There is no doubt that the Rooster on the Range Road has been the talk of the town over the past few months since he first appeared along the roadway at culvert 147 or thereabouts. I can’t recall the number of times I’ve been asked or have heard people remarking, ‘have you seen the rooster lately’?
Well, now some of Paluma’s local artists and craftspeople have taken inspiration from the wee Rooster. Jennie recently painted a portrait of the feisty fowl in all his splendour. She took inspiration from a photo taken by the Cooke’s in early January soon after the Rooster took up residence on the Range.
Ros and Jennie are now planning to transfer the image of the Rooster to coffee cups/mugs for sale at the upcoming Easter Market. Other images of birds native to Paluma are also being transferred to mugs from photos taken by local residents. The Riflebird will be featured as one of Paluma’s iconic native birds. Make sure you check out the Paluma-inspired crafts at this Sunday’s market stalls.
The ‘Portrait of a Rooster’ has already been sold and now hangs on the kitchen wall in a local Paluma residence.
Text & Photo by Michele Bird (no relation to the Rooster).
One thing we do pretty well at Paluma is celebrate our multiculturalism, what with our themed Chinese New Year, International Nights and last Saturday night (18 March), the St. Patricks Day celebrations of all things Irish.
A good crowd attended the evening and the Community Hall was a sea of green with everyone enthusiastically embracing the theme of the night and dressing in green – of all shades. As always, the food produced by residents for the community dinner was astounding. There was soup, freshly baked breads, Irish stew, colcannon, barbecue meats and many other delicious dishes too numerous to mention. Of course, there were plenty of dishes featuring ‘tatties’ – the most favourite of all Irish foods.
The dessert table on Saturday night was something to behold. There was Guinness cake, savoiardi cake, Irish green chocolate cake, mango pudding, Shamrock biscuits, Irish pavlova, bread and butter pudding, green cupcakes, and the list goes on. Of course, Guinness was the choice of beverage for the evening.
The Irish quiz was hotly contested and there was a fair bit of conferring (and cheating?) going on over the course of the quiz. Google searches were strictly banned on the night. Les told a few Irish jokes to entertain the crowd. A couple of visitors to Paluma joined us on the night and were impressed by the community spirit and the very warm welcome they received from everyone.
The PDCA held an auction of several historic Paluma prints after dinner and the bidding was lively. Jamie and Juanita were the auctioneers. Several lucky patrons scored a bargain in acquiring a unique historical print for their Paluma homes. The PDCA was the big winner with the auction and sale of prints raising some $300.00 for the community.
Yesterday’s working bee to refurbish the steps at the far end of the “Rainforest Walk” attracted a great turnout. There was a total of 10 people, 3 wheelbarrows, a generator and a cement mixer all working solidly for a couple of hours to fill in the new step frames and drainage channels that Wilfred and Colin had previously set up. The final result looked very impressive. Even the existing wooden bridges and platforms along the track got a major cleanup. We finished the effort back at the Community Centre congratulating ourselves with some well-earned drinks.
It was agreed that we should aim for a regular working bee on the first Saturday of every month to carry out various maintenance and improvement projects around the city. Look out for announcements on Paluma.org
‘The Passage of Seasons’ Book Launch took place last Friday evening (18 November) at the Drill Hall Studio in North Ward, Townsville. Colwyn Campbell was joined by family and friends from all over North Queensland and beyond to celebrate the launch. Peter Cooke provided a splendid introduction and opening speech which is reproduced in full below (with permission).
We’re here tonight to launch a book in which long time friends Colwyn Campbell and Di Lucas generously share with us their experiences and thoughts generated by their deeply shared passion for the natural world.
Through the pages of “The Passage of the Seasons” we are privileged to join the life journeys of Di in the savannah of the NT’s Top End and Colwyn in the cloud forest of Paluma.
This is a book of many parts. It is a nature book, but a very special nature book in which people, particularly the authors’ families and friends, are centrally placed in the landscapes which inspire their conversations.
Alongside scientific observations and descriptions are embedded the feelings and experiences of the observers as the seasons turn month by month ….. whether against the background of wild nature or in the cultivated nature of their home gardens.
The letter-writing form of the book is also special and increasingly rare in the digital age. The inventor of email, Shiva Ayadurai, observes that texting, SMS, chat or Twitter have destroyed letter writing. In this not-so-brave new world, wise and elegant wordsmithing has been largely replaced by the five-second video grab headline or 140-characterd micro-blogging.
