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farming observations - Living Rural

Country Newspapers

February 11th 2008 07:01
road closed
Road Closed - read it in the local Newspaper
What is the main source of information in a country town? It is not the town gossip – despite the characterization of such people - it is the town’s local newspaper. These may be part of a wider network of Community Newspapers that are bought from the local newsagency and come on the usual newsprint and newspaper size. Or, as in the case of our town, it is a fortnightly paper run by volunteers with articles written and edited by volunteers, printed in the local telecentre and folded by volunteers. The costs here are met by local businesses that pay for their advertising. It requires a large degree of dedication from a few people and the co-operation of many organizations who contribute articles and information for future events.

There are, of course many regular items: sports results for all levels of every sport in the town – from bowls to bingo and everything in between, Church notices, CWA, Red Cross, Garden Club and other meeting notices. There are also children’s writings- a different class from school contributing stories for each paper. The Shire uses the paper to get out essential information such as which roads will be closed for repairs, when the fire breaks will be inspected or why the rates are going up again. Achievements of individuals and community groups – whether it is winning a state competition, the school productions, quiz kids or work milestones may make it into the paper.

Juicy gossip – births, marriages or who is having a special milestone are celebrated.
There are often the stories of who got their car stuck in the drain on their night out on the town (sure to get a picture with that!) or similar misdemeanors - it is quite an achievement if you manage to stay OUT of this part of the paper. However, it must be said that the volunteers also have to take great care that they get the facts straight and to avoid any legal issues! Letters to the paper cannot be anonymous so people tend not to “vent their spleen” in this arena.
The passing of locals are also recognized, both in the town news column and also when articles are written about prominent citizens. The Historical society use the paper for “interesting milestones” and farming organizations use it to advertise workshops or field days. Work positions and further educational opportunities are advertised and there are always a few things for sale.
When a newcomer arrives, they are likely to crack a mention – and maybe even have their photo taken. This will ensure they will at least start to read the paper!
There can be no excuses for people to be uninformed in a town with its own newspaper!
While I have a member of my family who is a journalist who has no intention of writing stories about “getting cats out of the tree”, I wish to praise the people who do that, week in and week out – for they are the ones who help a community celebrate their achievements and solve their problems. And whether they are dedicated volunteers or paid journalists, their work is appreciated in the day to day lives of their readers.

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Posted By: bumpkin - Category: farming, town life, people, events, observations
   


Farm Stays

November 10th 2007 03:29
Logs
Suddenly a log becomes a cubby or a horse to ride
There are thousands of Australians who have little or no contact with the rural life. Up until about fifty years ago, a majority of city folk had a cousin – or some other vague relative that still lived either on a farm or at least in a rural town. Visits to farms were part of the childhood holiday plans and a taste of how the other half lived led to a better understanding. Of course there was the nostalgia of the perfect life “in the bush” where no-one would hassle you about being home on time or cared if you rode around on the back of the ute or did wheelies in the front paddock on the motor bike.
Now, of course there is a sense from some city folk that the outer suburbs are the bush and the closest they will get to farm life are the animal pens at the Royal Show.
Some fortunate children, often with parents who are re-living their own childhood, venture onto farm stay properties for a holiday and these can be a great experience, especially if the occupants have catered well for the visitor and enjoy having the family join in with the activities. But a fortunate few still have those cousins – or uncles that have a real farm, with real jobs.
We often play host to such families – nieces and nephews with their children and sometimes their children’s friends. The rules of such visits are usually fairly simple. Leave the gate as you found it (Shut it if you aren’t sure!), wear a bike helmet if you even think you are going to ride the three wheeler motor bike, and keep your dog under control.
We do have two dogs that visit occasionally. I have been told that one, a Labrador, gets excited even when its owner picks up his farm boots in the shed. When she arrives she gets out of the car and jumps on the ute, even before having a drink of water. She goes home with orange streaks in her pale coat from swimming in the clay dam and bits of sheep manure stuck to her fur – and sleeps all the way home.
The kids also leave exhausted. We aren’t a farm with horses or other animals to play with. There has been the occasional pet lamb to feed and there are always chooks to feed and eggs to collect. But there are other things to do. Collecting various skeletal remains from a long departed sheep can result in a great news story for “Show and Tell”. Mind you there is a fair amount of protest if the remains are a little too fresh for transporting in the car! Then there are gilgies (marron, crayfish- depending on which State you are in) that need to be caught. Lots of squeals – not just from the girls, and a messy meal after cooking them in hot water is par for the course.
If the farmer has any sense he will ensure that the extra work force ends up doing some sheep work – drenching, drafting even crutching can do with extra hands to move the sheep around. Or perhaps it's time to burn up a few dead logs in the paddocks – that can be fun stacking the wood to make large bon fires. Or logs can be a source of imagination - a cubby base, or a horse to ride.
The kids learn a lot. They learn that there is a life outside the bedroom and computer room. They learn that they can entertain themselves – building a cubby or having a camp fire (in the right season) and playing hide and seek among the rocks. They learn about people who physically work for a living and that they too run a business with all the computer models and high tech machinery that is part of farming today. They learn to get dirty – and that dirt and a scraped knee or a pecked finger doesn’t kill you. At times they learn about new life and about death. And as they get a bit older, some will even have their first driving lessons in a large paddock where they can sort out the basics before hitting the roads – usually accompanied by some sound advice from the uncle about driving on country roads.
If you are fortunate enough to have farming relatives, then make it happen – but bring some extra food with you – it will be appreciated. If you know no-one from rural areas, look up Farm Stays and consider it as a holiday.
This blog is to help people understand a little of rural life. But it can only go so far – if you really want to know – come and live it for a while.

