Category Archives: Farm Life

The hellscape of 2019

by . Posted on
07 May

After the drought and the fires we knew that this would be a year of healing.  When the rain fell on Christmas Day, we all felt a glimmer of hope.  Never before have I been so glad to slam the door on a year as I was at the end of 2019.  We were broken people.  Brittle and hard, dusty and withered by the heat, the dry, the exhaustion of trying to save our cattle.  

And then there were the fires.  Three months of fear as they circled us, finally blazing through the bush and rainforest we take such pride and joy in.  Helicopters scurried to and fro overhead day after endless day, making long journeys to the Hastings River for fire fighting water.  They tried to collect from one of the rapidly dwindling pools in the river below us, but it was too dangerous.  We were grateful not to have that stress as well.  

The river stopped flowing in October.  The baking sun evaporated inches every day and rather than the cool depths we are used to refreshing ourselves in after hot days of farmwork, there were just a few muddy warm puddles for us to flounder in.  The same water which served our stock and the house, that we wash our bodies and our clothes in.  The home of our precious platypus population.  Never before, in living memory, has the Ellenborough River stopped flowing.  

Our once verdant pastures were desiccated dust bowls.  Our beautiful Jerseys dropped to their knees and we battled to save them.  We stressed about money as we paid for tonne bags of pellets and small mountains of luxurious lucerne.  We nursed and nurtured the fallen as we begged them to get up and get well.  We sold others rather than lose them too.  Every day seemed to be a weighing of the scales with death.  The Grim Reaper wielded his scythe mercilessly.  We have seen horror before but this was different.  Millie, Milka, Henrietta, Damson, Clara were all hand fed and much loved pets as much as quiet and peaceful matriarchs in the herd.

Big Red was a huge cow with monster horns.  She went down and we kept sitting her up but Ged went away for work and I couldn’t do it alone.  But by buggery I wasn’t going to let her die so I used every ounce of my ingenuity and strength during that week – erecting shade over her, hoisting her up onto her knees so she could eat and drink and try and regain her strenght.  She died anyway.

Damson had been abandoned by her mum the day she was born so was hand reared by us.  She and Petal were inseparable.  I was worried about her birthing for the first time so checked on her daily.  She went down and I tried to help but she ran from me and slipped into the river.  That was a long day of literally trying to keep her head above water until we could lift her out.  Once dry and safe we fed her up, to no avail.

I lost all my favourites last year.  All my four legged friends.  It was brutal.

We had the joy of Goldie and her puppies.  8 little parcels of love.  And then Goldie went off for a wander with Mudji and never came home.  We hunted high and low.  With no body to bury and her babies to raise, there was no time for the deep grief of her loss.

Even the neighbours in their 80’s who have farmed this land their whole lives said beasts were dropping like flies.  None of us knew that the drought would go on so long and that it would be as bad as it was.  We were relying on spring rains.  They never came.  We all started feeding too late.

Added to the heat, dust and fire stress then was the sweet stench of our friends’ rotting flesh as we weren’t allowed to burn them.

I’ve never been in a war zone.  My experience can’t compare but that’s what it felt like – heat, smell and smoke.  Choppers whirring overhead.  A constant feel of threat and dread.  By December Ged and I were ready to walk off the land.  It was too much.  We were too scarred, so tired, broken.

We promised ourselves ‘no rash decisions’ as I restlessly googled farms for sale in New Zealand.  We knew 2020 would be a year of healing, of finishing projects, of letting time and space separate us from our grief.  Little could we know what this year had in store . . .

And yet.  Covid has forced us home and stopped the rush and scurry of our lives, leaving the farm to take Ben to school etc.  We have had more rain in the first few months of 2020 than in the past few years in total.  The grass has hurled itself out of the ground.  Mother Nature is recovering.  And so are we.  Time to be.  Time to be here.  To let the sounds seep into our souls.  To sleep, at last.  To watch the meandering river and its quiet life.  To listen to its burbling over rocks.  To watch eagles soaring, the cormorant drying his wings, the platypus paddling on the surface before duck diving once more.

And in these quiet pleasures comes peace.  A deep stillness settling in my soul  as Nature heals the deep heart she has wrought.  As we rest easy in her abundant embrace after wrestling with her and The Grim Reaper last year.

I guess I’m a farmer now.  I guess I learnt just why they can be dour and taciturn.  I learned about the pain lodged like a stone in their hearts.  And I have become quieter as a result. 

