Archive for the Category »The Farmer's Life «

Feb

Today there is a catastrophic fire danger for the South coast of WA. It’s gonna be a stinker of a day and we’re just about to have another meeting to see if the Bushfire Brigade are going to issue a Movement of Vehicles in paddocks ban.

There’s a smoke haze from a fire to the north of us and the wind is a strong northerly that’s sending shivers up my spine. Today is not a day for a fire.

But first up, we had a mob of 1,700 sheep that we had to shift. We had bought them from our neighbours and it was time for them to see their new home!

We started at about 5am with two dogs, Anthony, the two kids, a mate and his daughter and me.

We had to push them across a main road and then down a side road to where we had laid down a fence to let them into our paddock.

The kids did an amazing job of being sheep shepard’s and we brought the sheep down the road without any problems! They’re now in their new home, awaiting some animal husbandry work that we’ll be doing on Monday.

On a Red Dust note, I found out yesterday from my publisher that it was the highest selling novel, across all of the Australian publishers, for 2009, from a debut author. I’d just really like to thank all of you who bought copies. You’re the only reason this happened.

Also, the winner of Sharyn Munro’s book, Woman on the Mountain, was Alison, who has been notified, although I’m just waiting for her to get back to me with an address so we can send it off.

Our guest blog next month is Helene Young, who will be giving away a copy of her new book, Border Watch.

**PS! It’s now nearly the end of the day and I think we had about seven fires across the Esperance shire. Some close to home. Right now I’m listening to the wonderful sound of rain on a tin roof, knowing that all the fires should be under control. Some spots have had terrential down pours and other areas have had a steady rain, that is just enough to dampen the fires and our worry. We are so thankful for rain on days like today.

Category: Country Life, Farm animals, Photos, Red Dust, The Farmer's Life, The Writer's Life 2 Comments

Jan

Oh, how dusty!

Fleur

As part of our farming operation we run a prime lamb feedlot. It’s a management tool that gets the lambs off the paddocks during summer, which in turn helps keeps our soil structure strong and (hopefully) stops paddocks from blowing, when the strong sea breezes come in every afternoon.

We become quite friendly with the lambs over the time they’re ‘locked up’! Every day we go and clean out their troughs, check their feeders and generally make sure no one has an upset tummy from the rich tucker or is unwell.

And about every two weeks we get them into the yards and weigh the, – when we send lambs to market, they need to be a certain weight.

Trouble is with using the yards a lot in summer is the dust. When we push the lambs into the yards, the dust is a thick, choking plume that is hard to see through and every time we open our mouths (accidentally, I can tell you!) you can feel the crunch on dirt on your teeth!

But there are times that the dust, lambs and sun make a magic picture. Anthony took this photo on his mobile phone, just as the sun was setting on another day of sheep work!

Category: Country Life, Farm animals, The Farmer's Life 6 Comments

Dec

The Edit!

Fleur

I love getting the first clean, fresh, pages, back from Allen and Unwin – it looks like a book and is ready to read. It’s like starting again and seeing the book through fresh eyes.

This edit was particularly difficult for me. We were going flat chat with harvest and I had a deadline to have the edit finished by… deadlines and harvest just don’t work.

I spent hours sitting in the tractor, waiting for Anthony to call me over to the header and take a load of grain away from him! It was frustrating when I spent time sitting, waiting, not doing very much, when I had Blue Skies hanging over my head. Then I decided to take the manuscript with me and see if I could read through it while I was waiting! Well, that was an interesting experience!

When I’m driving the chaser bin, I often take a book – there is always time to read – it doesn’t matter if you read the same sentence twice or skip a page – it doesn’t effect your work. Editing a MS does! I don’t know how many times, after getting so caught up in what I was doing, that I didn’t see the signal (auger out from the header), to take a load of grain back to the silos. There were a few terse calls on the two-way, asking if I was intending to help that day!

By the end, there were lots of dirty finger prints all over the MS and a couple of pages that had water spilt on them, when the kids jumped in the tractor for their daily ride. But more to the point, there was lots of green marks that indicated the changes I was making… it was slowly getting done.

