Category Archives: Farm

Sowing Love

There’s something about Sowing Time, the promise of possibilities, the team work to get it sown, the machinery and the way it needs to all work together, with just the right amount of rain, not too much, not too little. As much as it frustrates me I love it.
When my Muddy Brother-in-law stopped to shift paddocks and fill up the other day I snapped a quick couple of shots on the phone. I really do love this time of year. Once it’s over in a couple of weeks we will hope for rain and watch the seeds shoot and grow. Then we can focus on Shearing and after that work towards Harvest, the never ending cycle for our farming life.
Muddy Hubby and Muddy Brother-in-law making a plan (not sure how they hear each other over the sound of the augers).
  
The Air Seeder all folded up, ready to move, while Muddy Hubby and Muddy Brother-in-law fill up the Seed Bins with Wheat and Fertiliser.
One Wing of the Air Seeder Upright for transport
The disc and tine, the disc makes the furrow in the paddock and the tine plants the seed behind it

Time Together

Last week it rained and Muddy Hubby chose that day to head to the block up north we farm. We traversed sticky black mud roads in showering miserable weather, slipping and sliding around the roads. Then Muddy Hubby climbed the windmill to reconnect it, so he’ll have some water to spray the weeds before we sow. All the while Muddy Bubby slept or happily checked weeds with us out the window.
Muddy Hubby and I used to do this a lot before we had kids, and even with the first two, after that, the kids just fought too much and it wasn’t as much fun. It was so nice to spend time together (and with Muddy Bubby), just chatting away about this, that, weeds, farming, guessing how much rain we’d had, just being together. Something we don’t get a lot of any more.
We’ve had enough rain at home to start sowing, not enough up north, so Muddy Hubby walked out the door yesterday and I think it’ll be the last time we see him for more than a few minutes, for a few weeks (unless it rains again), as we go hell for leather to try and get our crop sown before the moisture dries up or it rains again. He’s promised me he’ll come home for lunch today, as we have some lovely friends coming to visit (the one exception he’ll make), but he’ll be straight back into work after lunch. The life of a farmer is never dull (unless we’re talking weather).

Working with Hay

We’ve almost finished the hay work for now, getting ready to focus on sowing if it decides to rain (not looking great at the moment). The bales get loaded on the truck up the paddock and either carted into the hay stack and unloaded in lovely rows or they get carted to the hay shed and stacked in there, but it doesn’t hold very many big round bales.



All loaded up from the paddock, waiting to be unloaded

 

Unloading in the hay stack (The Muddy Pixie has her own little spot in the tractor today, the Puzzler gets the afternoon shift)
All lined up in lovely rows (got to love order)

Before the bales could be stacked in the hay shed the hay shed had to be cleaned out, so we got a load of lovely mulch and a huge load of hay for my garden. Sunday we all worked together to spread it over the veggie patches and around the orchard. Somehow I think Muddy Hubby got the easy job!

The Muddy Puzzler loading up her cart
The Muddy Pixie with a full little wheelbarrow





All lined up ready for a load (damn you blogger for making it so hard to arrange my pictures how I want them!)

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Muddy Bubby oversaw it all from his pram or the sandpit.

One of the things….

One of the things I am not loving about living where we live at the moment is my Internet access. We’re on satellite Internet, which means we have a big dish on the roof. This also means that it’s nowhere near as fast as some other Internet options. It also means that when it’s overcast the service sucks, when it’s windy there’s often no service, and sometimes for no good reason the dish on our roof stops talking to the satellite in the sky and we get absolute zilch, zippo, nothing. Now the Internet service provider flatly denies any of this, says weather and wind do not affect the service. I disagree.

But rant now over, for all the little things that drive me batty living out here or give me cause for utter frustration, there are so very many more good things. My good thing for this week has been the complete turnaround from sunset to sunrise.

This was the sunset on Monday night, breathtakingly beautiful. The Muddy Kids and I went outside to feed the dogs, pigs and chooks and dawdled for ages just watching the beautiful sunset and chasing the animals.

The next morning we woke up to this awesome Fog. The first fog for the year for us, not a pea soup fog like I can remember growing up in Sydney, but a hazy, ethereal fog. It didn’t last long, by the time I’d dropped the Muddy Organiser at the bus stop it was almost gone, chased away by the sun.

It’s these little things that remind me how I love living where we live, and help stop me yelling at the Internet service provider in frustration. Just don’t ask me how long it took to actually upload these photos!

