Bunny Ambivalence

Rabbits are not native to Australia but, along with other European pests, arrived by ship in 1788. Within 50 years they were endemic. 

In January 1912 Mr James McGrory of Willarma Station near Yass claimed in a report published in the Hillston Spectator & Lachlan River Advertiser that he had poisoned and collected the corpses of 5000 rabbits in one night, he volunteered three witnesses in case readers disbelieved him.

Record rabbit catch in the Riverina, The Sydney Mail 28 August 1912

Later that year the Manager of Wagga Wagga’s Borambola Station, Mr A.P. Wade, boasted a haul of 2000 rabbits in a single night to the Sydney Mail. The newspaper’s photograph of his inert quarry, arranged with Kondo-esque neatness, is reproduced above.   

As recently as February 2012, the ABC news website reported Riverina shooters culling more than 1000 bunnies each night. 

Just a week ago I went for coffee at the Lucid café in Gurwood Street (the ‘Paris end’ of Wagga) and saw a miniature lop eared bunny with markings resembling a Hercules Poirot moustache, fluffily hopping around nibbling pellets and carrot sticks. When she was ready to leave, its owner (appropriately enough) popped it into her handbag a la Paris Hilton! 

Currently on Gumtree miniature rex & lop eared bunnies are available in Wagga and Thurgoona for between $30 and $120.   

Australia exported frozen rabbit meat and pelts to Britain from the 1890s onwards. Rabbit stew was a favourite dish in ‘the old country’ and no less here where its economical and nutritious qualities sustained many a family during the Great Depression.  In the 1940s and 50s rabbit stew was still a rural favourite cooked over fires in rabbiters’ camps and, according to the Daily Advertiser of 15 January 1952,  introduced to city lads like Noel Mannering, Bill Pask and Peter Giles when they ‘went bush’ to celebrate the end of their apprenticeship training.  Ah, that 'schoolies' was as benign these days!

In the 21^st century, two of Wagga’s most cherished institutions are Cottontails Harefield Vineyard & Restaurant and the Curious Rabbit Gallery-Café-Bookshop. 

Signage for arts hub in Wagga Wagga (the Paris end) referencing Alice in Wonderland 

I think it would be accurate to say that this town has an ambivalent relationship with the lagomorph. 

My own relationship with the species has also waxed and waned. An English childhood ensured that Beatrix Potter’s tales primed me to want bunnies as pets. I was given a pair when I was about nine. Benjamin was named for Potter’s creation, I can’t recall the name of his sibling. They were quite nasty and aggressive. Far from donning tam-o’-shanters and engaging in delightful whimsy, they scratched and bit me whenever I attempted to handle them or clean out their hutch and escaped to a neighbour’s (not Mr MacGregor’s) garden the first chance they got. 

Tenniel's and Potter's rabbits - my childhood bunny ideals

Despite this disappointing real life encounter, the rabbits in the books I read were consistently endearing. As well as Benjamin there was Peter and the Flopsies (we had an EP of Vivienne Leigh telling their story and singing “We don’t care, we don’t care, we don’t care a fig, there’s a cabbage in the larder though it isn’t very big (and any way tomorrow is another day!)” There was Lewis Carroll’s timid, tardy white rabbit who beguiled Alice into taking that plunge into Wonderland. There were Hazel, Fiver, Campion and Bigwig making the epic journey to Watership Down in Richard Adams’ 1972 novel. There were Jane Pilgrim’s delightful Blackberry Farm books and Enid Blyton’s adaptations of the Brer Rabbit  stories. 

I was not to get close up and personal with bunnies again for many years to come. Soon after arriving in Australia it was evident that rabbits were considered vermin here and subject to a variety of eradication techniques from baits to fumigation, from  buckshot to germ warfare*. Their fur was also the chief material used in Australia’s national hat, the Akubra. 

Sam Hood's 1927 photograph of Fort Street school boys being shown how Akubra hats were produced - some distinctly ex-looking bunnies as props.

It was quite by chance that we came to own a succession of pet rabbits in the 2000s. When we still lived in Sydney suburbia a litter was born under a neighbour’s house and one, whom my daughter named Leslie, hopped into our lives. We had him less than a fortnight when our ginger cat, Simon chased him and gave him a bunny cardiac arrest. My daughter was bereft and we actually paid good cash money for his replacement, a dwarf  lop eared rabbit called Waldorf (after a block of apartments we passed in Parramatta en route to collect him). Waldorf had a mischievous and engaging nature. He spent some time in his hutch but plenty with us in the house. Our Friday night ritual was for the family to occupy the sofa and to seat him on the window sill behind us as we shared a Cadbury’s family block with him and watched a movie. Waldorf’s life was short – he disappeared one night, probably the victim of a dog, fox or owl - but evidence was that he had fulfilled his destiny with a neighbour’s doe as we saw his likenesses hopping about the street a few weeks after his demise.