It was then a process of transferring everything I’d changed onto an email and sending it back to my editor. I made the deadline and we finished harvest… I’m not sure I want to try doing both of them at the same time, ever, again!

Category: Blue Skies, Harvest, The Farmer's Life, The Writer's Life 3 Comments

Dec

Full moon, an end to harvest and a finished edit!

Fleur

I must say, after a fairly intense three weeks, harvest has finally finished and I, for one, am glad! I love seeing the grain come in and finding out what we’ve produced! But three weeks of 4am starts and after dark finishes, as well as trying to edit Blue Skies, has taken its toll!

I was feeling pretty pleased when I went to sit outside in the peace and quiet to watch the moon rise, complete with a glass of wine! We had finished harvest, I had just hit the ’send’ button on an email to my editor containing all the changes for Blue Skies, so that had been put to rest and how could anyone not enjoy watching this moon rise? It was massive and the light it cast across the country side, was magical.

So now I’ve enjoyed my feeling of freedom, I’m back to waiting! Waiting for my editor to get back to me and for the unedited proof book form to arrive, waiting for the last silo of grain to be cleaned and delivered and waiting for the next pile of jobs to build up! We start today weaning our calves and preg-testing the cows, so the waiting for Blue Skies won’t seem so bad.

But at the moment, I’m just as happy to raise a glass of wine to the moon and enjoy the feeling of not being busy- for a short time!

Category: Blue Skies, Farm animals, Harvest, The Farmer's Life, The Writer's Life 4 Comments

Nov

From sunset to sunrise!

Fleur

This is what my world looked like at 4.15 this morning! Magic isn’t it?

We in WA are lucky not to have daylight saving, but it does mean that our sun gets ups up at horrible hours – it kissed the horizon at 4.35am!

Anthony and I were up - it is going to be a hot day, with the threat of a harvest ban to be put on (that means that we can’t go out in the paddocks at all, unless we’re making sure our stock have water. It’s all about minimising the risk of fires on days of high fire danger.)

The wisp of cloud that you can see across the sky is actually smoke. There is a large blaze burning to the east of us – in crown and completely unpopulated land, so it is of no threat to us and all the Conservation and Land Management people are monitoring it! But it was the smell of smoke that woke me at about 1.30am. I flew out of bed and charged around the house to each window, trying to see if there was one close by, but it was this one.

As you can see, the animals know that it is going to be hot and the cows are already out grazing. It will be a good harvest day so Anthony, Jayden and I will be trundling around the paddock, harvesting and cleaning grain – unless there is a harvest ban in place!

**NEWSFLASH!! I have a surprise guest blog! Tamara McKinley has answered a couple of my questions and I’ll be sharing them with you tomorrow. She won’t be around to ask questions, but she’s just shared a few things about her writing experiences with me.

Category: The Farmer's Life, Weather 4 Comments

Nov

Blue Skies for Harvest!

Fleur

Well, after a week of rumbling and grumbling, lightening and torrential rain, in a few spots, we’re off harvesting again today.

We’re down in our far back paddock and this is the view from the chaser bin. I took this one of the hottest days we had this week (about 40 degrees) but you wouldn’t know by looking at it!

I love the golden stalks that crunch under my feet when I walk through it, but the cut off stems play mary-hell with your legs! I’ve got little round cuts all over them from where the stems stick into them as I’ve been walking through the crop!

On the Blue Skies front, I’m looking forward to getting the first pages back this week. Even though it will still be printed on A4 paper, it will be set out like a book and for some reason, that just makes it easier to read and therefore, edit.

I’ve got the cover for Blues Skies and will be putting it up shortly, along with a small piece, written by Anne-Marie, who took one of the photos used on it. She’s going to be telling you about the time she took it and so forth. But before the cover goes up, I’m just waiting for a few little bits and pieces to be perfected.

Category: Blue Skies, The Farmer's Life, Weather Leave a Comment

Nov

Hearts in our mouths

Fleur

Thunderstorms are not only impressive but their power is truly breathtaking. They are a reminder to humans: how we can’t control everything, (even though we try) and how much we are at the mercy of Mother Nature. As farmers during summer, we tend to be a bit wary of storms – especially if they don’t bring any rain.

