°C/115°F). Drew and Bella visited us this weekend (Chinese New Year). They helped muster the ewes and helped make a new sign for the farm. Our visitors really enjoy working while they are with us.
While we take a conservationist approach to wildlife, there are three critters we shoot: foxes (because they prey on lambs and lambing ewes, as well as chickens), kangaroos (when they are running in plague numbers) and snakes (Australian brown snakes are the deadliest in the world and very aggressive). Drew, Bella and Daniel shot 3 foxes while they were here. They also saw a big, full-antlered red deer buck, a doe and a bambi. A rare sight. There is a herd in the district. They escaped from a failed attempt at a deer farm. Deer are no respecters of fences.

When the East goes West, will the planet go west with them?

IF ONLY WE COULD PHOTOSHOP THE PLANET?
I came across this ad for Indian tourism and thought someone was committing a hoax. What do you notice about this image of India? That's right. The water is blue and so clean near the Taj Mahal. Anyone who has been to India will tell you the place stinks like an open sewer (especially around the Taj Mahal) and the water, wherever you go, looks like it comes from an open sewer (with turds added for effect). India is beautiful in many ways, but it is disgraceful for the way its land has been polluted, especially with plastic bags and crap. And the solution is so easy. If every Indian person picked up one piece of plastic a day for a week they'd clean the place up in 7 days. Get the "Clean Up Australia" guys over there. Then get the "Do The Right Thing" guys over there. India is pointed to as the perfect example of what happens when you let population run rampant. But it needn't be that way. If they had respect for the land, India would become a powerhouse of ecological purity. As it is they haven't even started flexing their muscles as polluters yet. If the emerging middle class in the two most populous countries in the world - India and China - demand the same wasteful consumer society privileges that we westerners enjoy now, greenhouse gases will burn the skies and the earth will choke on its own vomit. But we westerners face a dilemma: what right have we to deny them the same opportunity to pollute that we enjoy? That's what Kyoto Protocol is about and why the US and Australia - the self appointed ethical leaders of the white race on the globe - object to the way it allows developing countries to pollute while advanced countries must reign in their demand for polluting energy sources like coal.
INCREDIBLE.? UNBELIEVABLE

It's ironic that the term "wog" was coined to describe people of different colours who came to our shores, including Indian and Chinese people. It is an acronym of "westernised oriental gentleman" and referred to those immigrants who sought to assimilate. Now the word 'westernised' bears a new and dangerous meaning. And you can't help thinking that God's a joker.

Blog posted on The Spirit in the Soil (http://envirofarming.blogspot.com), The Absolute Truth About Marketing (http://michaelkielymarketing.blogspot.com), and qwerty business (http://qwertybiz.blogspot.com)

It's true! Lightning can make your garden grow

I went looking for an explanation for why our dead and dying plants ahve suddenly revived after a series of hefty lightning and thunder storms. And I found it at www.ucar.org, the University Corporation of Atmospheric Research. They explain it this way:

"Atmospheric nitrogen becomes part of living organisms in two ways. The first is through bacteria in the soil that form nitrates out of nitrogen in the air. The second is through lightning. During electrical storms, large amounts of nitrogen are oxidized and united with water to produce an acid that falls to Earth in rainfall and deposits nitrates in the soil." Nitrogen is present in superphosphate which farmers pay heaps to spread on their fields. Lightning is like free fertiliser.

God hangs out here

If you didn’t believe in God before you came to live in the bush, it’s hard not to once you get here. Look at this. A typical dawn, with mist rolling over the fields from the river towards the homestead. Often we’ll see kangaroos feeding in the mist – when the feed further out gets thin during a drought. The soundtrack to this scene is the chiming call of the Butcher Bird, the bloodthirsty executioner with the choirboy sweet-song. Seeing a Butcher Bird in action, eating an Indian Myna from the backside first, while the unfortunate bird is still alive and protesting is to see where the Devil fits in to God’s plan.
What I can’t show you here is the canopy of stars at night, like dust strewn across the sky. Awe-inspiring. City people never see the skies the way country people do. It is easier to get a sense of creaturehood when you live out here. You can feel small and very connected with the whole shebang.

A couple of Italian chicks check in to our motel

Artist's impression of two Italian chickens currently roosting at Uamby.

