Being a kid on a cattle station
Host: Country Downs Station
Written by Nikki Elizovech – Owner, Country Downs Station.
In the past, we have had visitors, workers, and friends write a blog to give another point of view about our life and what we do. This year, William, our eldest son, was interested in knowing what ‘Central Station’ was and what it had to do with our family. Whilst I was trying to explain to him why we were a part of it, I asked him “Would you like to tell people about the things that you do, like, and don’t like about living on a station?”. Being the person that Will is, he said “sure”. So here is our boy’s story for you.
Hi my name is William, but you can call me Will, and I am eight years old. I live on Country Downs Station. It is a big property and we have a couple of thousand head of cattle. I would like to tell you about some of the animals that live on the station. We have three dogs, five cats, three horses, two poddy calves and a poddy goat, nine pigs (five are piglets), a few chooks, and 23 chicks and they are just our pets!
Hi, My name is Will.
I would like to tell you about our poddy goat now. His name is Turd, because he is a little rat! He goes through holes in the fence to get into our back yard. He also eats everything! He chewed our Christmas tree, he ate mum’s plants in the back yard, and he always tried to get in the house and the schoolroom. If he got into the house or school room, he would poo and wee everywhere! That’s why we called him Turd.
These are our poddies. ‘Turd’ the goat is in the bottom of the photo, he never did stay very still.
I would like to tell you about how I do school now. I do School of the Air and so, there are not many other kids in my class. My class has kids from Year Three, Four, and Five with a total of nine kids. When we want to catch up with our friends we go to school camps. At school camps we get to play with all the other kids and we do school work with our teachers. We also get to do other fun stuff like a disco night, a games night, and a movie night. Sometimes we get to do swimming lessons, we also get to see Santa at the end of the year and we do a talent show. It was really funny watching the home tutors and parents do a funny act where they put pillows down granny undies to make them look like they had big butts. Everyone went BOO! But it was really funny and we were all actually laughing.
Doing sport at school camp with other kids from the Kimberley School of the Air.
There are both good things and bad things about doing school of the air. The good things are that the teachers get to come out to our place and a do a home visit. It is really good to see my teachers and to show them around our station. I really like having my Home Tutor, Samara, too because she is really hilarious. Some of the bad things about School of the Air is that I don’t get to see my friends all day and I don’t like doing Maths, English, tests, reading, or writing. I guess I don’t like doing any school work really. We don’t do school in the house or at the kitchen table, we actually have a proper school room, with a maths kit, science box, desks and chairs, art stuff, library books, and a computer. We also have lots of posters and work hanging up and a whiteboard to write on.
My brother, Rory, and I doing maths in the schoolroom.
On the weekends, I can go and play on the computers in the schoolroom, but I also go and ride my bike around the homestead yard, climb up cars and trees. Sometimes I get to help muster the Senepol cattle on the motorbike. That is a lot of fun.
I hope that you enjoyed my blog and that you now have a better idea of how it would be like to live on a station like Country Downs as a kid.