Waldorf being forced to endure a white rabbit trope - he hated that fob watch and immediately chucked it off the settee

After Waldorf we had Doris, Brian and Stuie – all blow-ins, or hop-ins, and perhaps  (at least the first two who had lop ears) Waldorf’s descendants. Their fate was sealed when we moved to Wagga. They did not cope well and succumbed, we thought at the time, to the heat, but now I wonder if they caught calicivirus. Any way all three perished within a few months of relocation. Strange thing was that there was another bunny hopping about, a fawn coloured beauty. An abandoned packet of pellets and an empty hutch told us it had been the former residents’ pet. It seemed well adapted to the climate but our neighbour ran it over in her 4 wheel drive.   

So the Riverina is no place for rabbits unless they are on a wine bottle label or a bookstore’s signage. However wild ones do abound so I guess the rifle totin’ locals can still catch a cheap tasty feed  or contribute to the Akubra supply chain!

*Anthropomorphic and cute though bunnies may have been in British literature I realised on a trip back to the UK in 1984 that the country of my birth had also tried to wipe out wild lagomorphs (although they were not an introduced species there), with the myxomatosis virus. We encountered an ailing rabbit on a drive through country lanes and after ‘rescuing’ it my Uncle Ken had to dispatch it with a resounding ‘thunk’ of his shovel. 

A wee Riverina town

The Doug Anthony All Stars had fun with the name ‘Uranquinty’ when they came to Wagga. I checked, ‘Uranquinty’ is indigenous; it means yellow box tree and plenty of rain. These days Uranquinty’s average rainfall is about the same as the rest of the Riverina’s but maybe it was remarkable a few thousand years ago. The yellow box tree is a slow-growing, spreading eucalypt with yellowish tinged bark that shreds in ribbons. According to Landcare, it thrives in ‘light to heavy well-drained moist soils but ’resents high water tables’.  Again, did it enjoy more of a drink back in the day? 

Then there is the association with the 2001 musical, ‘Urinetown’ which I haven’t seen but, as it is described as a witty post-Brechtian satire on disaster capitalism,  it would undoubtedly be just my cup of diuretic tea.

It would be crass to dwell on these cross-linguistic homonyms were it not for the fact that at least some amongst the town’s roughly 900 residents find lavatories and drainage a source of great civic pride. This is evinced by pages on their promotional website ‘Uranquinty the Friendly Village’ and ‘Visiting Uranquinty’ which between them feature five images related to public toilets and waste disposal: two images of the toilet block in the rest area, two images of  art work on the wall of said toilet block, and an image of the grey and black water disposal facility. These pictures are given prominence and, unlike photographs of the cenotaph, roll of honour, RAAF memorial and statue commemorating immigrant women and children, are displayed the right way up!

A good investigative blogger does not rely only on secondary sources and old DAA jokes, she goes to the source – especially if the source has one of the region’s best bakeries! So I recently made my fifth visit to Quinty, as the locals call it. Despite two days without rain, the gutter outside the Quinty Bakehouse was awash - spooky! Having applied hand sanitiser and availed ourselves of different entry and exit points, we took our coffee and two of the tarts spruiked on their ample signage opposite to Wirraway Park. This ‘popular rest stop and play area right on the Olympic Highway’ (Wagga Wagga Council website) features all of the above mentioned monuments and 10 life-sized cow cut-outs made from hand-forged solid flatbar steel by artist Jane Cavanaugh. The cows are fun, juxtaposed nicely and good for teasing the dog. They also light up at night.

I’ve lived in the Riverina for five and a half years now but I still behave like a tourist reading every plaque, inspecting all public art and commemorative installations, researching the area’s history and taking lots of photos. So I checked out the simple cenotaph and granite plaque commemorating locals who served and fell in World Wars 1 and 2 respectively. For such a small town, Quinty made a huge contribution to the forces in the latter conflict. In a chicken and egg conundrum I haven’t been able to determine if that is because an RAAF training school and fuel depot were located here, or vice versa.

I was surprised and pleased to see Canny Kinlock‘s sculpture of a woman, with her two children and suitcase, representing refugee families offered  a home in one of Uranquinty’s disused army and air force camps in the late 40s and early 50s, their men folk often working as labourers on the Snowy Mountains hydro scheme. 

But all that is on the public record. I sought the public toilets. Our coffees did their work and it was time to inspect these facilities.  Inescapable on approach is the bright blue plastic lidded ‘Dump-Ezy’ tank. Resembling a children’s paddling pool or sand pit, though one hopes it is never mistaken for either, it is labelled  a ’dump point’ for the ‘disposal of black and grey water’ from RVs and caravans. Grey nomads, for whom my spouse and I are sometimes mistaken, pass this way often and take the opportunity to download, so to speak.  I know about ‘grey’ water, we use it on the garden, but ‘black’ water I had to look up. Ah, it is the liquid that comes from flushing the toilet in mobile homes it ‘contains the pathogens of faeces and the nutrients of urine … diluted (by) flush water’.  Put like that is seems crime to harbour it – or to waste it!