 

Drought, Fire & Flooding Rains . . .

by . Posted on
17 Feb

I guess I couldn’t really understand what it was to be a farmer in this country without experiencing Drought. I console myself with that idea. The climate denialists will quote Dorothea McKellar’s beautiful ode to Australia as rationale for their beliefs, and it is true that Mother Nature operates in cycles, but we are in extremis now.

https://www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/archive/mycountry.htm

When we first came here, the farmers around us who had lived and farmed this land all their long lives told us that the Ellenborough River had never stopped flowing. It stopped in September 2019. We felt confident in our oasis with its creeks, springs and river. But we watched our stagnant pools dropping by inches a day in the vicious heat of spring and summer. We feared for ourselves, our stock, our platypus population – the river and rainfall are what sustains us all.

We scrambled frantically on the phones to find feed and then for funds to pay for it. We had to put our hand up for charity when we just couldn’t take any more. We watched beloved cows drop to their knees and despite our best efforts never get up again. We spent days digging a downer out of a bog, feeding and watering her and hand feeding her calf. We got intimate with maggots in an array of injuries. We learned just how useful hip lifters are. We hauled on heavy cows to turn and lift them. We tried and we tried and we tried . . . and we failed. We lost too many to count. We lost friends, four leggeds that we raised by hand and loved beyond measure: Isis, Damson, Millie, Milka, Henrietta, Big Red, JB and more. And then there were all the cows and steers we had to sell for a pittance because we feared they too would lie down and die.

And then there was Goldie. Our golden girl. Our beautiful bitch. Ben’s dog. There is something so incredibly beautiful about a boy and his dog. Listening to his peals of laughter as she scrambled all over him as she has done since a pup. He loved her so much. We all did. And her puppies were a miracle (unplanned though her pregnancy was, I am so grateful for it now). I stayed up all night and at one point woke Ben to come and see a baby being born. It was a sacred time. And despite her exhaustion and overwhelm (8 babies!!) Goldie was an amazing Mum. She hid under the house for a while that first day (& who can blame her?) and then she would disappear for a little while very day for a rest. Slowly traversing further afield as the weeks passed – down to the river for a swim and explore. Never too far, always back in an hour for the next feed. Until the day she disappeared with Mudji and didn’t come home. As night fell we were frantic and started feeding the babies (luckily I had bought some powdered puppy milk as a supplement for Goldie at the pet shop’s advice). Mudji turned up at the neighbour’s the next day as usual but no Goldie. It was Ben’s birthday weekend and we were out looking high & low, calling for her. No sign. No trace. No sound. Nothing. No body to bury. No real closure. No time to grieve.

We raised her pups, Ben instantly claiming the little lemon beauty as Goldie’s replacement and I held the little black boy close to my heart and refused to let him go despite Ged’s disapproval. And then we had to let them go too. God, that was hard. Every goodbye felt like another part of Goldie leaving us. And they were all so beautiful, just like her. But the fact that they are so loved by the families they have gone to, and that her light lives on in this world, is a source of great joy.

I don’t like who we became last year. Brutal, brittle, broken people. We talked very seriously about walking off the farm. We just couldn’t take it any more. We were in shock, I see now that it was like a war zone mentality – we became immured to death somehow, closed off from it, sealed from its shockingness in order to protect our own hearts.

And then came the fires. Moving slowly, but inexorably our way from Mt Seaview and Yarras. That added another level of stress. I went away to a long planned yoga retreat, hoping for healing. Instead I got a text from Ged with a dramatic photo of the fire now in the neighbour’s place and barrelling down on us. So I learned to live in the moment – going deep into meditation and breathing and then coming out to get on the phone and issue rapid fire instructions what to pack, what to leave, where essentials were, how to protect our assets. I stayed and focussed while fear built in me and then drove home via Bunnings on the Monday, filling a trolley with hoses and sprinklers. Ben was evacuated and we had two days to prepare ourselves and our property for the onslaught.

George, our 85 year old neighbour came by. He was scared. He doesn’t scare easy. He was worried about crown fires and fireballs and the lack of water, how dry it was, how little hope we could escape annihilation. But we did. Although the fires continued around us for months. ‘Watch & Act’ sounds so benign. But it is a state of hypervigilance, of nerves in tatters, of fear that I never want to experience again. And the helicopters overhead hour after hour, day after day, the thick smoke we breathed for months, and the sweet stench of death from my rotting friends gave me a feeling of Vietnam or some other vile warzone.

We went away but Ged had to come back to fight fire, to fix broken water pipes, to take delivery of more unaffordable hay. We couldn’t relax. We were constantly on edge, cranky, snappy.

The first rain came on Christmas Day – the ultimate Christmas gift. In January a slow moving wall of clear rainwater saw the river flowing again. Now we have cleansing floods, trees tossed and bobbing on fast moving muddy flood water as the riverscape is purified once more.