The establishment of a postal service in England in 1606 allowed anyone with price of a stamp to communicate with anyone with an address.
Women were quick to take advantage of the improved logistic advantages and the creation of a private space for two people to converse across slow time and far distant space.
Linguists credit women writers of the 17th and 18th centuries with inventing a more personal, private and introspective form of letter writing, using informal styles that were conversational and spontaneous, more like speech and just as lively, vibrant and at times as playful as speech, while addressing subjects from the mundane to the profound.
Di and Colwyn have built on that tradition of style and The Passage of Seasons confirms it still works just fine in the 21stcentury.
Another ancestral influence and inspiration for Passage of the Seasons was the emergence of the genre of nature diaries, a genre not exclusively female but one which continues to resonate strongly amongst biophile women writers and their audiences.
Both Colwyn and Di acknowledge the strong inspiration and influence of the English woman writer Edith Blackwell Holden, who fashioned her Nature Notes for 1906 as a model for her students’ work while teaching art at the Solihull School for girls in England.
Edith Holden’s collection of seasonal observations, poetry, and pictures of birds, plants, and insects wasn’t even considered for publication when it was composed and it wasn’t until 1977 that her nature notes were finally published and became a world best seller under the title The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady.
Other seminal sources of inspiration acknowledged by Di and Colwyn include
Earth, fire, air and water, an exchange of letters between two women artists Anne Dangars and Grace Crowley, edited by Helen Topliss.
Densey Cline’s formidable catalogue of nature books, especially the Garden Jungle
Jackie French’s ‘Seasons of content‘
’The 3,000 Mile Garden’, conversations between Leslie Land and Roger Phillips focused on their gardens on different continents
And finally ‘A Gardener’s Log’ and other books by Edna Walling which Di’s mother passed to her.
As well as these shared European influences, Di brings to The Passage of Seasons perspectives on nature and human relationships drawn from decades of interactions and friendships with the indigenous people of Western Arnhem Land.
For Colwyn, Pen Pal friendships with contemporaries in the US and the UK helped make her into a self-confessed life-long compulsive letter writer.
In the mid-20th century school children were encouraged to engage with pen friends in other countries.
Some of these formally encouraged pen-friendships were very long lasting.
In 2018 the record for a pen friendship was between Ruth Magee from Canada and Beryl Richmond in the UK who at that time had corresponded for 78 years and 160 days. They did manage to meet but only twice and only briefly.
For Di, going off to boarding school at 10 going on 11 ramped up a regular pattern of letter writing. Di and her dad exchanged letters on a weekly basis. Mum, she says, was just too busy in her garden and keeping house.
The conception and gestation of Seasons began back in Darwin some years after Colwyn and Di were introduced in Darwin in 2001 by a mutual friend, Leonie Norrington, at the launch of Leonie’s Tropical Food Gardens”, a book which Colwyn illustrated.
They found they shared lifelong interests in gardening, writing and art. They got to know one another better as Diane often called in at Colwyn’s husband’s book exchange in rural Darwin. Diane at that time was part-time teaching and already writing books for children.
Colwyn says: “I was rapt when Diane told me about a book that was germinating in her mind and asked if I would illustrate it.”
And so began their collaboration with Waterlilies, their first book together and self-published in 2007.
It was a great learning curve, says Colwyn and they were thrilled when Waterlilies received a “Notable Book” award. It has since had four reprints. This book, along with three others, are on the recommended reading list for Indigenous literacy and they have three other books in the pipeline, also for children.
So began five or six years of letter writing that has culminated in our being here tonight to launch The Passage of Seasons — a literary journey during which personal nature diaries have been folded in with intimate stories of family and friends, initally in private correspondence between Di and Colwyn across a great distance.
What the authors are sharing now is a sensory feast for all, from Colwyn’s lovingly created and charming illustrations to their mutual keen written observations and commentary on the sights, sounds, tastes, smells and touches of nature that await those who open their hearts and minds to the call of the wild.
As Colwyn says “what we hoped to achieve was something that would take the reader away from everyday worries to a peaceful mindset, not too taxing, requiring no serious level of concentration but rather to be conducive to contemplation of the natural world around us all”.
