Tag Archives: cows

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.

Bodies and burning

by . Posted on
Mythri
05 Sep

Our lovely neighbour, Pat, rang a few weeks ago to say that there was a dead Jersey cow in the river by the electric fence which attempts to keep her cows on her property and ours here.

Of course I had to go and see which one of my beautiful girls had left us.  It was our lovely Heidi, Mother to the gorgeous Patch.  She must have slipped down the steep bank (what was she doing there?) and broken her back or neck and drowned in only 8 inches of water.

I didn’t really cry.  Do we become immured to death eventually, seeing as much as we do?  Or is it that once the spark of life – the soul, spirit, call it what you will – has left the body, that person, animal, being that we knew and loved is gone.  All that is left is the flesh.  Flesh and skin we have loved, for sure, but without the animus or force of life, it is just a body to be dealt with.

Ged pulled her out of the river with the tractor and a chain and then pushed her into a big old pile of logs several owners before us left behind.  She forced us to light it up and feed it day after day, creating a beautiful clearing next to the bees, opening up the landscape near the spring fed dam.  I asked Ged to remove her horns for future biodynamic preparations, and they’re sitting on a tin roof over the calf shed, hollowing out.

On my walks on the other side of the farm I had a few whiffs of something dead as I turned down the track for home, but hadn’t thought to investigate.  Then Ged asked ‘have you seen Bonnie?’  I hadn’t and went looking.  I found her lying so peacefully with legs straight out under a giant tallowwood tree.  As beautiful in death as in life despite the maggots in her eye sockets.  Golden all over and with creamy hair like eyeliner round her beautiful brown eyes.  She was gone.  Another Jersey cow that we had bought and bottle fed and loved and nurtured.  Another body to be moved and burnt.

Ged pushed her into another old pile but with the fire bans everywhere we didn’t dare light it up.  I forgot to ask about the horns and he didn’t think to get them.

Two cows gone out of our small herd – that is a huge loss.  But more than that, these girls were our friends.  We knew them so well, loved them so deeply and now they are gone from us for ever more.  Poof!  Snuffed out, gone in an instant, with no chance for goodbyes.  Life is so fragile, nature so cruel sometimes.  We have no idea what happened to Bonny.  We will never know.

And then there was Gypsy, who I had renamed Mythri (Friend & Comforter) when Ged brought her onto the farm 6 years ago.  She was a huge (17hh) grey thoroughbred mare who he found starving in the last big drought on a friend of his father’s farm and rescued.  She was a wild child.  Terrifying.  She double barrelled the side of the red Pajero when it was still my road car and Ben was just a tiny baby.  She scared my two horses witless when she first arrived and they swam the river to get away and finally went missing and ‘bush’ for days.  She was a two faced bitch.  When she finally calmed down and I wasn’t so scared of her, she would be that friend and comforter to me when I was upset, but meanwhile she was vicious in thought and word and deed to my horses.  We had to keep them apart for years.  Two on 200 acres, and two on the other 200!

But eventually, on some very bad advice from a so called animal communicator, we put them together.  She killed Baby.  She was so foul to her and Baby couldn’t bear her life with Mythri in it so she got cancer and died. She couldn’t help it.  She was lovely in her heart but she had been so damaged in her early life and she was so jealous and bitter and she couldn’t bear that I loved Baby so much.  Baby had everything she ever dreamed of and she thought by getting her out of the way, she could have me and my love.  But it didn’t work like that.

She was a bully and the herd dynamic was so different whenever she was in it.  She and Brave would swim the river and end up on the Pitt Street Farmer’s place every time they were together on ‘the other side’.  And she had cancer.  First just protruding growths all around her anus and vulva and then a lump that got ever bigger on her throat gland.  It was all through her.  Lump after lump appeared.  The writing was on the wall.  But she looked so well.  Ged wanted to shoot her a year ago but I kept saying ‘she looks great, she’s fine, she’s happy, she’s well’.

But last week after the hoof trimmer had been I let her out with all the horses on the other side, and sure enough, within a day she had led Brave on a merry expedition to the mad, bad neighbour’s place.

We retrieved Brave easily but Mythri resisted all attempts at capture.  Ged went out alone on Sunday morning and caught her.  He said that when she did a poo she groaned with pain.  It was time to do the dastardly deed.  When he came home it was done and he was devastated.  He shot her in the same pile where Bonny was.  In the drizzle and dark that night we did our best to pile up a good pyre around her big grey body and get a fire going.

It has been my job this week to feed that fire which was neither big nor hot enough to get rid of such a big body.  I have seen sights this week that firemen, police officers and paramedics have all seen many times before.  Charred flesh.  That sweet sickly smell.  Bones in the ashes.

I have done my best by her, talking to her all the time, sending her spirit to the light, sorrowing over her body, together with my beautiful Bonny girl.