And now the healing can begin. I have begun what I call ‘crying yoga’ the nights on my mat sobbing for my lost friends. And walking the landscape, remembering their faces, their soft pelts, their wet noses.
We are scarred by 2019. We will never forget. I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know this – the global human population has exploded over the past 150 years as has our consumption, manufacturing, coal burning and carbon creation as we evolve from horse and cart to steam power, electricity, petrol & diesel driven cars, planes and more. We cannot possibly believe that our deforestation and coal burning has not irrevocably altered the planet and its atmosphere. We have to stop. We have to change. We have to backpedal. We all have to do our bit.

A tinder dry tale of a late winter fire

by . Posted on
Comboyne View
09 Aug

Last Monday I was in town (which isn’t usual) and happened to hear on The Country Hour that the RFS was bringing in the fire permit season a month earlier than they have for the past few years. It used to be 1st October. For the past couple of years it has been 1st September. Now they were saying 1st August.

That meant we had 3 days to do a month’s burning! Farmers generally burn off in August – after the frosts have killed the grass and the air temps have increased. So bringing forward the deadline was a foolhardy decision by the RFS. It would have been better to have told us all in June or July that if there was no rain, they would be bringing in the permit season earlier.

I had been for a big walk, high into the bush the previous day, looking for the star picket post remover which seems to have vanished into thin air! I hadn’t been up there for maybe 6 months and I was amazed by the depth of the leaf litter and the branches and other debris littering the bushscape.  After 7 lush wet years and then the high, drying, winds we have experienced lately, I was walking on 6 inches of crackly, slippery, dryness and navigating fallen tree limbs very few feet.

We hadn’t burnt up there for about 4 years and clearly, if we wanted to be safe in the event of a catastrophic fire summer, we needed to light it up.

We don’t like to burn, unlike many farmers who use it as an intrinsic part of their overstocked cattle feeding regime. But occasionally we use it as a tool to clean up an area or lighten the fuel load to protect us against a hot summer fire.

With the forecast el nino spring and summer, and as we back onto State Forest, we feel compelled to protect ourselves. Our lovely neighbour has been asking us to light up behind part of our property and into hers for years. So we lit into the bush behind us, Ged stayed home and we had our English wwoofers, Ben & Naomi on hand in case of escapee blazes (we have all had one ‘get away on us’! and burn a paddock we didn’t intend to!)

All went well for a couple of days but on Friday when little Ben and I began our descent off Comboyne mountain after preschool we saw a haze of thick smoke in the valley and were worried! As we drove along the final stretch of Tilbaroo and looked over to our land, we saw a spreading grass fire where we definitely had no intention of burning!

Through the gate, through the river, up the bank, hooting and shouting to Ged ‘the farm is on fire!’  He leapt in his car with the fire beaters and we stopped long enough at The Tree House to hoot and yell the same dire message to the wwoofers and then we all raced over to ‘the other side’ as if we were competing for the world rally racing championships!

Little Ben and I checked the bees while the boys raced into fire fighting mode. The bees had fled and Ben and I were devastated. Not again! (I was responsible for the last getaway blaze & have been banned from playing with matches for life!) We met up with the boys and sent Naomi & little Ben home (I need to do a poo, Mummy!)

It didn’t take long to get it all under control. The bees came home and are busy, busy. But the bush is still burning. The neighbours say it hasn’t been burnt for 20 years or more. Better a cool winter burn than a raging summer furnace travelling at 30kms an hour – with the tops of oily eucalypts alight, fireballs and radiant heat.  Unfortunately State Forests and National Parks are little managed, so we are giving them a long overdue clean out and in this valley we can all feel a lot safer and more prepared for whatever Mother Nature may throw at us in terms of drought . . .

The valley still has a smoky haze, the helicopters are keeping an eye on the fires on distant hills and we can relax, hoping that this will keep us safe this summer . . . the river is SO low, the creek is almost dry, the dams too.  When we arrived here the drought was ending.  We have had 7 years of flood and fertility.  This is going to be a new experience for us on this land we love.  But we will weather it.  And we will grow and learn.  We have to.  That is the lesson of Mother Nature who tempts, taunts, tries, feeds and clothes us.  Like every woman she has many moods and is sometimes swift to change them.  Like every woman she makes us happy when she is balanced – sun and rain.

Right now we are praying for rain . . .

Back to Back Floods

by . Posted on
20 Apr

It seems like a long time ago now as I have been battling the Aliens in my belly, but at the end of February and beginning of March we had unprecedented rainfall and two floods back to back over two consecutive weekends. I didn’t think Ged would get home on the first Friday night (22nd February) because the rivers and creeks were rising so fast, but he got in by the skin of his teeth. Both cars had to be abandoned on the other side of the river and we all had to haul ourselves across the raging torrent on the flying fox, hand over slow hand.