The ‘dump point’ does tend to dominate the view which is a shame as a framed photograph of the toilet block on the wall of the toilet block (a bit meta that) features a caption in texta drawing attention to the fact that ‘the toilet block is made to blend in with the silos at the back’, an idea ‘suggested by Elaine Mortimer’ and realised ‘by locals’. 

Heritage-sympathetic architecture is alive and well in Quinty! 

Our historical and aesthetic education continued even further as we entered the conveniences. Front and centre is an unattributed mosaic depicting the (European) history of Quinty including the growing and cartage of crops, the pleasures of being a smocked figure sitting in the fields (although this could be a trio of scarecrows), two small planes looking as if they are about to engage in a dog fight and a glimpse of the formidable silos. Most prominent of course is the pub! Fair enough, it is one of only half a dozen functioning businesses in the town, is a nice arts and crafts influenced design and has probably contributed a fair number of users to these facilities.

Thinking I was unlikely to ‘squeeze’ any further ‘drops’ of blog material out of this visit, imagine my delight on opening the cubicle door to yet greater evidence of Quinty’s joy in all things lavatorial!

Note: All photographs are mine except for Yellow Box Tree, Wagga source: Wikipedia and Unranqunity public toilet block source: Google Maps

Ekphrasis - Tree Conversations

Poems written in response to the exhibition Conversations With Trees - networking with the world wide wood, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery,  8 February - 3 May 2020. 

As Above So Below - Nancy Tingey 2019 (pictured below)

Shiny filaments of polyester

Static yet sprouting

spindly roots and branches

Fibre from the techno-sphere

rendered into an

exclamation of grasses

Avian sounds playing in the background

at odds with these synthetic forms

woven, meshed, bound

coiled, spun, and splayed.

Neatly wild

in their perfect glossy blackness,

too pristine

to come from soil.

Jan Pittard© 2020

  

Picnic for the for the Trees - Dotti le Sage 2020

Intercontinental Picnic - Dotti le Sage 2020

The artist says she is illustrating

our symbiotic, ceremonial and social connections with trees.

She has superimposed images

of classic vessels and bric-a-brac shop china

on screen prints of plantation timber.

Strange to see a picnic site

set with genie bottles and Doultonware

Where are our discarded soft drink bottles,

Maccas wrappers and lethal plastic straws?

Have they charred with the perished forest

in the fires?

These pictures remain.

Jan Pittard© 2020

Peeling Away Series I – V - Christine Appleby 2018 (pictured above)

Calico tinsel spirals

suspended tubes and cylinders

dancing threadbare weaves

Sheer gossamer

with copper sheen

Steely filaments

fraying strands

suspended with wires

to hold their billowing forms

Gallery lights cast inevitable shadows,

less subtle versions of your tactile selves

‘Coiling shapes of peeling, falling bark’ says the artist...

Your lustre is like no chalky gum tree surface I have seen;

you belong to a submarine realm.

Buoyant, adrift

insubstantial

Through the camera  

less solid still,

strands no longer distinct

blurs of putty and saffron

like imploding fungi

Improvisation on a theme?

Interpretation of a brief?

Word on object.

Parasite on parasite.

Jan Pittard© 2020

Nordic Saga

I

We were at Ikea in Fyshwick

at opening time

in anticipation

of domestic transformation.

The excitement abated

after the first hour and a half.

In the end we were there

for over three hours…

We lost each other four times

and had to text or call.

There is a store plan and arrows

projected on the floor;

we were generally heading

counter to the arrows

while technically not illegal,

it still felt like failure.

Towards the end we discovered secret shortcuts,

‘worm holes’ Bob called them,

but nothing spared our aching legs and feet.

II

We went to Ikea to get the Hemnes and the Fillan

simple enough you would think.

We ended up with the Skurup, the Skogslok,

the Djungelskog and the Dronas;

the Fillan was out of stock.

They were expecting some in

but we baulked at the $200 delivery charge to Wagga

and decided to wait,

to take a chance,

see if we can get it next time.

We did order two Flarras to come by courier though,

much cheaper

they should be here on Tuesday.

III

At home now

we are integrating our Hemnes

into our existing furnishings.

It has Scandinavian cousins

in our Billy bookcase and a 1980s trolley

anonymous now

forerunner of the Bror.

Ikea names come

not from a random generator of letters

as it is  tempting to think,

but from words for Swedish places, people and things
(I know because Bob Googled it in bed).

The tradition was set by its founder,

Ingvar Kamprad

who struggled with numbers;

I can relate.

There is a taxonomy online

don’t be disappointed

it is still quirky…

kitchen utensils get their names

from fish, mushrooms

and adjectives.

IV

The first flatpack is open

there are 30 wooden plugs,

24 shoulder bolts

and two sets of eight screws.

Bob says assembling the Hemnes

is therapeutic -

let’s see how he feels

after three hours!

© 2020