The Passage of Seasons achieves all those goals and is a magnificent celebration of nature, of friendship and lives well lived. Enjoy and share.
Text by Peter Cooke. Photos by Michele Bird and Juanita Poletto.
There’s no doubt that my place is a haven for tree snakes – especially brown tree snakes. I see them regularly in the garden, on the house roof, on the veranda (mostly dangling from the rafters), in the garage and occasionally they make forays into the laundry.
Well, now it seems that my place is such an attractive habitat for brown tree snakes that they are breeding. This rather cute, but not so cuddly, baby brown tree snake was discovered amongst the bromeliads when I was tidying the garden last Saturday (8 October). The very distinctive reddish-brown bands on the body and those enormous eyes means that the identification of this wee baby is indisputable. It was hard to estimate the length of this specimen, but it was perhaps 30 cm to 40 cm in size.
Brown tree snakes (Boiga irregularis) reproduce by laying clutches of 4 to 6 eggs. Perhaps I can expect to see more of these beautiful babies basking in my garden as the weather warms up. The main prey for juvenile brown tree snakes is recorded as small lizards, skinks and frogs.
Anyone who spent some time at Paluma Village over the ANZAC Day long weekend doesn’t need me to tell them it was wet, wet, wet!
Finally there has been some respite from the relatively dry weather over the early months of 2022 with good rainfall totals in the BOM gauge at the Village Green over the past few days. In case you were wondering how much rain we’ve had in the village, here’s a quick snapshot of the weekend totals, noting that these recordings are made each morning between approximately 7.30 am and 8.30 am. Recorders are Barry Smith, Peter Cooke and/or Michele Bird.
Friday 22 April – 145 mm
Saturday 23 April – 48.5 mm
Sunday 24 April – 24.8 mm
Monday 25 April – 65.4 mm
Tuesday 26 April – 144 mm
That’s a whopping total of 427.7 mm over the past five days!
The good news from around the village is that many of the empty rainwater tanks on the outer village blocks (in the Republic) are now overflowing. Don at Hussey Road reported that his dam is full and that was early on Monday morning before the additional 144 mm of rain over the 24 hours to Tuesday morning.
Fortunately, the rain eased off slightly at 6 am Monday morning just in time for fifteen very hardy Paluma residents to mark ANZAC Day with our version of the Dawn Service. Daylight broke with the raising of the flag, the Last Post and a minute of silence. We shared ANZAC biscuits and then headed home for a hot cuppa. Special thanks to Len and Lynda for their efforts in contributing to the Dawn Service.
An added note is that the good rainfall means that the drive up and down the Paluma Range Road is pretty spectacular just now with all creeks and waterfalls in rapid flow. I snapped a few iPhone photographs yesterday (25 April) at some of my favourite spots along the way.
Twin Falls 1Twin Falls 2. Looks like the geotech guys have added some notes to the rock wall!Crystal Creek Bridge 1Crystal Creek Bridge 2The beautiful Fairy Falls.
Text & Photos by Michele Bird with recent rainfall readings contributed by Barry Smith and Michele Bird.
Last Sunday morning (6 March 2022) saw 22 people congregate outside the old Cavilcade Guesthouse, the occasion being a bush walk organised by the Townsville Bush Walking Club under the leadership of Wilfred Karnoll to Platypus Pool and Forgotten Falls. Even at 8 am the temperature was already rising, so after doing the administrative tasks some ten vehicles headed out to Chick’s Road which was the planned end point of the bush walk. Five cars were left at Chick’s Road and the other five transported the walkers to the start point at Clapham Junction, about 4 km along the Paluma Dam Road.
We headed off and about 200 metres in along the track we admired the ‘Grandfather Tree’, a giant Eucalypt some 2 metres in diameter at the base. Unfortunately Cyclone Yasi took off most of its crown, as it was well above the canopy of the surrounding rainforest trees. What is left standing of this majestic tree is still very impressive and it must be of considerable age.
We continued along the old logging road, first through rainforest then into more open sclerophyl forest with casuarinas, turpentines, stringy barks and rose gums the dominant tree species. From the logging road we turned onto a narrow bush track that took us down to Williams Creek and the Platypus Pool, so-named after the little critters that supposedly live in it. Unfortunately we didn’t see any platypus on the day, but perhaps 22 pairs of boots and lots of lively conversation gave them ample warning to go into hiding. It was time for a well earned refreshing swim and an early lunch to recharge weary bodies.