The rain was pounding on the tin roof so loudly we could barely hear ourselves speak, let alone think, and hourly checks of the river showed it rising at an alarming rate. By bedtime the roar of the river was competing with the rain of the roof and while I passed out into dreamless slumber, Ged was kept up all night after the howling wind started to compete in the battle of the elements. Every time he heard a crash he went out and investigated and checked that we were still safe. He brought the farm car into the house paddock and parked it next to the verandah, ready for evacuation to higher ground, because never before has the river risen so rapidly or violently. I slept through . . .

Being floodbound is always exciting – witnessing the power and force of Mother Nature, knowing that we are completely cut off from the world. We had no internet which was really frustrating so we had no idea what was happening in the wider community – we were well and truly marooned. We went for a walk and drive around the property on Saturday morning and saw higher water levels than ever before. Angle Creek had backed up right over the bridge and there was no sign of Paddy or her lovely little Melissa calf. We presumed they had gone up into the bush to get away from the deluge.

The water was significantly higher than ANZAC day 2008 and the force of the flow was incredible. At the end of the house river flat we stood and watched a platypus feeding at our feet – under normal circumstances that is a steep bank down into a shallow river crossing. No sign of Paddy and Melissa but all the other animals were present and correct. It was a housebound weekend and amazing that Ged and Ben got out over all the creeks on Monday morning for preschool and work. The highway had been closed at Long Flat all weekend and when we saw the height and extent of the flooding we were all amazed. Once the internet came back on we realised just how widespread the damage and deluge had been.

I was weak and sick so pulling Ben and I across the river and back in our saggy flying fox was really hard work. I grew muscles in both body and mind! The river was slower than normal to recede, but beginning to go down when the rain in earnest began again. It was like Groundhog Day. Again Ged got home with minutes to spare, but at least this time we didn’t have the roaring winds and crashing trees. We stood at the window and saw a huge gum uproot from the bank and fall down into the river. Closer inspection of the banks during the week saw enormous she oaks had been ripped, roots and all, out of the river bank, gouging great chunks from our land. Now it was all happening again, it seemed incredible that so much water could fall out of the sky and we found streams and creeks rushing out of the bush where we’ve never seen water before. Still no sign of Paddy and the calf.

The second flood was stronger, faster and more powerful and took 10 days to go down so we could finally drive into and out of the property again. So for three weeks Ben and I were hand over hand across 100 metres of muddy brown torrent. Hot, sticky work!

Our river landscape has completely changed. We have welcomed a beautiful sandy beach at our swimming hole below the house, Ged has farewelled a huge rock he used to stand on which has moved 20 metres further downstream, and we have lost more bank. Thankfully all the young she oaks we felled on the other river bank which were waiting to be burnt have all been swept out to sea. Have checked with our neighbour, Pat, and they went straight past her. We went to the beach the other day and I think I saw bits of them in the driftwood pile on the tideline. All the rocks and pebbles at our bridge were completely rearranged and we had to wait for the tractor to come back from its long holiday at the menders (almost a year and $5,500!) before Ged could blade them all back again. It has been a bumpy ride in more ways than one!

But our greatest loss is the beautiful Paddy and little newcomer to Avalon, Melissa. We have looked high and low, up into the bush on rocky crags and escarpments and down along Angle Creek but there has been no sign, or smell. We have watched the wedge tail eagles circling and trudged up to where they land but nothing there either. They are gone and we can only presume that they slipped into Angle Creek and have been swept away to sea. It is hard to believe that we will never see them again and that they are lost to us completely.

Paddy has been here with us since the beginning. She has stood patiently while we all learned to milk kneeling at her huge udder. She has been friend and comforter. We thought she would have to have a bullet when she seemed to dislocate her shoulder over a year ago, but after a month or so of limping she came good, if always a bit slower than the rest of the herd. We had determined that Melissa would be her last calf because of the distension of her udder. But now we have neither.

We can only hope they survived – we have written to the paper to broadcast her loss, but we all have the same feeling, that they didn’t survive. Angle Creek rose so fast and the banks are so steep that it is possible that Paddy went down to water and slipped in, or maybe the calf slipped in and she went after it. We will never know. We are richer for having known and loved her, we are the poorer for her passing.

It’s a reminder that we are at the mercy of the elements, that Mother Nature has more power than we can ever contest. We think we are so in control of our world, but when we look at the sheer naked force of a flood or gaze up at the crystal clear skies at night, we are reminded just how small and insignificant we are.

