VIN & MOLLY McARDLE
By David McArdle
In 1956 Mum and Dad bought two house cows and separator for the family to make butter, cream and milk to help the family budget. Mum milked these before we went to the farm where this operation became an important income for the family living and clothing. At its peak we milked about twenty cows, night and morning and separated the cream to be sold to the cream factory in Kingscote. Mum was definitely head of this operation. It was not fun on a cold, wet night to get home late and face up to milking because if you left them the cows would eventually dry up. We were even known to arrive home at nearly midnight and line up and do them.
In the early 1960s, a bucket type of milking plant meant the retiring of the M.D.&K Unit (Mum, Dad and Kids). The Villiers engine was a brute to start, whoever was allocated the job to start it regularly, did a lot of muttering, and Dad spent many hours patiently repairing it. The arrival of a Honda motor was a blessing, until it aged, but it usually started.
The arrival to our farm meant a lot of work for Dad. There was nothing on the place other than the house, Armco shed and three L.D.E. dams. Miles of fencing to be done so stock could be run on the property and most of the early fencing all done by hand, until a contractor would come to use a post hole digger. Several iron dropper and wooden strainer fences were done so at least the milking cows could be brought home to a temporary dairy which was still standing last time I was in Karatta. The Armco shed held everything, super, vehicles and any plant and tools that Dad brought with him. A thirty-two-volt lighting plant, generator and batteries were put in the small shed by the house, built by Mum and Dad.
The house yard fence needed to be built and a clothesline. I look back and I can understand why it could easily have become all too much. In those days money was not easy to borrow, even if you had been able to, you had to make do, and with excess cream money to buy something to make life easier both in the house and outside.