We then continued on to Forgotten Falls, one of the tributaries of Williams Creek. Unfortunately our wet season (what wet season you might ask?) hasn’t replenished the water flow over the big rock face and there was only a trickle at this time. In a good wet season there is a spectacular waterfall at this location. The temperature of the water in the pool at the base of the falls was too warm for even the keenest of dippers, as no refreshment was to be gained from it. The big exposed rock shelf above the falls heats up what little water comes down to make it rather uninviting just now.
After taking some photos, onwards and upwards. A few keen walkers scrambled straight up the rock face, whilst the majority chose the safer track beside the falls. From there it was up a steady rise to the top of the plateau and along an undulating logging track, past an old sawmill site, still covered by lots of saw dust and discarded timber off-cuts. The cars were a welcome sight after hot and trying bush walking conditions.
A special mention and a big pat on the back to local Paluma resident Bruno, who in his mid-eighties never missed a beat all day and left some of the younger walkers well behind. Like they say – age is just a number! It was great to see some of the local Paluma residents joining in the walk to enjoy some of the unique treasures near our little village.
Article by Wilfred Karnoll and Photos provided by Jill Meads
The sun shone in Paluma last Sunday (3/10/21) and the final Paluma Community Market for 2021 was a resounding success. Crowds filled the hall to browse the stalls and the children’s playground, shade shelters and BBQ’s were filled with people enjoying the stunning Spring weather. All stallholders reported brisk trade and the sausage sizzle was a sell out. From plants to pineapples, gems and jewels, coffee and cake – the Paluma Market had something for everyone. Many visitors stayed on to browse the local art studios, enjoy lunch at the Rainforest Inn or take a walk in the cool mountain rainforest. Well done to the dedicated Paluma community volunteers who made it all happen.
All in all, a big day out in the little village of Paluma!
The following account was recently received (via Charlie Allen) from John Chick, an early resident of Paluma and one of a pioneering family that includes his brother Dave Chick, who lives on the eponymously named Chick’s road. Its great to receive these early accounts and the editors of the Paluma.org website warmly welcome this contribution and would love to receive others from people who were (or were related to) are first residents in the village. These stories are also published in our History section of the website.
My Early Memories of Paluma
by John Chick, August 2021
My early days at Paluma started around 1950 as I can recall. My parents Frank and Fran Chick along with my grandparents Jim and Marynne Chick took up a small heavily vegetated jungle block in what is now known as Whalley Crescent. At the time of the selection there was no road access to the property and everything that was needed to carry out the clearing etc had to be carried in by hand from Mt Spec Road at a point which is now the old Police Station block. It took four adults to carry our wood stove up this narrow track whilst avoiding the wait-a-while. As I was only six years old at the time I could not do much but pick up sticks and other small jobs at the direction of my grandparents.
The clearing was a big job and as we did not own a chain saw everything was done by an axe, a long scrub hook and some great fires. The property adjoined an existing block that had a modern brick home on it built by the Kiery family who had owned a Butcher shop on the western end of Flinders Street in Townsville. The property had a beautifully hand crafted aviary just inside their fence line with a large carved log as a viewing bench. The timber for the aviary had been hand shaped with an Adze as was the frame for a gate on the boundary fence adjacent to the cage. Of interest was the fact that the lower hinged end of the gate had been tapered and rested in the dimple of an upside wine bottle set in the ground as a lower hinge.
During the second world war this property was seconded by the US army and used as accommodation for its higher ranks. They must have had some great parties at this place judging be the amount of alcohol bottles, both whole and broken were all hurled over the fence into our block. My Grandmother spent many long weekends picking up very last slither of glass up.
We usually arrived at Paluma on Friday evening and after a big weekend of work would depart mid afternoon on Sunday. One of the most memorable events of the clearing procedure was the eventual removal of a very big tree situated pretty much central in the block. We had been applying fire to the base of this tree for many weekends with timber acquired from the rest of the clearing effort. Then came the Sunday when we were sure that the monster would finally fall on that day, however time ran out on us and we were having to leave for Townsville.
