Written in response to a cool image I saw
on Bushboy’s World. Thanks to Brian for
letting me use it and for filling in the gaps.
In 1986, Dad, Mum and their six-month-old baby moved to the bush. The block was all tall gums and quiet, and there was nothing on it yet but the plan in Dad’s head.
He built the first house from what the land and the district could spare. The poles came from trees he cut down on the property, the framing timber from second-hand building suppliers, and the walls from the bush timber mill just up the road. Out the back of the mill was a pile of reject fence palings, the warped, split and knotty ones nobody would buy. Dad took them home by the trailer load and nailed them up side by side. They weren’t pretty, but they kept the weather out, and they were theirs.
The house grew a room at a time, built around the baby’s naps and whatever materials turned up. The room everyone loved most was the bathroom. It had a concrete floor laid with tiles, a bath with a shower over it, and a basin. There was a wood-fired hot water service that had to be fed before anyone could have a hot wash, so on cold mornings the first job of the day was lighting it. In the corner sat a twin tub washing machine, which spent years working through nappies, work clothes and red mud. After a day of clearing and building, a hot bath under a tin roof in the middle of the bush felt like luxury.
The family grew along with the house. Another daughter arrived, then another. By 1991 there were three girls, the youngest a new baby, and the little paling house was full to the rafters. It was time for a proper one.
Dad built it, and when moving day came the bathroom went too. The bath, the basin, the hot water service and the faithful twin tub were all unbolted, carried out and set up again in the new house, where they carried on as if nothing had happened.
The old bathroom was left empty, with paling walls, a tin roof and that good concrete floor. Most people would have pulled it all down. Dad stood in the doorway and looked at the floor. It was level and solid and it stayed dry when it rained, and it was certainly too good to waste.
So he backed in Old Smokey, the farm ute.
It suited them both. The ute that hauled firewood, fencing wire and everything else around the block finally had a roof over its head. He ran the roofline out over some extra rafters, and the bathroom where three babies had been bathed became the ute’s shed.
Today, the palings have weathered to silver and the bush has grown in close. The girls are long grown, and the morning mist still drifts through the gums the way it did in 1986. If you look past the ute, you can still see the bones of the old house: the paling walls, the window frames and the tin roof Dad put up when it all began.
Old Smokey sits on the tiled floor, right where the bath used to be.
NAR© 2026
This is “She’s My Ute” by Lee Kernaghan
Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.