The “Pasture Poultry Movement” is hot in the USA. Free range chickens are moved from pasture to pasture, following the sheep or cattle, foraging and feeding on the parasites and bugs the animals leave behind. Most holdings are small over there – 200 acres is a big holding. Usually it is combined with other c omplementary enterprises. For instant, the mnost famous of them is Joel Salatin who runs chickens and pigs in between his orchard trees, in bottomless cages on wheels, so that the chickens and the pigs (separately) can till the soil and clean up the bad bugs in the soil. He has a slaughterhouse on his small holding and sells dressed chickens to people who travel for miles to get his good organic birds.

We like the idea of free range chickens following our sheep as they move from small paddock (field) to paddock, scratching and disturbing the soil, adding to the tilling effect and manuring effect of the sheep. So we thought of buying an old caravan, gutting it, equipping it with perches and laying boxes, and hauling it around behind the sheep. Or an old bus. (Considerations: Water supply. Portection against foxes. Someone would have to shut them in at night and let them out in the morning. Supplementary feeding. Collecting the eggs. Marketing the eggs (when everyone around seems to be growing chooks and you can buy a dozen caged eggs for $1 in the supermarkets). Marketing the chicken meat.

So while all this too-ing and fro-ing was going on I spied a sign outside a house at Blackheath. “Chickens for sale. Laying.” So I thought I’d pick up a dozen and force the issue by turning up at “Uamby” with a load of chickens – dive in the deep end. How much can they cost – a coupla bucks each? What’ve we got to lose? Instead of a dozen birds, I found there were only two rather elegant birds for sale at $15 each. What the hell, I’ll take em. They’re pretty nice birds and Sue, the nice lady who tells me they moved to the area because their former neighbour was a ‘sexual predator’ and she has a teenage daughter, she was an enthusiast about the birds. (I’ll blog Sue and her backyard later – something else!) She and her son picked the chickens up and patted them like pussy cats. A couple of Rottweilers mixed with the birds peacefully.
These elegant birds are known as Ancona. I looked them up on the Oklahoma State University website:

It said: “The Ancona originated near the city of Ancona, Italy, from early Leghorns and other breeds. Its mixed ancestry gives it extreme hardiness and prolificacy. Anconas were originally known as Black Leghorns because of their color, which is black with evenly white-tipped feathers. As with Leghorns, Anconas are known primarily for egg-laying and produce large numbers of white eggs. They were once one of the prime egg-producing breeds in Europe, and joined American farm flocks in the 19th century. Active and busy birds, they are good foragers and said to be indifferent to climate.”

Well all that turns out to be true. They can take 48°C heat and they can handle five dogs who all want to eat them And their eggs are pure white, with rich yellow yokes. One of them fills you up.

Anyway, the arrival of the chickens generated the action I wanted. Daniel created a mobile chook motel with grasscatcher laying box (see pics). But the chickens would have none of it. They were used to being part of the family, so they wait by the back door for company. They’re never happier than when Louisa is picking slugs off the vegetables and feeding them to the chickens.


When it’s extra hot they retire to the laundry, with its concrete floors and deep cool shadows.

We’re no closer to our pasture poultry enterprise, but we’re learning about the habits of two rather eccentric Italian chickens.

Lightning makes the garden grow?

Louisa has noticed a spooky thing. We watered and watered the vegetable and herb garden after we returned from our vacation visit to Phillip Island (where the motorcycle grand prix is held) but there was little response... until a severe electrical storm carrying little rain but much power swept into our valley. Then the plants revived, as if woken up by the electricity. Does anyone know if there could be a connection?

Something strange in the dog food bin

Gee the mice are busy in that dog food bin....







Gdee the mice are getting big....



It's Xavier!

Grandchildren make us aware that we are growing old ... in the nicest possible way.
They also give us a sense of dimension... that someone is coming after me to whom I should deliver a liveable planet.

Patch has puppies!

Mother and puppies doing well! Our Border Collie sheep dog Patch found herself pregnant late last year and we wondered who did it? Was it Jock, the shearer Steve Minnet's German SHort Haired Pointer? He stayed with us while Steve and family went away for a break. Was it Travis the Jack Russell from Mount Molly (a 50-acre property next door) who comes sniffing around our girls? (He'd need a step ladder.)