A Cleansing Fire

by . Posted on
Ged watching his fire
30 Sep

Pyromaniac that I am, I love the burning off season. Lines of fire, snaking across country and into the bush, lighting up the late winter nights with their warming glow. I love to light them, putting a lit match to the bladey grass and hearing it snap, crackle and roar. As a general rule, we don’t burn Avalon, because we believe in repeatedly slashing the grass and mulching the land to retain moisture and build up the soil levels to create healthier soil and pasture. 5 years ago when we came here, the land was all bladey grass, bracken fern and fireweed, now we have beautiful native grasses, kikuyu, clover and oatey grass, and the bladey grass is almost gone. Burning bladey grass might give you green pick for the cattle, but all you get is more bladey grass, so it never made much sense to us. However, as a way of seeing what is there in areas that have not been slashed, it is invaluable, and as a way of quickly clearing the land without slashing, it can be useful. But not our preferred way of doing things.

Anyway, the Friday before Ostara, the spring equinox and the real Easter in the southern hemisphere, it was a dull day, with moisture in the air, no beating sun and the hint of rain to come, so Ben and I thought we would just quickly light some fires to burn down into the weeds along a section of the river bank and into the neighbour’s paddock, which she has always invited us to burn. We lit a few fires along the fence line which blazed up briefly and then fizzled so we figured they would be out momentarily and went home for lunch. About 4 hours later we drove over to feed the horses and I saw the wall of smoke . . . ‘I think we have a problem’ I said to Ben. He wasn’t concerned. He’s heard Mummy say that before when she’s inadvertently burnt a paddock!

We drove over the ridge and saw a line of flames licking voraciously at everything in its path. 500 metres from the site of our start up fires and travelling in the opposite direction to our intention! We weren’t going to even try to beat this one back, it was going to have to keep gorging until it was replete. All we could do, was damage limitation. We drove down to the horses and set them free. Then we splashed water all around the water tank above base camp and removed all the water pipes, stand pipe and hoses. Then back burnt around the tank just to make sure. Next we drove through Henry Hollow and up into the Dam Paddock and there we stopped in shock and horror. We were faced with a blackened wasteland and facing us were the bee hives standing sentry like and stark white against the ash. ‘The bees! Daddy is going to go mental’ One hive was already swarming. One was still smouldering. All our lovely workers, all the new frames and comb all ready to be filled with lovely, life giving honey. All my fault . . .

We rang Ged and told him the bad news. But it was to get worse. By the time he came home two hives were burnt to cinders and we will have to start again with nucleus hives. He found a hive of European bees in a fallen tree and bear like tried to extract the comb and honey and then persuade some to take up residence in some of our boxes but they didn’t want to relocate despite their hot home, so that didn’t work out the way we planned it either. The fire continued on its merry way all night and for two days thereafter, clearing, cleaning, exposing.

At least we are rid of the high load of dead grass before the predicted drought gains intensity – although the ground is already so dry, the river lower than it was at the end of the last drought, we are desperately begging for rain. And the fire has cleaned up and rid us of old stumps and piles we inherited from the previous owners. And the exciting news is that what we really wanted to burn, the oasis with the spring in the middle, is now accessible and we can see the tree graveyard in there. This is obviously where they used to go to extract millable timber, cut fence posts and strainers etc. I spent two days in there, black from head to foot, lugging logs and branches and chainsawing wood to make it manouvrable, feeding the existing fires to clear areas of all the fallen timber. There’s another 6 months work in there but it will be beautiful when it is done. A lush green forest, a shady oasis in the middle of the pasture where the stock can retreat to on hot days and Ben and I can wander in awe.

We have to take the long view in farming. And I am learning that stressing achieves nothing. There was no point in trying to fight that fire, she obviously wanted to be burnt. And now she is.

Working in the blackened aftermath over the weekend, I meditated on the cleansing fire, the phoenix arising, and the rebirth and renewal offered both by the fire and the first days of spring. How it was possible to rebuild and restart in the ashes – relationships, friendships, dreams, plans, futures. Here is the cycle of life in all its stark reality – death, decay, rebirth. Every aspect of our lives affected by these never ending circles and rhythms if we could only realise it, and stop demanding the excitement and blossoming of eternal spring. We have to learn to live with the circles and cycles, see them, accept them and even embrace them as essential for our evolving, revolving life on earth.

Copycat Coles killing free enterprise one product at a time

by . Posted on
Copycat Coles Killing free enterprise
12 Jun

I’ve been shopping at my nearest Coles supermarket for about 5 years.  As an increasingly discerning shopper I have become aware of Coles trading tactics and have come to despise them for their gloating greed.