It has been horrible.  But somehow we just deal with death and the gritty reality of disposing of bodies.  Can’t let grief get in the way.  And what I have learned this week is that once the soul is gone, and just the body remains, it is just flesh and organs and bones.  And the spirit who inhabited it, looking on from the starry realms, would rather that it was made use of rather than just disposed of.  That the body had purpose in some way rather than being left in the ground to rot or using up valuable finite resources to be burnt in a building that will always have connotations of the holocaust for me.

At least Bonny, Heidi and Mythri forced us to get rid of other people’s old rubbish piles and clean up our land.  But still the waste of a life is harrowing.  Every death is a body blow and heart felt.  How and where and why doesn’t matter when faced with the soul-less body to deal with.  Just as many of we humans would rather our flesh and blood were used for the greater good when we are gone

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 . . .

Pregnancy, homebirth and Solar

by . Posted on
02 Jun

Thank you for all your input into the birth debate . . . especially those of you who sent your support, beautiful stories of blissful drug-free births.  We have carefully considered all your arguments and will make an informed and educated choice closer to the time, in consultation with our midwife and antenatal care clinic.  We will let you know what happened after the fact!

Phew!
The bump is growing daily and I am now firmly entrenched in those ‘oh my god I wouldn’t be seen dead in those’ maternity jeans and they are SO comfortable!  I am also wearing Ged’s boxers and tees around the house and he is constantly complaining of the shortage of supplies for his own use!  My hair is growing at a ridiculous rate of knots and depilation is a daily occurrence – what a bore!
We have finally settled the sale of Ged’s property so we are just clearing out the detritus of his life  – how depressing!  Meanwhile he has been getting lots of calls from a double page spread article I wrote explaining Australian Solar /alternative energy solutions for the two biggest circulation glossy magazines on the Mid North Coast.  Of course, immediately after that came out the new Rudd Government announced its new budget – blatantly reneging on its election promise to make a positive commitment to climate change by withdrawing solar rebates from households earning more than $100,000 (gross)  per annum.  With the average city home at somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000, petrol at $1.80 a litre and spralling grocery bills (due to the rising price of petrol) $100,000 is not a lot in this day and age.  To add insult to injury the new means test is $100,000 for solar, but levied at $150,000 for the ‘Baby Bonus’ (yes the Aussie Government will be paying me $5,000 in September for doing my bit for Queen and country!!) and the Family Allowance.  So they are actively cracking down on intelligent Australians committed to acting on Climate Change. And the bit that really sticks in my craw is . . . we voted for them!  Never again!
We have an update article going in the July issue and I seem to be getting articles printed regularly with them which is nice.  The means test isn’t as big an issue for ged as it is for the city solar installers who are losing thousands of dollars worth of orders a day, but it is a blow for the whole industry so we are actively campaigning with his colleagues and cohorts to get this ridiculous ruling overturned.  Please sign any petitions we send you – this is important not just for our bank balance, but the future of solar in Australia.
We had a very entertaining afternoon first finding the cows on ‘the other side’ (they had all gone ‘bush’) and then pursuading the heavily pregnant Paddy and amiable and obedient Daisy to follow us into the yards so we could get them moved over to the house side for maternity watch.  After much wild leaping through scrub for Ged and determined plodding for me we managed to lock them in and George came and trucked them over before first light on Sunday morning.  Paddy has been named after my Mother, the Matriarch, as she will be the first of our cows to calf down on the farm.  We are now feeding them daily and regularly palpating the udder for telltale indicators of imminent birth . . .  no sign, so far!
At the other end of the scale, Mischa has been in hospital having all her girly bits removed and was very well behaved – here she is, showing off her scar!