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Market Forces

October 19th 2007 06:56
fishing
Fishing in South Australia
Keeping with my "living rural" theme and to further discuss the market forces that affect the economical returns that those involved in rural industries are receiving, I submit the following thoughts.
In view of the prospects of higher prices of grain for the coming year - due to continuing drought and failed crops in many areas of Australia: Australian produced pork, poultry, beef and sheep products will rise. Will you, as a consumer, continue to support Australian products where the strict regulations to ensure that what these animals are fed and the conditions under which they are produced are in place and strictly monitored? Or will you take the action of buying overseas imports where many of these issues are either not monitored or the products' history is unknown?
Do you as a consumer ever look at the labels on everything from bottled water to tinned fruit to ensure you have bought Australian products - grown or collected on Australian farms and tinned or bottled in Australian factories.
Are you checking that you are buying Australian fish - the supermarkets need to tell you where it comes from now. Do you leave the fish from different parts of the world with their unknown feeding and production methods from unknown waters which may have no set monitoring standards for water pollutants? Or do you go for these varieties that are usually cheaper? Do you ever consider that the reason Australian fish may be more expensive is that the fishermen are willingly ensuring their fishing practises are sustainable and quantities are therefore on quotas? Are you willing to support their efforts by paying a little extra for your Australian product and sending a message to your supermarket regarding your preference?
Do you ever check where your fruit and vegetables come from? They too are being labelled. Do you really need red grapes from the USA when in a couple of months you can get them from Australia? And if you kept on supporting the Australian grower there will be some grower, somewhere in Australia that will find it a viable opportunity to get your red grapes on the shelves when you want them.
Even if the imports have productive standards equivalent to ours and even if the chemicals used are no different to ours - what about the enormous "carbon footprint"- energy for transport, that has been used to get them to your market?
And what about being certain quarantine standards are maintained. These officers do a fantastic job - but surely the only 100% assurance we have that exotic diseases do not come to our country is to encourage Australian production.
We are always told "market forces"will dictate what will succeed or fail in our primary industry. You, my Australian readers, are that market. You are the ones who need to decide that you want to buy Australian wherever and whenever you can - for all the reasons I have alluded to. You are the ones who can leave the imported product in the shop. You are the ones to tell your shop keepers what you want. Be a force and help keep Aussie farmers in the market.
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A Viable Farm? - part 2

September 27th 2007 09:26
Some time ago I wrote about the question "Is farming Viable?" There has been considerable interest, so I feel it important to write a little more on the subject. At the moment we are holidaying in North Queensland - away from the sheep and farmbooks, seeing new places and hearing new stories. However, when we talk to farmers or ex-farmers we find, that despite the different crops or animals being farmed, the same questions about farm viability remains.
There was the water taxi owner at Dunk Island. He used to own chicken farms until the "big two" (Woolies and Coles) squeezed the price he could get for his eggs to just over one cent an egg. Considering hens only lay one egg a day - at best,and it costs more than that a day to feed them - you can see why he got out.
There was the sugar farmer - a very efficient industry from what we can see, but many of the farmers are beyond the age of retirement- still working because younger men are being paid more away from the industry. Contractors, used for harvesting the sugar need a harvester - worth almost half a million dollars, at least three tractors worth $100,000 each and three bins worth at least $50,000 each. They try to keep prices down so that the farmer can pay them, but how can they replace equipment and cope with petrol prices