Coles is owned by Wesfarmers, a name which might make you think of green fields, caring custodians of land and livestock.  In 1914 when Wesfarmers began as a West Australian farmers co-operative, that may have been true.  Now Wesfarmers is one of Australia’s biggest listed companies who own and run Coles, Target, Kmart, Bunnings, Officeworks, coal mines, gas and chemical companies.  They’ve pretty much got the domestic dollar spend cornered and covered.

I’m not a consumer expert on any of the other businesses but over the years I have become very clear on how Coles operates.  I can only surmise the greed is good mentality and tactics are the general modus operandi for the group.  Manufacturers and farmers may spend years and many thousands endeavouring to gain mass market exposure on the shelves of Coles.  Finally they are successful and the new product graces the shelves.  The customer is excited, the product is successful, the stocks repeatedly sold and in a free market economy there the tale should end with a happy supplier, happy supermarket, happy customer success story . . . a win win for everyone.  But no, what happens now is that Coles’ sophisticated stock monitoring systems tag the success of the new brand/product’s success with the consumer and the Coles killing machine takes over.  Their in house product experts pull the new product apart until they have worked out how to copy it, the new product is soon no longer available as Coles claim supply difficulties which the manufacturers vigorously deny.  After a suitable pause of a month or so while the customer is left wondering what happened, the shelf space is suddenly filled with a Home Brand replica (or attempt at a replica) at a lower price and significantly lower quality.

Not only is the attitude to product developers and manufacturers abhorrent, so too is the disdain and disrespect shown to the customer.  The opposition is annihilated, the shelves full of Home Brand and all choice is removed for the consumer.  Most of us shop in a hurry and the sad fact is that we all make price based decisions, especially in these uncertain economic times.  Coles currently have 3,500 own brand products, and introduced a further 1,000 in 2011.  The trend is growing and the only people who can stop it are consumers voting with their hip pockets because if Coles control everything we buy and Australia has poor packaging and labelling laws, where does that leave us?  What are we eating, wearing, washing with – do you know?

Now let’s talk about what Coles are doing to farmers.  If Coles make a ‘lowest prices guarantee’ to their customers then obviously they are cutting costs to suppliers.  Imagine the scenario – you have spent years developing a relationship with Coles in order to get your product to the consumer.  You have invested in infrastructure, fertiliser, animals, staff etc based on a price agreement with Coles.  Then they turn around and lower the price they are prepared to pay.  What can the farmer do?  He is absolutely against the wall – the bills, mortgages and loans have to be paid off, he can’t risk saying no, he can’t invest money he doesn’t have in marketing or developing other avenues to the consumer and much of what he produces can’t sit around and wait while he finds a new path.  Make no mistake Wesfarmers are screwing the Australian farmer royally in order to break their backs, spirits and ensure there is no Australian farming future.  Don’t be fooled by their advertising to the contrary.  Take the milk war, first they squeeze the name brand milk suppliers from the shelves by introducing home brand milk, then they slash the prices so the named brands have no hope. And the dairy farmer with his automated processes, huge shedding, fertilizer, grain, staff and diesel bills is forced to work longer, harder to try to make ends meet, to diversify and finally to up sticks and sell up.  Who wins?  Only Coles, not the average Aussie consumer.  Because Coles don’t really care where the food comes from or who will prostitute themselves to their pay less philosophy.  The Consumer doesn’t win if the farmer is forced to cut costs and corners to meet Coles pay strictures.  This week mushrooms are $6.00 a kilo.  Let’s say that means that the farmer gets $3.00 a kilo (I bet he doesn’t!)  How could anyone produce a kilo of mushrooms for $3.00 when you factor in labour costs, manure, mushroom spore, straw, heating and diesel.  It’s not possible.  Bang and another farmer goes to the wall.  When all the Australian farmers have walked off the land where will our food come from?  Don’t you think the Chinese, Vietnamese, Thais or Indonesians will at some point want to keep their own home grown foodstuffs for their own population boom?  Food security, that’s a topic for another day . . .

On the Wesfarmers website it says ‘The primary objective of Wesfarmers is to provide a satisfactory return to its shareholders.’  Not to serve the customer, care for the consumer’s health or assist in marketing a vibrant diversity of products and produce to secure Australia’s sustainable farming future.  Remember that when you shop at any of their stores.  And are Woolworths any better?  Not much, but a little bit.  We all need to change our shopping habits and give the big boys the flick.