Last night was a shocker for lightening and fires. From about 3pm we could see the clouds building and then heard the ominous sounds of rumbling in the distance.

As the day became night the flashes of lightening hitting the ground were spectacular… if you ignored the fact it was starting fires in the dry and brittle grass.

Before long we could see the red glows of fires in many different directions. The bush fire radio crackled to life and there was a hive of activity as the wind buffeted the fires along.

As with thunderstorms they are unpredictable, and some people racing to the fires couldn’t stay on the road due to the pouring rain! Thankfully, it helped control the fires quickly and before too much farming land was damaged although some of our friends lost crop and pasture.

No rain where we live and at 5am this morning it was thirty degrees. It’s looking like another day of thundery storms – hopefully without the excitement of last night.

Category: Mother Nature, The Farmer's Life, Weather One Comment

Nov

Season finishes

Fleur

Our season has come to an abrupt end. There wasn’t any gradual change in the grass as there can be some years. It went from green to golden in the space of about three days! Now is the time that my love/hate relationship starts with summer. I am not a fan of hot weather – which is quite strange, considering where I grew up, but my skin can’t take the strong summer sun… and I’m a weakling, when the temperature hits over thirty and I have to work in it!

But I love the school holidays, Christmas, the warm nights, awesome sunsets and any excuse for a BBQ and few drinks! (And the beach, if I’m in the shade!)

All that is still to come. First there is harvest: Anthony has pulled the header out of the shed and started to swath some of our barley, so we’ll be harvesting by tomorrow.

Second, there’s the feedlot: these lambs have been drenched and jetted (for flies) and are on their way down to the feedlot. They’ll be my charges, while harvest is going on. I’ll make sure the feeders are full and the water is clean and fresh and then let Anthony know when I think they are ready for sale.

And then there is the seasonal thunderstorms that can bring fires or a deluge of rain!

This time of the year is always stressful – trying to get the harvest off before there are any summer rains, can cause even the most placid person to get rather snarly! It is such a big job and there is so much riding on it that it hangs over everyone head and we all hold our breath until the last truck has left the farm.

Hopefully next year our season will be a ‘normal’ one and not as difficult as the past two years.

Category: Country Life, Harvest, The Farmer's Life, Weather 5 Comments

Oct

Golden Hay

Fleur

Look at all our beautiful hay! The cows will be happy with us this year!

I love it when it looks as golden as this (always reminds me of the fairy tale, Rumplestiltskin), but I love it even better when it’s all been carted and stacked in rows, away from the weather.

Holly, the pregnant Kelpie, has taken to sitting on top of the new bales, watching as the hay is carted into the stack – she looks rather relaxed… I wonder if she’s had a visit from old Rumplestiltskin! Maybe not, I haven’t seen any extra gold lying around anywhere, unfortunately!

Category: Country Life, Farm animals, The Farmer's Life, Working dogs 4 Comments

Oct

The old and the new

Fleur

Today was a very exciting day! Our brand new toy, a John Deere tractor, was delivered.

Tractors are such a huge part of our farming life – I think, either Anthony, I or our workman, are in one every day! If we’re not feeding hay with it, we’re spraying, seeding, pulling the chaser bin, carting gravel, the list goes on.

Our old chamberlain tractor, (nicknamed, Charlie Chamberlain) was Anthony’s dads first ever tractor, and we inherited it, when he died. Even though it’s as old as the hills, drafty and hasn’t got a radio (gasp!) or air con/heater (double gasp!), it still runs as smoothly as the day it was bought, but it’s time to up-grade!

We now have a fleet of three John Deere tractors - that means Anthony, our workman and I have one each… and the kids get to have Charlie! I’m sure there will be arguments between Anthony and Jayden about who gets to drive the new one – I’m actually just happy on our old one, that isn’t controlled by a computer!

We now joke that old Charlie might be designated to our kids, first car! I’m waiting to until Hayden is sixteen to actually gauge his real response. At the moment he thinks it’s a cool idea!

Category: Country Life, Harvest, The Farmer's Life Leave a Comment

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