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More Blessings to Count

September 8th 2007 02:49
plenty of grass
Plenty of Grass
OK. I'm not terribly inspiring at the moment. This flu is still hanging around and I've had my second visit to the doctor. I haven't been able to help my husband who has had a lot of sheep work this week, but at least I've done the books! But when I look out across the paddocks I can only thank God for the way He looks after us. After months of worrying if it would rain, for us, it did, and has continued to do so, so my blessings are scenes similar to those you see on this page. While APEC and other such meetings discuss the wealth of nations and are urged to discuss the sharing of such wealth with those who still suffer from the many devastating aspects of poverty, I too look at my own blessings and think of those within our rural communities that have not had the rains (or have had floods) and find the bottom line getting crimson - not just red.
A full dam
A full dam

Many patches in WA have had either no rain to put in crops or not enough rain for run off into dams. South Australia is devastated because they had a good start but no follow up, and crops have been burnt off and died. The Murray Darling may be running, but for how long? It will take more than the rains that have fallen so far this year to help it and the industries depending on it - and the nature depending on it, to recover.
So think on these people as you look at these lovely pictures and pray with me that all may be blessed with a green paddock and a smooth road ahead.
A smooth road
A Smooth road
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Counting my blessings

September 1st 2007 07:30
I have the flu. So what’s new about that – I expect all my readers have had it some time this winter. Still, I’ve decided I should use this moment to count my blessings. I got the flu when my beloved youngest son came from the city to help his Dad do some sheep work. The Blessing One is that I have sons that help where they can and Blessing Two – I avoided the flu until he so generously brought it from the city – isolation has its benefits!
We are having a few running repairs done on the house this Saturday morning. A bit of roof work – was going to happen on Wednesday – but it was raining, (Blessing Three) so the workers came back today – officially their day off - not sure if that’s a common occurrence where you come from, so that’s Blessing Four. These boys are farmer’s sons, who can turn their hand to many a different job – including roofing and shed building, working in a tyre shop, seeding, harvesting, truck driving and sheep work. Very Handy handymen in their early twenties.
My husband is replacing a screen door. OK it took weeks to arrive from the manufacturer, but being married to a farmer means that this odd job can be done – provided I am available to assist now and then. Blessing Five is my own personal handyman and is a bit like Four but now I’m talking about my clever husband. Necessity leads to these abilities, for getting professional builders etc are nearly impossible for the little jobs. The only problem is, if you have to wait for him to do anything it can take as long as it would to get a handyman in the city, and it usually requires a slight degree of – dare I say it - persistent reminders – known in some quarters as nagging


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It's a lamb's life

August 26th 2007 07:42
It's a lamb's life
Safe with Mum (New Zealand ewe and lambs in Highlands)
It’s that time of the year when lambs begin to learn what life is all about. Our lamb has spent the first two months of his life enjoying the warmth of his mother’s milk, the protection of her body on a cold windy day and the joy of skipping across the paddocks, having races and jumping off logs with friends.
Then one day a motor bike and a couple of excited dogs disturb the peace and it takes all his strength just to keep up with Mum as she races towards the open gate with all the other Mums. Soon he finds himself confined in a muddy yard where white coats soon become grubby and it is easy to be rolled over in the mud or to lose Mum for some time. Soon the lamb finds that he has been separated from his Mother for the day. It could be that the farmer needs to crutch* her and drench* her. If that is the case it is only a matter of a few hours before mother and child are re-united – and a more pleasant time can be had when it comes to that next feed – without the smelly dags!
However, it is not long in our young lamb’s life that he will be the one getting the attention. Tagging*, tailing*, inoculating* and mulesing* could be a possibility. It is not a pleasant day in our young lamb’s life, and the farmer would give anything not to have to do these things to his young charges. However, just as a human mother knows that immunization is an essential part of ensuring her child will remain healthy, so the farmer knows that these different operations will keep his sheep in good health


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Pondering our past - and future in Country Museum Parks

August 18th 2007 10:29
early machinery
Pondering the past
What is this fascination of old rusty equipment from agricultural pursuits of the past or the machinery from saw mills or old dairies? Why do we spend hours standing in front of old steam trains or cars from the 1920’s pretending to remember things that were not our memories but the memories of our fore-fathers? What is it that drives people into yet another early settler’s kitchen to see yet another fire place and hanging black pots?
There are those who spend their whole lives trying to recreate the atmosphere of the early settlers in country towns – with their slab bush school, doctor’s surgery, police lock-up and “Mrs Jackson’s” house. These are often set among little bush walks, streams and wooden bridges, labeled trees, hand made wooden benches and picnic gazebos.
But there is nothing romantic about not having anywhere to be treated for a broken leg. There is nothing romantic about being crushed between a goods train and a timber log or several falling wheat bags. There is nothing romantic about being thrown from a flighty horse or being lost in the bush. There is nothing virtuous about slaving over a wood fire on a hot day in an iron hut. And what child would enjoy learning in a classroom that had cold wind whistling through the cracks all winter. These stories hold the attention of tourists and locals alike when they make the obligatory visit to the museum park.
old bush school building
air conditioned classroom

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Lifestyle Farmers - neighbours from Heaven or Hell?