As was the usual, before departing we would visit Jimmy Linton’s shop where dad and grandad would have a couple of quick drinks with Jim and his wife Win. And then it happened; and we missed it; the sound of our nemesis crashing to the ground in the distance was fantastic but it was a shame to have missed the fall after all of the work that went into getting rid of it.
As most will know, you just don’t realise how much wood is in a tree until it hits the ground and you have to dispose of it. My grandmother took to this tree with the same gusto that removed the glass but it did take several months of weekends. Many years later I saw her deal out the same treatment to a very large Tamarind tree that stood in our Queens Rd back yard.
Our weekend accommodation on the mountain was at what was then called the Main Roads huts on the original road down to McClellands Lookout. They were big open plan units with a great fireplace. We had plenty of firewood.
A little further down this road and set back on the northern side was a small building about the size of a large outhouse. This area now appears to be a subdivision. I think this building was originally a munitions store for the US army and then used by Main Roads as an explosives store. The rainforest around and in behind this store was strewn with live ammunition such as 45cal pistol bullets and the common .303 rounds. The yanks did not clean up very well when they left.
The Americans had quite a presence at Paluma with the construction of a couple of radar installations in concrete igloos which have since become homes and water tanks for the town’s supply. When I first saw these igloos, some of the camouflage was still intact and the bats had taken over.
My favourite US leftover was a beautiful big log cabin which was constructed almost opposite the entrance to our block of land. The cabin was quite large with a high pitched roof and open plan design. Each log in the construction was over one foot in diameter. There was a large stone pitched fireplace on the left hand wall with a set of nice glass windows opposite. There was a heavy timber double door entrance and a smaller door at the rear. Straight out of an American movie.
I have fond memories of some of the old characters who had lived on the mountain for many years.
Jim Linton operated the local store which was an old US demountable with low push out panels as windows. It was always very dark in there and on the counter he had a stuffed Quoll on the counter and on the wall was an arrangement of native spears and a couple of boomerangs and a woomera, all collected in the locality.
Mrs Linton operated the local telephone exchange and post office in the back of this building. It just seemed a tangle of wires and plugs to me at the time.
Jim did a lot of tin prospecting throughout the area and I spent many hours wandering up and down local streams with him. The spot that I remember mostly was a little down the track that starts from the igloos and goes down the Blue Gum creek. There was a small creek off to the right of this track where we sluiced for tin and it was quite plentiful. Later on there was a vertical shaft sunk in the middle of this track adjacent to the sluicing point. The doorstops in Jim’s home consisted of two pound milk tins full of alluvial tin. Jim was also responsible for pumping the town water up from the creek behind the village to tanks situated at Lennox Crescent. I went with Jim on several occasions and it was quite an experience to see him fire up that old ancient diesel engine.
The scary man in the bark hut in the clearing. The story of Arthur (Possum) Benham is well known by locals and historians alike. To us young ones at the time, he was a scary man living alone in a very old style in the bush. Whilst we saw Arthur at a distance on many occasions I sometimes regret that I never got to speak to him. His tin workings in the clearing were quite extensive with the water collection channels commencing up near the road and going down to the extensive gullies that he had excavated. The lower end of the excavations drained into a small creek running parallel to the road and we caught many Yabbies in this creek. On the banks above the diggings were several grape vines of the green variety however they were never very productive.
At the head of Benham’s channels up by the road on the right hand side of the entrance to the clearing was the original Paluma school and the teacher was a miss Little whose parents owned the guest house at that stage.
Another local character was Tommy Nutt who owned a small home about opposite the entrance to Benham’s clearing. Tommy had a great collection of minerals and other artifacts from the surrounding area. Tommy’s income was generated by meeting the tourist bus when it arrived several times a week and taking tourists on walks on the local tracks. I was asked on one occasion myself to take a sound recordist from down south out early one morning to record the morning bird chorus as recordings were needed for the burgeoning film industry.
The Smith family lived in the last house on the right on the way out of Paluma towards Running River. They were relatively old when I met them and my brother and I mixed with their sons around the village. One son Russell lived out at the valley for some years and Trevor is now down at Eungella as part of Smith’s Sawmill. The family had been involved in the forestry all of their lives and at one stage also ran some cattle. Another brother I believe is up in the Gulf somewhere.
