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Blogs by Barbara Hartmann King
A plague of army worm months were the final straw 11/17/2011 2:34:36 PM
To reiterate on Yesterday’s blog, ( the last years at Oakdale): Life on Oakdale had been a huge learning experience, almost a pioneer existence; but life has to change or one is going around in circles. Looking back now, it would seem growth cannot take place without life’s adversities.
Continuing the last days at Oakdale: Thegrain production was very much a hit andmiss situation with one good season seemingly followed by two bad seasons. Theyear we planted hundreds of acres of navy beans was the year of our undoing.The crop became infested by a migratory flight of Army worm moths with the resultingcaterpillars stripping the plants bare. It was our first time with navy beansand we had planted a huge crop, naturally hoping for a huge reward. We soughthelp and the spray cropping planes were brought in at great cost. It was aterrible disaster as it was all too late. The crop was lost and we still had topay the crop-dusting company plus the outlay of planting the crop. We did thisby parting with valuable breeding stock to pay for the many thousands ofdollars we owed. Our cattle numbers were vastly depleted. With the banksforever complaining, we sold out and bought the small cattle breeding property Wyuna at Gordonbrook near Kingaroy,again heavily in debt with the banks, too stunned by the experience of cropproduction to ever attempt it again.
Tomorrow – Life at Wyuna. ‘Wyuna’ is an aboriginal word meaning clear water.