PATCH, THE MOTHER DOG


Or was it Ravi, the red kelpie pup Daniel bought several months ago? (Daniel's girlfriend Olivia has 2 GSPs called Willoughby and Ripley (and yes, they look like private schoolboys, but they are nutless. So it can't be them.) And it can't be Chengerai, our Rhodesian Ridgeback, because she's a she. Looking at them when they were born we thought it was Jock, because their fur is so fine and there are patches of brown. But as they grow - they are 2 weeks old now - they are looking more like little Ravi. This will be a good combination because both mother and father are working dogs.
RAVI HAS HIS NUTS
WILLOUGHBY AND CHENGERAI MEET THE PUPPIES.

Already we have had one local farmer approach me at church last Sunday asking if he could have a puppie for a working dog. Len Cooney, who roustabouted for us (and did so much more) during our last shearing said he wanted a pup out of Patch. And Len's wife Claire was very impressed with Ravi. (He's a very bright little performer.) We think we might keep one for Xavier, our grandson, who is 3. When asked what he would call it, he said "Hello Doggie". So it could be called "Hello". Patch had her pups in the stables and that's now the nursery. During the hot weather - 48°C+ - Daniel puts a sprinkler on the roof to cool them down. Does anyone want a good working dog? Call 612 6374 0329.

Lambs: the stolen generations

PICTURED: Raphael the guard alpaca* leads this season's lambs out towards the green fields to start their lives as adult sheep. They are leaving their mothers behind. In this blog we ask the question: do animals have human emotions? Walt Disney thought so.

For visitors from outside Australia, we have an issue called "The Stolen Generation" which refers to the way children of indigenous people (our Australian Aboriginals) were taken from their parents from the 1930s onwards until the 1970s. They were placed in schools or jobs with the white man and many were abused sexually and physically. It was a form of cultural genocide. They were forbidden to speak their native language, forbidden to contact their parents. Cut off from their culture, they were to "assimilate" (or become whites under their black skin). The governments and people who did this believed the entire race was on the brink of extinction from disease and depression. Famous historian Henry Reynolds reported that, by 1930, there were only around 30,000 left of the estimated 300,000 to 500,000 indigenous people who were inhabiting Australia in 1788 when white man arrived to conquer the land for the British kings and queens. Everyone thought the black race was on the way out, so they sought to save the children. Unfortunately they blundered badly and many people's lives have been destroyed. Other countries around the world did the same thing at around the same time. I mention this because it won't be long before PETA (People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals) start accusing Australian wool farmers of creating stolen generations everytime they wean their lambs. By giving the animals human personalities - like WALT DISNEY did - they argue that the animals are being distressed, tortured, and mistreated when some of the simplest practices of animal husbandry are pursued.
PETA activisists suffer from a psychological condition called "Compulsive Anthropomorphic Disorder", a trick of the mind that involves projecting into other living beings the personality traits of human beings. They obsess to a neurotic degree about the imagined emotional state of animals. It is anthropocentric thinking, and it is disconnected from reality. PETA would have no animal husbandry at all because surely the animals should be allowed to roam free, going wherever they want to go? Farmers imprison them behind fences, force them to have sex (the male animals rape the females, or at the very least they're pushy and only interested in one thing), and they take their babies away from them. Well I'm here to tell you the ewe in the middle of this photograph told me the mothers are heartily sick of their lambs by the time we wean them. SHe said; "Imagine having a half grown sheep rushing you every 15 minutes without warning and butting you in the udder to suck from a depleting milk supply. The ewes say "Baaaaa... Bring my lamb baaaaaack (only kidding)." She's such a joker.
PETA organised a boycott of Australian wool because of the practice of "muelsing" in which a fold of hide - not skin - from the backside of the lamb is cut off - like circumcision - to stop the blow flies laying their eggs in the folds. The eggs hatch into maggots which burrow into the flesh and eat the lamb alive. This form of circumcision is the most humane way we have to prevent fly strike. We could wait till the flies lay their eggs and apply toxic chemicals. And they are experimenting with plastic clips that stop the blood supply to the folds and they fall off. Either way, no one likes muelsing. It's a bloody business and the lambs look unhappy. Like kids going to the dentist. But they recover in a day of two and the alternative is ghastly. We use fly traps to keep the fly population down. But no country has blow flies other than Australia.
Here's my challenge to PETA: Why don't you organise a boycott against Israel and all the Jewish businesses in Nu Yark as a protest against the practice of male circumcision? Cutting bits off little human babies! Are the interests of sheep more important than the interests of humans?
Every generation has a percentage of people susceptible to delusions and hallucinations, such as thinking Bambi and Mickey mouse were real animals. City-based cultures act as hot houses for them because the people there live lives disconnected from the rigid discipline of Mother Nature. I am sure there are many there who think their civilisation could survive without agriculture. They can eat and wear money instead. Bon appetite!