I have taken this on as my personal challenge and we buy flour and dry ingredients wholesale.  We make our own bread, soap, cheese.  We grow our own veg.  We are growing meat for the freezer.  We have our own supply of milk.  And in the interim we shop at the greengrocer, the butcher, and very occasionally at the arch enemy of consumerism for a few essentials which I still need to be weaned off (firelighters, chux, washing up liquid) but with every trip we purchase less, we make and grow more and we save money.  But more importantly we have the satisfaction of becoming ever more self sufficient and giving the finger to the Coles/Woolworths duopoly which does nothing for good food, good farming or Australia’s food future.

The Dying Art of Rural Living

by . Posted on
24 Mar

We cleaned up at the Comboyne Show yesterday.  First prizes for my Kangaroo Valley apple mint, chutney, dozen eggs; Ged’s honey and supreme exhibit as well as First Prize for Ben’s painting in the under 8’s division.  Second prize for my lemon marmalade.

Quite a swathe of approbation for our year’s faming endeavours.  But what would have been the story if the competition had been more robust?  Because the sad fact is that the Comboyne and other little farming community, shows are becoming an anachronism in our fast paced, iphone, ipad, internet, super and hypermarket world.  We have lost touch with rural life, we have forgotten how to bottle and preserve, how to make jam and marmalade, how to grow our own, feed ourselves, make gifts of the gluts and salt and sugar away excesses to feed the winter mouths and months.

We buy what we want, when we want without a care or conscience for the food miles it has travelled – strawberries from South Africa, asparagus from Thailand, tomatoes from Italy.  We are like children in our carelessness – grabbit and run and to hell with the climate or the genetically modified sprayed with every chemical crop.

But home grown, home bottled food is goodness in a jar.  You can taste the sunshine and the love (sometimes if you get a little crunch you can taste the dirt as well!)  And what can be more satisfying a sight than a pantry stuffed to the gills with goodies from the garden – chutney, jam, marmalade, honey, limoncello, mead, candles, soaps etc.,  Made by Mum with love.  And mostly given away in true farm generosity.

There is an up side to the global financial crisis.  And that is that we will halt or stop or maybe only question our rampant consumerism and learn some good old fashioned arts and skills and values – self sufficiency, being neighbourly, growing our own, celebrating the harvest, seed saving and plant sharing.  Eating more veg and a whole lot less meat.  Make and mend, making do, going without and even making our own.

These are dying arts.  My Grandmother was the Queen of all this and more – recycling, reusing, storing, saving, baking, sewing, knitting etc.  I used to mock her and she never approved of me and my wild ways and raucous laugh – now I wish she were here to help me, teach me, guide me.  Because what she knew then we need to learn now.  And our humble hearts will reap abundant harvests as we learn to sow our seeds and wait patiently while they grow.

I shall be actively encouraging more competition for next year’s show and a revival in the art of living rurally.

What makes an Aussie Farmer?

by . Posted on
09 Dec

When I first came here I thought it was the Akubra, the moleskins, the RM boots and the years on the land that made a farmer but now I know different.

It’s the long, hot hours on the tractor.  The stiff neck, hip and back from hours reversing up hills and clearing gullies.  It’s the permanent ‘farmer’s tan’ of face, neck and arms and the leathering of the skin in the hot aussie sun.  It’s the ability to pull a calf out of a straining cow, or pull a cria out of a birthing alpaca.  It’s knowing when to call the vet and when time and patience and a little TLC will heal.

It is knowing and loving and caring for animals.  Being brave enough to decide who goes for slaughter when.   Crying for them when they go, communicating with them beforehand and remembering them always as friends and fellow travellers and family.  It’s the understanding that we all have a purpose and a gift to give and that some of these animals make the ultimate sacrifice, give of themselves, with love and service, so we can eat.  There is no greater gift than that.

It is the watching of the seasons, the listening to the land as she speaks, working with her, nurturing her and feeling her nurture us as we live in her embrace.  It is learning to see and hear her messengers and understand their messages – the scurrying ants, cawing black cockatoos, lying down alpacas and cows saying storm coming and watching the sky turning indigo as it looms.

Seeing the babies being born and the ones that don’t survive – snatched before life has a chance to begin by goannas or snakes or circumstance.  Watching them grow and then mourning if they are taken too soon.  Nature is cruel, life is not guaranteed and ‘where there is live stock, there is dead stock’.

It is watching the eagles wheel and soar and teaching their babies to fly, talking to snakes and not being afraid of them, swimming with platypus, marvelling at the beauty and diversity of Mother Nature and having daily conversations with God and the Angels.  Finally feeling gratitude, humility and awe at this beautiful planet, this wonderful place and life, so precious, so tenuous, so brief.  After a lifetime of dabbling in death defying activities, all of a sudden I don’t want to die, don’t want to leave here, can’t bear the thought of not seeing the trees we are planting bear fruit.

