Letter # 481 September 27, 1944

New Guinea
Wed. eve
Sept. 27, 1944
Hello Beautiful;
No letters again today so this will turn into another traveltalk or something.  My day was the usual things except that it was Wed and we have the afternoon off.  We are now getting Wed & Sat afternoons off and all day Sunday, so you can see we aren't hurting ourselves very much.  If my Mummy were only someplace near it would be a pretty good life.  Have lots of time to see you.  The nights are nice and long too.  I like long nights when I'm with you.  Here there is nothing to do but sleep and while I guess that doesn't hurt me any, I can think I can think of lots of things I'd sooner do with part of that time.  Sure are wasting a lot of valuable time aren't we?  I love you so much, honey.  I want you darn it.
I just want to tell you that I used up part of my afternoon working on my project and even got a start on another so you see, in place of one project I now have two in the fire.  So far they are doing satisfactorily and I think you'll like 'em.  Now don't wet your pants 'cause they won't be finished for some time and I'm not sure they will come air mail.  Don't you wish you knew what they were?  Can you guess?  Aw, come on and try.  This is fun, honey.  I told you I'd get even some way and I think I'm doing it now.  How about it?  Mean isn't it, honey?  I also took a couple links out of my new bracelet so it fits real good now.  I like it a lot, honey.  Means an awful lot.
While I'm thinking about it, here is another request.  If you can still get it, I could use a couple tubes of Lepage's Liquid Solder and a couple of  Dupont's Household Cement.  Harold will have them if they are available.  Also a couple bars of red sealing wax.  The stuff that gets real hard and looks like a
chocolate bar.
You are probably wondering what in the hell I want those things for.  Well, you can wonder but I won't tell you. They are the beginning of some more surprises that I have in mind for the future.  I  should have asked for them long ago but I never expected to have the time to use them.  May not when they get here but then again I may.  That's all I'm going to say about that now.  I'm teasing you.  Can you tell?  I love you too.  You're my beautiful, bewitching and beguiling Baby.  My wife too and that's the best part of it all.  I'd be lost without you even now when I don't have much of you.  You're sweet.
Now I'm going to talk a bit about Australia.  I know you could find all of this in books but I got it first hand and most of it is something I never knew so it may be as interesting to you as it was to me.
The chap I was talking to is from the southern part, about 160 miles west of Sydney and a hundred north of Melbourne.  He is from a sheep station, as they call them.  We'd say ranch 'cause they have about 3400 acres and sheep is about all they raise.  They have a small herd of white face beef that they pasture ahead of the sheep to eat off the taller grasses.  The pastures are largely native virgin grass but in the past few years they have been planting some alfalfa.  That grows easily, no lime or fertilizer necessary.  This probably isn't very interesting to you but Pop may be interested.  The sheep are all Moreno.  Here was an interesting point.  They are subject to drought some years that get so bad there is absolutely no feed at all.  Instead of having a store of hay or grains or feed of some sort all ready for such an emergency they cut the tops from a native bushy tree and feed that.  The trees grow in spots all over that area and they are careful to keep them and even plant more.  The topping doesn't hurt them much and in a season or so will be grown out enough to use for feed again.  The leaves are very nutritious and even when fed exclusively for two or three months the sheep are still in good shape.  One tree will furnish a day's feed for about a hundred sheep. Some work though I'd say.  Think of feeding 5000 sheep that way.
Water wells are easily had at a depth of only 50 to 80 feet and never run dry.  Funny for a semi arid country. In that area about half the wells are artesian and the rest have to be pumped.
Farther north around Charlesville and Winton, the whole valley west of the coast range, all the wells are artesian and some so strong they spout ten to fifteen feet above the ground.  They never know though until the well comes in if it will be cold water or hot water.  Isn't that something?  Both good water so it should be handy if a man was lucky enough to have one of each.  I know if we had that we'd have a swimming pool in no time and even be able to control the temperature of the water.  All the hot water you could possibly use.  They make no attempt to irrigate any of their land.  Don't need it.  They only have a small population,
 7 million, and can grow all thy need and more in the coast areas where they have plenty rain.
One of their biggest pests is the lowly cottontail rabbit and he is so bad they are compelled to fence their land with netting fences or they eat everything in sight.  They kill them wholesale and since the war they are used for food for the army.  We've had them once here.
Another pest as well as useful, is the emu.  It's an ostrich like bird of great size.  They are so strong that they tear up the fences if they want in or out and so, cause trouble. The Aussies make sport of running them down on horses and roping them.  The useful part is the eggs.  They raise no fowls in Australia so the emu egg is their only eggs.  Big enough to make a meal for six men and good tasting.  They are plentiful so when they want eggs they hunt one up and lug it home.  Only enough dairy to supply their own wants.  They have no market for any produce unless it is shipped such great distances so they have lived largely for themselves.  Now they are supplying a large part of the food for the Yanks down under and you can see why we eat as we do.  They must be doing a wonderful job under the present pressure.  They have a larger percent in the armed forces in proportion to population than we have.  Labor is really scarce.  After getting used to their manner and speech I like the Aussies I've met very much.
The climate was a big surprise to me. I had always thought that it was largely the same as our country.  It isn't.  The entire northern half is sub-tropical, very similar to New Guinea.  The southern half is more temperate but compares to the climate in our southern states.  It freezes in the southern part and has been known to get as cold as 15 above zero at times but snow is rarely seen except for the mountain peaks.  How does that compare with your idea of it?
The interior is largely semi arid, like our own New Mexico and Arizona, and grows a bush similar to our sage brush and sparse grass. It is largely open land.  Only mines and etc. have as yet opened it up at all.  That explains the large Australian Air Force.  No roads and vast distances to be covered so they did it by plane long before nations like ours used them much.    
Editor's Note: The closing page of this letter is missing.  May find it yet.