PICTURED: Olivia Kemp, the Diana Palmer of Uamby (my son Daniel is The Phantom) travels 10 hours from her job with the Victorian Department of Primary Industires in Bendigo to share the heat and flies and dust with Daniel and the dogs.


FOOTNOTE: *We have 2 alpacas guarding the pregnant ewes and lambs. Bruno was in such a hurry he rushed ahead of the lambs and missed out on having his photo taken. They can be quite aggressive in chasing foxes and dogs away from the flock. They keep us on our toes, too.

Psychofarmers on the loose!

PICTURED: TOM GREEN (RIGHT) FINDING HIS PERSONALITY IN COLOURED CARDS







Just last week Louisa, Daniel and I did a personality test as part of the Central West Catchment Management Authority's Farm Systems Project. The Hermann Brain Dominance Indicator divided the group of 11 farmers (selected for training for their progressive farm practices) into 4 personality types: Blue - analyses, likes technical/financial accuracy, logical, asks 'what are the facts?'; Green - organises, likes to follow procedures, reliable, asks 'what is the sequence of events?'; Yellow - strategises, likes to conceptualise, imaginitive, asks 'how can the parts be put together?'; and Red - personalises, likes to know the effect on others, supportive, asks 'who's involved?' Now no one is simply all one colour.





PICTURED: COL SEIS AND NIGEL KERIN (THE BIG FELLA) TRADING PERSONALITY TRAITS.


We are combinations of colours, and these combinations can be mapped. This is the second time I have been psychologically profiled when meeting a group of farmers - psychofarmers, we'll call them. The first time it was when our neighbour Tom Green introduced us to the Edge Management group. Edge Management is a system of 'advisory boards' that you join as both a recipient of advice from members of your 'board' and as a giver of advice as a member of the other members' boards. In effect it's a circle of wisdom and support. We have committed to joining, but have not had our initial meeting with our "board'. But the Myers Briggs test we took will be sued to team us with other board members.
But back to the Colours: The idea of the testing was to help us understand that team-building in the farm environment requires adjusting to the personal styles of different personalities in the family and the business.
But just as an aside the excellent facilitator Margie Crowther* mentioned that people who live together (cohabit) tend to have similar patterns (ie. the same personality characteristics or colour combinations) and people who follow the traditional route into marriage tend to have the opposite - that is, couples who fall in love and decide to shack up tend to have a lot in common and think that's the basis for an enduring relationship. But couples thinking seriously about spending the rest of their lives together must think about compensating characteristics in each other - how one's strengths will compensate for the other's weaknesses and vice versa. [Just imagine it: A messy, creative person living with another messy, creative person is fun at first, but then the trouble begins. An organiser living with an organiser will have no one to organise.] So are marriages that start with shacking up (like mine) doomed? No. But Margie says that they require greater skills and patience with each other - and the road is likely to be rockier. (And it was.)
PICTURED: MARGIE CROWTHER: THE PSYCHOFARMER COLOUR ANALYST
*Margie Crowther is also a permaculture design specialist, based at her organic farm near Canowindra in New South Wales. Contact her at permaculturepatches@bigpond.com

Mulch your way to happiness

In this blog I will talk about how we grow fresh grass fast, using a shredding technique and show you the spectacular results



This is the finest crop of rank grass and saffron thistle we have ever grown. The sheep cannot eat it; it is virtually impassable for them; and any succulent grasses beneath it are unavailable to them.






This is what the ground looks like when freshly mulched.






And this is the result two-and-a-half weeks later. The best spot…







The worst spot…





The results were widespread, tested in 4 paddocks. Happy days. Mulching is a temporary solution for us while we work on our fencing.

...............