Paluma had a lot of visitors in those early days and the guest house was always busy. The guest house was owned by Mr and Mrs Bill Little and boasted the biggest combustion stove in the region. Old movies were regularly shown there on Saturday nights. Later on the guest house became a holiday resort for an order of religious nuns from Townsville.
A major milestone for Paluma was the clearing of the land for the creation of a park and the construction of the first community hall which was built with local logs. I recall the Saturday morning that the bull dozer arrived and the felling of the first trees began. A lot of locals assisted with this operation and also the reestablishment of the swimming pool originally constructed by the US army. I had previously walked down this creek from Benham’s end with Jim Linton prospecting for tin. At that time the metal gate at the bottom of the dam was open and the creek flowed through. For some years there was a fish around a metre long living in the pool; this looked like a Queensland Lungfish and no one seemed to know where it came from. Many great bush dances were held in the hall over the years and on one occasion I played the drums there.
As time went by, our little house was completed. Dad had pre-cut all of the frames in Townsville and then transported them to Paluma for assembly. During the week, we also made bricks in Townsville and carted them up in our Vanguard Spacemaster ute. I remember that with all of the other equipment our poor utility could only carry fifty two bricks at a time. When I was young I bought two pine tree seedlings from Magnetic Island and planted one on each side of the gate at the entrance to the property. When I was at Paluma a couple of years ago I noted that in spite of their unfamiliar environment they were now fifty or sixty feet tall but struggling. They did make great Christmas trees for us in the early days.
Power was connected to Paluma around 1969 / 70 and our farther Frank who was an electrician wired all of the homes in the village with the assistance of my brother David who had the task of pulling the wires through the ceilings.
I wonder how many Opossums and Pythons they encountered?.
The little house in Paluma was sold for $30,000 in January 1982 following the previous purchase of forty acres at Blackfriers for development. This block was purchased from Jimmy Heath who was a vegetable grower in the area. The property is on Chicks Road and is now operated as a tree plantation by David and Sharon Chick.
It was a very busy weekend at Paluma (26 & 27 June) with a hive of activity going on around the place. The rather cool winter weather and the thick veil of mist that failed to lift for several days did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm for the range of activities on offer – from bush dancing, bike riding, bushwalking and shopping.
It all started on Saturday with the annual Paluma Bush Dance hosted by Wattle ‘n’ Gum. While the Dance this year was moved to the earlier time slot of 1 to 4 pm, a good crowd of more than 50 people gathered at the Community Hall to dance the afternoon away. Lynda and Don fed the hungry patrons with a pre-dance tasty sausage sizzle, which was a sell-out. From the hokey-pokey to the heel-to-toe, everyone had a great time dancing with their friends and family. We even had a visit from Sergeant Tony from Rollingstone who dropped in to say hello and sample the sausage sizzle. Barman Les was worked off his feet to keep everyone hydrated with their favourite beverages. The PDCA did a roaring trade with the sausage sizzle, bar takings and tea/coffee sales. Well done to all the Paluma community volunteers and a big thank you to Wattle ‘n’ Gum for the fantastic entertainment. Special mention goes to Jill, Suzanne and Anne who didn’t miss a single dance all afternoon!
After a good sleep on Saturday night, the action was on again first thing Sunday morning!
Sam and a very keen crew of bike riders left the village early and rode off into the mist to make a practice run for the upcoming Paluma Push. Other visitors to the village took off on bush walks and bird-finding expeditions.
At 9 am the Paluma Market opened with Lynda and Don firing up the BBQ yet again for another sausage sizzle. Stallholders at the market reported steady trade for the day. There was a range of goods on offer to buy from plants, books, cards, jewellery, spices and condiments, handmade arts and crafts, fruit and veggies and home-baked sweet treats. Tea/coffee sales went well, boosted by Jill’s delicious fruit and nut slice (many of us ate more than our fair share!). Jill’s fund-raising for the Children’s Cancer Institute was a success and raised important funds for the charity. The winner of the ‘pick the numbers’ competition on the day was Catherine (the Spice Lady from Ingham).
All in all a very busy and action-packed weekend was had in the not-so-sleepy little village of Paluma. I don’t know about everyone else, but I need to go back to work for a rest after the weekend!
Check out these photos of some of the action over the two days…………
Roy Bird really enjoyed the sausage sizzle at the Market.
So did Colwyn and Sonya!
Text by Michele Bird. Photos by Michele, Sonya and Gail.