The Big Flood

by . Posted on
28 Apr
Just call me NOAH!!
Although I haven’t done a very good job of rescuing animals.  Trying to save three stranded cows and calves, they jumped into the river rather than be herded into our place. And I had a platypus literally at my feet this morning, obviously washed out of its burrow by the raging torrent.  By the time I realised what it was and registered that it didn’t look happy, the river had swept it away.  Maybe next time I’ll just stay in the house and pray!
So the rain has continued all week to my utter disgust and despair.  We had a thoroughly wet and miserable day in Port Macquarie on Wednesday where I had my inaugural Pilates class, acupuncture and we went for our 18 week scan.   Normally we have the mst delightful, lovely and helpful of radiologists but this one was a cow and trying to extract information from her, let alone reassurance, was like pulling the proverbial teeth!  So we don’t know what sex the baby is, and with her attitude, I’m more worried now than I was before, so let’s hope I can get out to the doctor on Wednesday for hand holding, brow soothing and ‘there, there, dear’s’
On Thursday we woke late and despondent at yet more of the wet stuff cascading from the sky.  As I had refused to take my car up the now suicidal Tom’s Creek Road one more time this week, Ged had to wait for me and do my morning chores (feeding his horses, chooks etc) and by the time we were ready to go we could see that we had better be quick because the river was rising, the sky was ominous and the forecast for flash flooding and more.  All the creeks on the way up were very high, but just passable, so we weren’t long checking and replying to our emails, doing what we had to online etc before we packed up the computers and headed home.  We came down the other way to avoid the creek crossings and only just made it into our place before the bridge got really scary.  Ged dumped me and the gear and hared out again, leaving his car on the high side by the flying fox. (see it in the picture?)
And through our newly created amazing view from the kitchen window we witnessed the river rise first by inches, then by feet, while we were watching it.  From 3pm to 6pm it had risen 4 feet.  When I woke to go to the loo at 2am I heard the roar and went out to look.  It had risen another 5 or 6 foot and by 6am a further 4 or 5 feet.  Amazing!  The whole of the lower river paddock (the campground) was under water which covered the top of the fence both at the gate end and where the toilet used to be (before the flood!)  At the end of our river paddock (polo ground!) where there is normally a ten-15 foot steep bank there was just water lapping at the cutting’s edge.  The bridge at Angle Creek was sitting in banked up river water and there was only 6 inches of log left showing before that would be under.  At the concrete bridge (where I saw the Platypus) we were looking at 50 or 60 metres of water across between the banks and it was a raging, raging torrent.
The flats on the other side were well clear of water (we went to check our potential new home site to see how high and dry we would be) and were pleased to see that it was a very good Noah spot indeed.
And from about noon the waters have been receding just as rapidly.  But at 5pm when the rain started in earnest again, they started a slow ascent.  Apparently they had 10 inches of rain on Comboyne last night, compared to our 3.  Let’s see what tonight and tomorrow brings . . .
And as quickly as they rose, they have been receding, but we are now at the slow point – it will probably take almost a week for the river to get back down below the bridge again.  I am still marooned! And George will need to rearrange the river stones on the far side of the bridge before I can drive out as the raging torrent has significantly rearranged them.  Meanwhile, the sun has been shining all weekend and we have hope in our hearts again, at last.  I have been sanding back all the benchtops and varnishing them properly – they only got a quick lick and a spit before the wedding.  Ged has discovered white ant in his side of the shed happily chewing their way through all the tasmanian oak flooring for the office.  Oh God!
So he has been busy burning them and it and finding ways of foiling their concentrated campaign attacks on our belongings.  I am going up to Lismore to see a client this weekend and will be grilling her about her long battle against their relentless armies so hopefully when I get back next week we will have a plan . . . .

The Man from Ellenborough River

by . Posted on
22 Jul
There is light at the end of the tunnel!  Team solar turned up on Monday with the new hot water system. They dashed my hopes about hot water on Monday when they didn’t get the install finished but by Tuesday night I was luxuriating in a deep, hot bath (still green!).  Oh well, since the latest beauty fad for fashionistas in London is Nightingale poo face packs, I am sure that my green river water bath is actually very youthifying – although maybe not judging by the wrinkles my skin had acquired by the time I finally left my warm, wet paradise.

I still seem to be either shopping for renovation essentials or back in the Telstra vortex as I return their little wireless widget and while away the hours as they try and dream up new solutions for me.  Got a new lawnmower that is green, sturdy, fearless and invincible.  It’s true blue, dinky di – it’s a Victa and I have a feeling we are going to get along!

Went to see one of my neighbours who has a sawmill.  He has recently retired but agreed to cut the timber for the big beams and kitchen, laundry and bathroom surfaces for me.  He seems nice but boasts about how much water he uses to clean his teeth!  It is a sad fact that rural Australians who live on water and have unlimited access to it, waste it more than most!   They don’t have rainwater tanks, they don’t keep it, cherish it, store it, they just use it in the same way that city folk do . . . bizarre!

And the farm has come into its own this week with the arrival of 75 calfs to grow fat on the land.  Which brings me to George.  What a character!  George is 70 odd, he was ‘rared’ here (as the locals say).  He owned all this land – thousands of acres and George has sold it off bit by bit.  He’s a wiry, strong, lined and thin lipped Man from Snowy River type.  His Akubra is ancient, his RM’s battered and bruised and his horse’s bridle is more baling twine than leather.  He wields a chainsaw like a virtuoso violinist makes music with his bow.  His blue eyes can be steely or twinkle with humour.  He tells me he got in deep trouble with the drink and that’s when he found God and began to make sense of it all with the bible.  He’s a Seventh Day Adventist so he doesn’t drink or smoke or sin and he’s a vegetarian so we have something in common!  I tell him all my dreams for the place and he think them through.  He has his own clear picture in his head of what the land should be like and though he wouldnt even begin to know what I mean, his work is done with perfect zen.  The cattle are his and the deal is that he swaps the farm work for the agistment.  He’s a crafty old bugger – we always talked about 40 head and he turns up with 75 and a good story about how he always meant 40 mothers and calfs, so 75 little heifers is the same thing in principle . . . !!