There are four ways that I know to get pasture grass to grow. 1. The traditional way: sowing exotic species like white clover, and fertilising the soil with artificial fertilisers like Superphosphate (an expensive solution that leaves the ground bare when the clover has had its season and has to be repeated a couple of seasons later, plus the exotics can’t be relied upon to feed livestock all year round.) 2. Pasture cropping, pioneered by Col Seis, a man we admire very much. By direct drilling seed like oats into a pasture you get a crop to harvest or graze, plus the native perennial pasture species seem to love it. (We were one of the first farms to use the process commercially. More about our experience with pasture cropping in another blog.) 3. Animal impact. Allan Savory’s Holistic Resource Management system uses the tilling effect of animals’ hooves and the fertilising effect of animal dung, especially when large numbers are concentrated in small areas, then moved off the plot for up to a year to let it recover. Pastures respond with enthusiasm. (David Marsh of ‘Allendale’ at Booroowa has a textbook case of this theory at work. Again, I’ll bring you pics of David’s place in a later blog. I can’t wait to visit him. He’s a genius and a gentleman.) 4. Mulching, as a gardener does. Mulching puts litter on the ground which encourages the worms and bugs that make soil. It also encourages pasture grasses to rebound. We have two methods of mulching: spreading hay on bare soil and shredding rank and dead grasses and thistles using a special attachment for the tractor.

Beware eco-fundamentalism

I just heard an environmental academic speaking on ABC radio. He repeated Tim Flannery’s scare story about global warming and said the average Australian could help by asking their power company to switch them to green energy. “Our family has 100% green energy and our contribution to greenhouse gases is zero.” How much more is green energy, asked the announcer. “Only 25%,” came the unthinking reply. OK, university professors can afford to choose to pay 25% more for their power. But people on award wages – especially in John Howard’s Australia – don’t have that discretion. The blasé disregard of economic reality that supporters of the environment exhibit brings the whole movement into disrepute. One caller to the station complained about the cost of solar power installations. “They should subsidise them,” he said. Who is “they”? It’s you and me. Every idea the greenies have either increases costs or reduces our ability to produce saleable goods and services. Why is this? Why can’t they have ideas that save money or make it easier to generate the wealth without which there can be no wages or taxes paid and therefore no groceries bought or social services. The people who complain that environmentalism is overshadowed by economics are the same people who expect to live in a city, have access to modern amenities, and have a well-paid job. Naturally I support nature, but I don’t support eco-fundamentalism. Man is part of nature, not an alien intruder. Man’s imagination and ability to innovate are part of his nature which is part of Nature. The most innovative way I have encountered to balance economics and ecology is Holistic Resource Management, an ecologically-sustainable method of working with Nature to reduce costs and increase productivity on farmland by mimicking the conditions the rangelands experienced before man became an agriculturalist. Greenies who say wilderness should be shut away from animal impact forget that the wilderness enjoyed massive animal impact before the megafauna was hunted to extinction. And when land is shut away from the tilling effect of animal feet and the fertilising effect of animal dung, the earth bares and desertification follows. So denying domesticated animals access to landscapes will have the reverse effect of what is intended. (See Allan Savory’s book Holistic Resource Management: A New Framework for Decision Making.) We run “Uamby” according to HRM principles and we have flourishing native pastures, we accommodate a significant mob of kangaroos and wallabies and we are planting more native trees and allowing natives to regrow naturally to attract a greater diversity of bird life.

'The Spirit of the Soil'

Cop this: "Proper farming might be said to make concrete what is latent in humanity's dependence upon the earth, for the act of good farming both releases and replenishes the provision for human sustenance. Farming is the activity that locates the human species most surely in the planetary ecosystem of the earth. It is on farming that we depend for food, and in farming that what we take from the earth is returned to it." Amazing!

This is from a book I found at Amazon.com called The Spirit of the Soil, published in 1995 by Paul Thompson, then Professor of Philosophy and Agriculture Texas A&M University. I must meet him. What would he think of our plans to turn our grazing property in outback Australia into a centre of learning to teach farmers practical uses for the philosophy of agriculture - including the use of paradigm shifting to innovate their enterprises. What does he think of the ancient Hasidic saying that guides our quest:

"When you walk across the fields with your mind pure and holy,
then from all the stones, and all growing things,
and all animals, the sparks of their soul come out and cling to you,
and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you."

And our "spooky stuff" about the parapsychology of the soil?

I'll ask him.