What are some of the little things that you love about living where you live?

Make Hay While The Sun Shines

You know I never really understood the meaning of that saying ’til I moved to the farm. This is what’s been keeping Muddy Hubby busy this week, up early home late, making Sorghum Hay while the sun shines, trying to get it done before it rains. We haven’t seen much of him, except for quick trips up the paddock to drop his esky off.
First it’s cut

Then it’s raked
 
Then it’s baled

 

Then you have a paddock full of hay bales



Then it’s time to play
How many family members fit on top of a bale?
The next job is to cart them all in and line them up in rows, waiting for a big drought that will use them up pretty quick (they say there’s one coming).
Do you have a favourite saying?
What’s been keeping you and your family busy?

An Easter Bathroom

One of my favourite types of shows to watch are those home renovation ones, I loved the original couple of series of The Block where they did most of it themselves, and I loved The Renovators, especially the houses where they did it themselves, rather than just getting the tradies in. So I was a little bit excited when Muddy Hubby said we were going to fix up the bathroom, take out the window that joins the office and plumb a proper shower into the wall!!

It didn’t take long for my illusions about renovating to be shattered. I knew it was going to be hard work, I knew it would take longer than the Easter Weekend (even though Muddy Hubby was certain it would be done by Easter Monday!). What I wasn’t prepared for was the nightmare of plumbing in an old farm house that has been added on and added on, and dodgy pipes and a 39 year old hot water system that chose to give up the ghost while we were working on the bathroom, or the toilet that decided to block up and continually overfill my septic system. It’s these little bits that have made for a stressful experience, that and intermittent water with 4 kids and 4 adults in the house!

But onward we pressed, through Good Friday and Easter Sunday, one trip to Bunnings and one Chinese takeaway, a little bit of escorting the tractor, a lap in the tractor hay cutting for Muddy Hubby and several drinks and days later we can see an end in sight. I hope! There is now no leaks in the pipes, sheeting on the walls and they have started tiling. I have a new Solatube and exhaust fan. I am busying fixing up the office side, sanding walls, puttying and soon to be painting. Hoping to finish before the new carpet goes in from the flood damage! Big expectations, yes, sleepless nights yes! I keep repeating ‘It will be good when it’s finished!’. I’m looking forward to a hot shower, and giving the kids a big bubble bath.

Have you renovated? What were your little hiccups that made it last longer than you planned?
Or did you have a dream run?

Wordless Wednesday – Let’s Go Fly a Kite

From one of my all time favourite movies as a kid – Mary Poppins
‘Let’s go fly a kite
Up to the highest height
Let’s go fly a kite
And send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Oh, let’s go fly a kite!’
– Robert Sherman

It’s all good until it gets stuck up a powerpole!
Maybe we should have listened to Muddy Hubby and taken them all the way out into the paddock!

Linking up for Wordless Wednesday with Trish at My Little Drummer Boys

Some Lunch and Weighing Lambs for a Wonderful Weekend

I’d rather ignore Saturday with 6 loads of washing and a broken lawn mower but Sunday made for a Wonderful Weekend. Muddy Hubby fixed the mower for me, so I could finish mowing the orchard, keeping the mozzies down and giving me a clear view of the snakes coming. Then the Muddy Family headed to the local pub for lunch. We set up camp on the back lawn of the pub, the kids settled down on the rug for some colouring-in and lunch, while the adults settled in for a good catch up and tasty feed.
Our local pub has been gradually restored and renovated over the last few years. It’s now a meeting place for friends and family, a place to relax, unwind and have a good time. During the year they host functions, and have family BBQ’s, Sunday was one of those days.
After lunch the kids had fun watching the train go by, playing make believe as trains, planes and horses, while Muddy Hubby and I played with Muddy Bubby and chatted the afternoon away.
We went straight back to work in the late afternoon, weighing lambs for today’s sheep sale. Making sure we had the heaviest to send to market. The girls are getting good at learning how to shift the sheep, keep them moving into the scales and drafting them off into the heavy and light pens. My favourite bit is them getting to spend time with Muddy Hubby and learn all the workings of the farm. I also love to see a bit of fashion in the sheep yards, Muddy Organiser with her silver shoes and pretty dress and Muddy Puzzler with her bright red dress, always a way to brighten up the dusty yards.

How did you spend your weekend? Do you have a local pub that’s good for families like ours is?
Linking up with the Amazing Sonia at Life, Love and Hiccups for Wonderful Weekends