Being a Farmer is all about taking care of the land that takes care of us – that feeds our bodies, nurtures our souls, and allows us and the planet to breathe.  It is hard, hard yakka.  Lifting, carrying, hauling, hurting.  Thankless, endless, relentless and often joyless.  But the rewards are spiritual as we come to see how small we are in the grand scheme of things, how brief our imprint, how enduring and changeable nature is and how we too must learn to bend in the winds of change or be blown over if we stand too proud and strong and rigid.

It is riding out the floods and the droughts and understanding that the feast and famine cycles are natural rhythms of nature.  It is knowing how to make do and paddock and bush fix things and scrape meals together from what is in the veggie patch and the pantry.  Living by the seasons, powered by the sun and becoming ever more sustainable.

It is cuts and scratches and bruises and worn clothes and wrinkles, but it is honest, and pure and worthwhile.  Down here on the farm we piss in the wind, we revel in our nudity, the animals don’t care how old or deshevelled we look, and the dirt is ingrained in hands and fingernails and no amount of scrubbing will get them clean.  And we don’t care.  Because bodies grow old and disintegrate and die and the wild dogs and goannas will feed off them.  Nothing is forever, this too shall pass and we are lucky to have witnessed creation at its most perfect and beautiful and to have immersed ourselves in the natural world.  What will happen after we are gone?  Nature will endure and all our work may well have been for nothing – who knows who will tend Avalon for future gnerations or if it will just be left to run wild and untamed as it was before we came.  And yet still we continue and persevere and keep going – for the love of it, for the deep peace and stillness she brings to our souls.

The Akubra never got worn so I sold it on ebay, I can’t afford moleskins or rm boots but I am a farmer in my wiry arms, in my wide shoulders, in my sun beaten and battered skin, in my tortured hip, in my holey clothes and deep down in my grateful soul . . .

Fashion on the Farm

by . Posted on

We robbed the hives yesterday fashionably attired in our whites and veils while Pickle sat in the car supervising with a bottle.  He was fed scraps of honey laden comb to keep him quiet as we moved frames and boxes and coaxed the bees off the frames we were taking home.  He would imperiously yell ‘more’ and ‘honey’ when his supplies ran low!  Later, when I was uncapping the honey stores in the kitchen and ged was chopping up veg for supper I said ‘It’s addictive, isn’t it, this self sufficiency business?  The more I do it, the more I love it, and the more I resent paying anyone for my food.’  We carried on working and then I said ‘The funniest thing for anyone to witness though is my transformation from Margot to Barbara . . . ‘

He looked at me, undyed hair streaked with grey, worn and honey strewn shirt, jeans and thick socks, at our unkempt house with the piles of never-ending washing to be put away, the cat and dog lording it by the fire, the home baked muffins and cookies on the kitchen bench and the oranges and lemons in baskets awaiting the honey to be made into jam.  He laughed.    ‘You’ve come a  long way, baby!’

Big shiny blue tractor!

by . Posted on
22 Dec

We have a new toy!  A big, blue, shiny, new tractor!

We have been looking at second hand ones for a while on the internet, and finally went up to Grafton to look at one there – it was a heap of rust, twenty years old and still $18,000 which is cheap even for a 20 year old tractor.  And we had been thinking that even if we bought a $12,000 – $18,000 tractor and it lasted for 2 – 3 years, it still wouldn’t owe us anything (we paid George $22,000 last year!)  But after looking at this one at Grafton I put my foot down and said we had to have a new one.   With a new one, I can drive it happily and easily, it is safe for both of us, we know where it has been and what it has done and how it has been treated and we can have it regularly serviced and hopefully not be prey to all those expensive breakdowns that happen with old tractors.  So Ged went to look at the brand I like to see what he thought (I thought he would think it was too small and girly) but he came back really excited and so we did the sums and decided we could pay a third cash up front and finance the rest quite easily now we only have one mortgage.
So we bit the bullet and waited excitedly for delivery.  And then I elbowed Ged out of the way and climbed on . . . I haven’t looked back since!
We’ve had a few teething problems like the rock that sliced through the cables when I slashed it and the dirty diesel which destroyed the fuel injection system (all covered by warranty) which has severely slowed up our pre naming ceremony farm clean-up (aaagh!!) BUT the tractor is so easy to drive and after I had spent 7 hours on it, I got in my car and wondered whether the power steering had failed . . . it hadn’t, it just felt like it after the lightness of the tractor!  So we are very happy with our new toy (for the record, it is an ISEKI (Manufactured by Massey Fergusson and branded as such in the US) , 60 horsepower, 4WD tractor)
Ged says he would just like to get a go on it . . . !