(His current bio: Paul Thompson went to Michigan State University in 2003 to assume a position in the Philosophy Department, with partial appointments in the Agricultural Economics and Resource Development Departments. Previously he held positions as Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Director, Center for Food Animal Productivity and Well-Being, at Purdue University, and prior to that positions as Professor of Philosophy and Agricultural Economics and Director, Center for Science and Technology Policy and Ethics, at Texas A&M University.)

Mick Lahy's story

Mick Lahy - the first squire of "Uamby", our farm, was a terrorist... according to syphlitic King George III's British Government (or was it William IV? Who cares... they were all in-bred Germans. The first two George's couldn't speak a word of English, but they were crowned Kings of England nonetheless. At least the current German encumbent of the throne - Liz is a Saxe-Coburg - speaks the lingo). Mick Lahy was an Irish farmer kicked off his land and forced to pay rent for it to a British landlord (thief) and pay taxes to the Protestant church when he was a Catholic. No wonder he joined an attack on a barracks that was to house police sent to enforce the taxes. He was responding to state terrorism.

Mick was sent to Britain's garbage dump for humanity - the prison colony in Sydney - for 7 years.

Michael Lahy's good behaviour and enthusiasm for his work in this strange land earned his conditional pardon in 1821, two years ahead of the time he would normally have expected it. He had been assigned to work for Sir John Jameson, a landholder and prominent critic of Governor Macquarie.

He became a trusted foreman for William Cox, who built the road across the Blue Mountains to open up the Bathurst Plains to settlement, and for his son George Cox, who opened up the Mudgee district to settlement. George Cox and his brothers pushed into the Mudgee district in 1822, opening up the second major area of settlement beyond the mountains.

Lahy’s instinct for leadership – first seen in the uprising in Ireland that led to his conviction and transportation – made him a natural pioneer. His record marks him out as one of that type of individual whose optimistic attitude and ready adaptability made settlement possible. While the names of the major landholders appear in history books, the real work of coming to terms with the alien environment of New South Wales was done by pioneers such as Michael Lahy.

Most early colonists struggled to come to grips with Australia’s harsh and unpredictable personality. Their cultural traditions and beliefs about agriculture and land use were built on centuries of experience in a land where seasons are reliable, rainfall regular, and the soils rich. Centuries of agricultural practices had given the British countryside a stamp of permanence, stability and predictablity. British colonists were not prepared for Australia’s fickle rainfall, its extremes of heat and cold, and its alien native plants and trees. Their ancestors had never encountered bushfires, flash floods and drought.

Michael Lahy appears to have adapted rapidly to the natural rhythms of his new land. In a few short years he learned how to ‘read’ the landscape. This skill enabled him to play a significant role when the site of the township of Mudgee was chosen. The location chosen by the settlers was below the flood line, a danger even the surveyor was unable to see. Lahy convinced the authorities to move the town and Mudgee was sited on higher ground, spared the problems of flooding that afflicted many other inland communities. (Both the sites for the Uamby homestead and the Uamby cemetery itself are located just above the floodline, as close as is safe to the Cudgegong River.)

Lahy was noted for his leadership. His skills as a foreman saw him lead the team that drained the Burrundulla swamps.

His skills as a peacemaker saw him gain the confidence and trust of local tribes during the violent clashes of the 1824-1825 “Aboriginal wars”, after much slaughter on both sides. George Cox sent Lahy to Guntawang station to replace an overseer who had provoked trouble with the Indigenous inhabitants.

As soon as he became a free man in 1830, rather than return to his native Ireland, Michael Lahy decided to stay and applied for land to farm. His industrious nature was such that in the five years leading up to his freedom, while working for the Cox family, he had grown his own livestock holding s to 52 cattle, 10 pigs, and four horses. Lahy’s petition for a land grant was refused, despite the support of important people in the Colony, such as the Coxes, Sir John Jamison and Major Druitt.

It is a tribute to the contribution Lahy made to the opening up of the district that George Cox virtually gave him the property Uamby in 1839 for the sum of 10 shillings after Cox had paid £222 for it four years before. Lahy appears to have been defacto owner of the property from 1833 when he was first assigned convict workers and married his wife Mary Ann Thurston. His daughter Mary, born in 1834, was said to be the first white child born in the Mudgee district.