May 30th 2007 02:25
Lifestyle farmers
Farms to the left of you, farms to the right

There is a sense of unease among many farmers who rely on what they can produce from the land as their major source of income, when they are introduced to the hobby farmer, absentee land owner or those who have opted for a “bush change” in their retirement or semi-retirement - the so-called lifestyle farmers. While most people in the bush make a great effort to welcome new-comers to their district, these people can be met with some suspicion and coolness, if certain basic principals are not followed.
The new comer must realize that to begin with, the price paid for the piece of land they have acquired was probably inflated to a degree that a normal farmer was unable to acquire it. This is great for the seller, but not for farmers who wish to expand their properties. However, most farmers bow to the demands of market forces, however unwillingly, and if the new neighbours are nice enough people, such little matters can be overcome. (Besides, the farmer will make a mental note of the price and adjust the equity value of his property a little as a result


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Here comes the Rain!

May 3rd 2007 04:14
Signs of rain
I'm in the good books!
The cat is earning his keep at the moment. He has managed to catch two mice in the house and he and I had a wonderful time getting rid of a family of eight rats that took up residence in the hen house. Well the old dog helped a bit with one – he scared it to death – honestly – it had a heart attack! I believe the moggie is now being employed gainfully down at the shed for the same purpose.
Why this sudden influx of rodents? It all has to do with a change in the season – and more importantly the signs that it is going to rain. I have it on very good authority (my husband) that rodents in my kitchen are a sure sign that good rains are on the way. So instead of complaining about the half eaten Weetbix and the smell in the saucepan cupboard I should be happily cleaning out said cupboards each week and living in hope! Well I hope he’s right – because I hate cleaning at the best of times… (Just as an aside here - we have had some rain already – it’s good to see some patches of green in the paddocks – may it continue – lots and lots!)
What other signs of nature should we all be aware of to predict rain? The first one to to be seen is when the salt water that is just below the ground in salt patches comes to the surface. This is really noticeable and often salt tolerate grasses start to green up too. This is, of course, like many farm activities a mixed blessing. The farmer can see if his salt patches have spread – not good, but he is also hopeful that rains are on the way - good.
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Anzac Day in the Bush

April 17th 2007 07:49
Anzac Day Service
Lest We Forget
The time of year is again approaching when Australia remembers those who fought in many theatres of war over the last one hundred or so years. Most country towns will hold a march from point to point with any veterans available, women who had served as nurses or land army, some children of these service men and women, Red Cross and CWA members, the boy scouts, girl guides and possibly the fire and ambulance volunteers to swell the numbers. The local clergy will say the prayers and others will share the formalities of the service. The last post and reveille will be sounded by the gifted child that is learning the trumpet or the sounds will come from a well worn tape recording. Wreaths will be laid at the local memorial – a cairn in a park, a soldier with his rifle turned upside down in the main street or a wall on which names are displayed – many of them the same surnames as those that are still within the town. Nothing will stop this solemn ceremony – even Highway traffic must give way for this event.
Most towns sport a Memorial Hall, a Memorial park and/or an RSL Hall as permanent reminders of these sacrifices. These places are held in respect and a certain reverence.

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Old Dog

March 27th 2007 03:43
The Old Dog
The old dog - just resting
Our old sheep dog is getting slower and slower. While a couple of years ago he would tell off the other mutt when he invaded his territory in the sheep yards, now he is more likely to let any other dog do the work. Now he gets in the road when sheep are being moved from one paddock to another– not on purpose- it's just that it takes him longer to get there! Only if his master is at the sheds for more than two hours will he bother to wander down to join him. His life now tends to be a series of moves from one dug out in the garden to another - following the sun around the house.
He is actually lucky to be alive at all. As a very young dog he fell off the back of the ute and went under the full sheep feeder which is attached behind, breaking the bone at the join to the hip. The first diagnosis was “forget it”, and then the vet decided he needed the “practice” and offered to do it for nothing. (When the bill came we realized he meant he needed his practice - that is, needed to keep his veterinary practice going – as the anesthetic bill was enormous). However, despite being told the dog would never be able to jump on the tray of the ute, he has always done so for many years.
Then he had a run in with a kangaroo which meant he is not as manly as he was – if you get my drift.- more stitches


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The Country smells! Good and bad!

March 1st 2007 08:41
The Country Smells
Intoxicating Red Gum Flowers


Enough rain fell today to freshen the air and stop the dry dusty smells of summer. But not enough to allow the earth to release the sweet aroma of promise that heralds a change of season – the smell that awakens grasses to germinate and for the greening to begin


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