Anthony went fishing at Thomas River the other night. Being a school night the kids and I stayed home, but with holidays coming up we’re hoping to spend a few nights fishing with Dad!
It was worth the Boss’s while going to throw a line in the water as he came home with this six kilo ‘Skippy’ – one of the biggest he’s caught.
When the fish hit, Anthony was battling a salmon on his other line and thought that this one was a salmon too. Cursing, he just yanked the line in, not enjoying the fight that the Skippy put up. He’d been hoping for something yummy, not salmon after salmon, like he’d been catching. (The salmon we catch down here, aren’t great to eat).
To his surprise and glee here was a Skippy that didn’t fit into the esky with its head on, hence the lack of a head in the photo!
We had a yummy feed of fish and chips last night, while we watched the Eagles beat the Hawks – all in all, a very good night!
At the moment all the bulls are heading off on their annual visit to the girls! They’ll see who’s still there from last year and check out any new ones.
This bloke is heading to a paddock with a some girls eagerly awaiting his arrival.
We’ve been seeing the cows ‘bulling’ recently (which means, in farm-speak, cycling – ready to get pregnant,) so it’s time to send the fella’s into the clutches of some wanton women!
They stay in for about six weeks. Later we’ll check to see who’s pregnant and who’s not …
Six weeks of glory, then the rest of the year celibate! Who’d be a bull?
I’m hoping you guys are going to be as excited about this as I am!
Together with That’s Life magazine, we’re offering you a chance at an exclusive competition to be involved with the writing of my new book, Blue Skies.
Keep an eye on my website and That’s Life’s website – over the next few days and you’ll see what it’s all about.
This is the finished version of our new dam! It’s huge isn’t it? All the guys have to do now is to run the grader around the bottom, smooth it all out and viola! It’s finished …
And a PS: the dam was finished on Thursday afternoon and on Friday we had 18mm of rain. Its got about 50cm of water in the bottom of it.
Bring on a wet winter (sorry to all the croppers!) to fill it to the brim!
Dad was up pre-dawn to fly north for a couple of days, which meant he had to drag Mum out of bed. (There are no lights on the bush airstrip, so mum sits down the end of the strip with the car lights on, so Dad could see the end of the runway and be airborne in time).
This particular morning, Mum, who isn’t an early riser, snapped some beautiful photos of the sunrise, including the silhouetted house dam windmill.
This is a spectacular Red Dust sunrise – just imagine, though, how amazing it would have been flying towards it!
This guy is taking level readings to find the best spot for the new dam to take advantage of the natural fall in the land and maximise water collection.
This thing that Graham is peering through, is like a pair of really strong binoculars.
What you can’t see is Anthony, way out in the paddock, holding a measuring stick.
Graham can then read the stick measurements and calculate how the land falls.
Sometimes it’s quite surprising – where you think it is quite low and water lies, can often be one of the highest points! Can you explain that to me?
Well, the barley’s up! Its had a lovely couple of drinks from the rain we’ve had over the past week, the insects have been sprayed out, we can’t see any weeds … so this crop has had a good start.
Now, it’s got a fair bit more growing to do over the next five months. It’ll grow fairly slowly for the next month or so, as the ground is really cold, but as soon as the warmth starts to break through, it’ll take off.
That’s when we’ll need rain as the plants suck up so much moisture when they’re growing quickly.
In November/December sometimes, depending on how the season finishes up, we’ll be putting the header in here to harvest, what we hope will be, beautiful, plump grains!
About three and a half years ago, my friend Ned rang me to tell me she had breast cancer. I was stunned. Gutted. How could she? She was only 40 and had two very young children.
Ned’s personality was larger than life and that was the way she treated every hurdle she ever faced.
She was always positive, and even throughout the most horrendous treatment, she smiled and laughed.
We occasionally cried together but only at her exceptionally low times throughout the chemo. It never once crossed her mind that she wouldn’t beat this terrible disease.
She had two years of great health, the checkups were just precautionary. In October of last year the cancer returned and this time, the doctors couldn’t do anything. There were secondaries that couldn’t be operated on.
Today Ned died, leaving behind a devastated husband and two young boys. As well as leaving a hole in their life, she’s left a gap in all of her friends lives.
Ned was passionate about prevention of both breast and prostate cancer.
So please, if you are reading this and you haven’t been to the doctor for a while, please go. Have a ‘100,000k check up, grease and oil change, and a boob check’, as Ned would’ve called it, or a prostate one.
If between Ned and I, we can save one person’s life, that’s all we could ask for.
Our ewes lamb from April through until early August. It gives us a range of ages and therefore we’re able to send lambs off at different times of the year. It spreads the risk and cash-flow!
Lambing during winter can have its downfalls ifs a particularly strong cold front come through and there are lots of tiny lambs.
But, even with this, these five months are the best time to lamb. It means they grow up on green grass, mum milks better and they have a better start of life.
This bush is where the ewes are able to take their lambs when the cold southerlies blow and the rain falls. They can get in amongst the tree’s and hide behind these piles of mallee roots – the root system of this bushy tree that you can see.
We’re lucky to have a huge amount of bush on our farm. The McDonald’s have owned this farm since it was cleared and being stock people, shelter is extremely important for our animals.
There is also a river system running through the middle of the farm, so it wasn’t and never could be, cleared for fear of salt. Our early settlers were really clever people.
Blue Skies is based around early settlement of Esperance – around the 1930’s and I talk quite a lot about clearing the land for farming use.
See that red spot? Its my daughter off walking Rocket. I dropped her at the front of this paddock to walk up through the middle. It gives both her and Rocket time to explore, check out the insects that are about, or talk to the animals.
The cows are checking out what they’re both up to, but they won’t harm her at all. In fact they’re pretty used to people walking through their paddocks!
The tales she tells when she arrives home, shows that she has an over-active imagination, much like her mum’s!
