General News
29 December, 2022
Rabbits buy a car
SUMMER READINGBy CHRIS EARLMARGARET Curnick remembers being driven home from the movies in a 1928 Buick with side canvas blinds instead of windows. There was a thick coat Don would give her to keep warm in those courting day before the two married...
SUMMER READING
By CHRIS EARL
MARGARET Curnick remembers being driven home from the movies in a 1928 Buick with side canvas blinds instead of windows.
There was a thick coat Don would give her to keep warm in those courting day before the two married a few years later.
That same Buick, to be sold at a clearing sale next month on the family property at Fiery Flat, was later cut down to a utility-style vehicle, carting equipment and produce around the property. The rear panels still in storage today.
“When Don left school at 16 to work on the farm with his father Harry in 1947, he was running a team of eight horses,” Margaret said.
“Extra income came from hunting rabbits and selling them to Jack Edwards in Wedderburn for one shilling and threepence a pair.
“Don would get up 50 pairs a night. His most successful night was 130 pairs.
“In summer, he would set up a wire netting chute near a dam to trap the rabits.
“They had to be delivered within 24 hours of being caught and skinned and were taken to Wedderburn, covered in hessian to avoid fly strike.”
Selling the farm’s team of working horses, harnesses included, for £40 and rabbits earned Don enough money to buy a 1950 Vanguard Standard ute, another of the old vehicles and farming machinery and implements that will go under the auctioneer’s hammer.
“He paid £1050 for the Vanguard, replacing the Buick Tourer,” Margaret said.
The family still has the original Buick manual with instructions for care and maintenance. The Vanguard was purchased from W. Smith and Son at Borung, Don’s sister Ruth married Geoff Smith, “the son in the business”, said Don and Margaret’s son Peter.
The ute was well used for driving lessons in the Curnick family after Don and Margaret were married in 1954. “Even then, there were still horses working on some district farms,” Margaret recalls.
The Curnicks farmed more than 1200 hectares, breeding Merinos until switching to crossbreds with Dorsets and fat lambs in the 1990s.
There were also the crops and chickens, pullets being sold in Charlton.
“They (the Curnick family) were farmers. There were some very good crops over the years too. And wool ... the biggest one year was 115 bales,” she said.
And throughout the decades, as Don and Margaret’s agricultural machinery and impelements were updated, the collection covering a century of transport and farming also grew.
Items of other family members eventually made their way to the Fiery Flat property.
“Some of Uncle Charlie Jones’ bits and pieces were brought here,” Margaret said.
Relics from the days of horse remain - hoof cutters, bellows in the old blacksmith shop, a gig.
The Buick made a comeback, too, in the 1970s when it featured in the back-to Korong Vale parade, masquerading as the Fiery Creek Fire Brigade truck.
The sale inventory shows the Curnicks were always fire vigilant - six of the old heavy metal knapsacks, in their day a revolutionary improvement on hesian-strip beaters strenuously thumped into flames - will also find a new home after the clearing sale. Peter remembers when the Buick would be out at night used for spotlighting, the hunting of rabbits.
Margaret and Peter have stories about so many of the items now listed for sale and memories of a family farm and a family part of the district.
Margaret recalls, talking rabbits again, that they caught the furry pest to raise money for the Korong Vale cricket club to buy new gear. “The won the premiership that year,” she said.
As for the future of the collection, Margaret said: “Let’s hope it can be of some use to people some how”.
This week, however, the 88-year-old has a real bright moment to enjoy.
Margaret will meet with first great-grandchild for the first time.
Maeve Lili is 10 months old and will travel with mum Nicola from Queensland to the Loddon.
Interstate travel restrictions throughout the past year had prevented Margaret from meeting great-grandchild number one.
And as the Curnick famly goes into another generation, there is no doubt Margaret will have even more stories to share.