Michael Lahy became a successful pastoralist and landowner, gaining a reputation for great hospitality in the district. His transition from ex-convict to acceptance into polite society can be seen by his contribution of funds to the building of churches and by his inclusion among the 19 prominent citizens who founded the Mudgee Racing Club. Lahy not only bred race horses, it is said that he operated his own race track on Uamby.

But he was never officially recognised for his contribution to the Mudgee community, perhaps because of his background as a political rebel and the stain of his convict past. “In naming the streets of Mudgee, it would have been a fitting tribute to the man had one of them been named after him, but those were conservative days,” wrote G.H.F. Cox, an ancestor of Michael Lahy’s grateful employer.

Michael Lahy was a proper bastard

Michael Lahy was a bastard to the womenfolk in his family. While he was a freedom fighter in Ireland (a terrorist in "W's" dictionary) and a hardy pioneer in Australia (see my next blog, LAHY'S STORY) he was a spiteful and jealous old man. His daughter Mary ran off with a cousin and eloped to the Tamworth district (Ausralia's answer to Nashville Tennessee and my hometown). Lahy was bitter that she had defied himand left her a shilling (10¢) inhis will. His wife Mary Anne who had borne 8 of his children (burying a couple) and worked like a slave in a two room cottage, bringing up kids, fending off aborigines, dealing with the crowds of gold miners who dug shafts on Uamby, catering to the constant stream of guests Michael entertained. She was quite a woman. And he was a jealous husband. I have a copy of his will and he stipulated that if she married after his death, she was to be kicked off the farm. Irish catholic men were sanctimonious pricks, cruel to their children, cold and distant with their women, self indulgent to the extreme, and paranoid that they might lose control. I know because my great grandfather was a pioneer who enslaved his children as free workers onhis farm. The boys would be locked in a garret with no food for long periods as punishment - his saintly wife would smuggle small snacks to them, risking the old bastard's wrath. The boys ran away to the wars and the girls joined the Church as nuns in the order of the brown St Joseph's - founded by Australia's only saint Mary McKillop. All the men bar my grandfather became alcoholics and died young, wasted, dislocated and lost. The Nuns became blissful sisters in Christ, working in the Order as teachers, with Sister Bede rising to a level of management. But Grandfather Kelly was a bastard, so said my Mother. Who's going to dispute my dead Mother's word on the matter? I know she was right because I was once an Irish catholic patriarch and a proper bastard to boot. I know Lahy's type.

Michael Lahy - terrorist, farmer, pioneer

I often sit down near Michael Lahy's graveside and talk to him. Louisa and I feel this heroic man summoned us to come to Uamby to restore it to its former glory. Michael Lahy is watching over us as we follow his wishes.
Michael Lahy is buried at Uamby in a cemetery that one owner of the property tried to bulldoze. The current custodians of Uamby are restoring the graveyard.





Michael Lahy's gravestone has stood the test of time since 1859, showing the stoic endurance that allowed him to prosper as a respected member of Colonial society in the central west of New South Wales, after a poor start as a political prisoner transported from his native Ireland. He had taken part in an attack on a police building which burned to the ground.




Volunteers helped clear the Tree of Heaven and get the headstones up off the ground where the salt erodes them. Daniel Kiely and Olivia Kemp helped move the headstones.


Master stonemason Laurie Thomson is overseeing the restoration, assisted by local identities like Michael Malenot. Laurie worked on Australia's new parliament house.




The headstones needed to be refooted.
Michael Lahy came to Australia as a convict. In 1815, at 24 years of age, he was a ringleader in an uprising against the British landlords in County Tipperary, Ireland. Of his 14 fellow conspirators, one was hanged and the rest transported. Lahy arrived on the Surrey 2 in December, 1816. He became the first squire of Uamby and his story will be told in my next blog.

A sense of wonder

"According to the blackfellow, there is magic in everything... every rock, tree, waterhole... even in the things he makes... his spears, dillybags. In fact, if you take the trouble, you yourself can find wonder in everything. we do in scientific things... what we see through a microscope, what takes place in a chemical reaction. A s geologists we find it in rocks through rationalism. As zoologists in the pools, as botanists in the trees. The blackfellow's reverence for things strikes me as much more intelligent than the blank disregard of the mass of our own people... who'd still be simple-minded enough to believe in the divinity of Christ and the sanctity of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Ghost and the rest of it."

Xavier Herbert, Poor Fellow, My Country, 1975

See blog below "Spooky stuff"

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