The fisherman returns

Yesterday afternoon I picked hubby up from the airport after his wonderful and successful fishing trip in Walpole, Western Australia.  He spent time fishing with my farming brother, my nephew and my brothers mate, a good all round blokey time was had by all.  Here are a few photos from hubby's time away.

Eric with a beautiful sea salmon.

These kangaroos roamed in and out of the caravan park.

Hubbies accommodation was the hippy van.

I think a hard working farmer deserves to lie down while waiting for the fish to bite.

Eric, Trev and Ben.

Sandscapes on the beach.

Cleaning the days catch with a friend who lives locally.

Eric with one that didn't get away.

After the fishing week was over, hubby drove back up to the farm to stay with Mum for a couple of days.  On the way he stopped off at the tree top walk.

Without question hubby enjoyed his holiday and would love to do it again.

A big catch up

I've been home from Western Australia just over a week and have spent a huge amount of that time out in the garden pruning, digging and planning.  Before I get into regular blogging again, here is a little of what I did while I was away in both Adelaide visiting my sister-in-law and brother-in-law and visiting Mum and my brother at the farm in Western Australia.

To say I had a wonderful time in Adelaide would be a understatement.  Here are a few snippets of my time there.

Visiting Christies Beach.

One day we took a drive out to the McLaren Vale winery region.  The scenery was beautiful and we enjoyed a lunch platter of delicious produce local to the area.

Some of the gardens at the winery.

Out walking one day we were fortunate to see these two dolphins frolicking.

Lunching with this view of the ocean was a wonderful treat.

 The three days spent in Adelaide went by very quickly and then it was off to Western Australia to visit my Mum.  One of the first things I did was help out my brother with some sheep work.  Here is Jessie rounding up a mob of 8 month old lambs that needed to be drenched and vaccinated.

Farm work is not a glamorous business so its old trousers and one of Dad's old shirts to keep me covered from the sun.  Eric's doing the drenching and I'm vaccinating.

After the sheep work was done, I went to see my nephews little kitten he rescued when it was only just over a week old.  Here is "Scramble" still with blue eyes.  Isn't he sweet?!

 Driving back to Mum's house we came across this Sand Monitor in the middle of the road.  Eric was quite close to it and was able to very gently touch its tail but after the second touch, he/she took off rather speedily over to a tree.

Beautiful Bonnie, Eric's other sheepdog of sorts.

A farmer's got to have his hobbies, right?!  This is one of Eric's, flying model aeroplanes.

My lovely Mummy and me having a girls day out in one of the local towns.

 The farmer was having a birthday within days of me leaving to come back to Victoria so he got his present in early.  Brown paper from packaging, string and rusty bolts and a washer found around the farm shed made for excellent masculine gift wrapping.  Everything recycled or to be recycled.  Love it.

 The farmer doesn't only grow grain and raise sheep, he grows grapes as well.  These Crimson grapes are the best I've every tasted.  They're organic, they were sweet and crunchy just how grapes should be.

Galahs on a silo, silly things kept sliding off.

Galahs and a lonesome crow.  They were very noisy.

 

One of the things I enjoy doing for Mum is gardening and she asked me to prop up this old bike and pop a few plants into the basket which incidentally is an old freezer basket I found lying around.  It's always a challenge gardening on the farm with extreme heat in summer and frosts in winter.  There is always an abundance of dry grass in summer and hoses nearby for the never ending watering.

So it's back into gardening at home in Victoria, trying to make the most of the cooler weather and more stable temperatures.  Time for pruning, digging out and dividing or discarding plants.  Also time for trying out some new recipes and maybe I'll find some time to get up into the studio.

Harvesting on the farm

I'm currently in Western Australia on the farm spending some time with Mum until we fly back to Melbourne where she will be having a holiday and spending Christmas with us and my siblings and families.

It's harvesting time on the farm, almost at the end of it with only a few more paddocks to do.  Late yesterday afternoon I hitched a ride with my big brother on the harvester and did a few laps around the paddock with him.  Here are a few photos taken while on and off board.

Big brother approaching on his harvester

Filling up the field bin.  The grain is loaded onto my cousins truck and taken to the wheat silo in the local town.

My nephew on his harvester.

The big brother.  He's an AWESOME farmer.

I crouched down to take this photo of this wheat yet to be harvested.

So good to be back in wide open spaces, big blue skies and plenty of sunshine.

Anne  xx

The heartbreak of farming

The photos below were sent to me last night by my farming brother in Western Australia.  They've had 6mm of rain for the month of June.  There should be green grass in the paddocks and crops growing.  Paddocks were mostly dry seeded in the hope it would rain.  It breaks my heart.  The sheep are currently on a diet of barley and hay.

Can you imagine feeding triplets in such conditions?

Fine Merino wool

Most of you who follow my blog know that I come from a farming backgroud of which I am very proud.  My parents farmed wheat and sheep in the central wheatbelt district of Western Australia and the tradition continues today with my brother and nephew.

In recent years the weather has played havoc with wheat yields as the rainfall has either fallen at the wrong time (summer) with very little falling in winter, the planting and growing season for grain in that part of the world.  Despite the difficulties and challenges my brother continues to face, he is constantly looking for better ways to farm.

One of the areas in which he has excelled is with the quality of the sheep he is breeding.  There have been hard years of work to improve the the skin of the sheep from wrinkled (typical of the Merino breed) to smooth.  This is helpful on a number of levels.  They are much easier to shear and the chance of a sheep becoming fly blown is dramatically decreased.  With pressure from animal warefare groups about the practice of mulsing sheep (which is done to help prevent sheep from being fly blown, a hideous condition), my brother has endeavoured with the breeding programme to eradicate the need for this with the smooth skinned sheep now only needing to be crutched.   Another benefit of the breeding programme has been the increase in fertility with a ewe more likely giving birth to twins and sometimes triplets.  

So where does the part about the fine Merino wool come into all this.  A week or so ago my brother received a letter advising him that wool from his sheep sold was chosen by Qantas to contribute to the making of their new flight attendant uniforms.  Isn't that the most AWESOME news?!!  The wool they chose was of a very high quality and deemed perfect for the job.  The quality of wool is measured in microns, the link has an explanation far better than I can give. For my brother who has worked so very hard to improve his sheep on so many levels including wool quality, this is HUGE  and he deserves the recognition of people in the wool industry.  GO BIG BROTHER!!

Here is a peek at the new Qantas uniform which I believe will make it's entrance early next year.

All photos Google images.

Here is a small sample of the type of wool that will be used for the Qantas uniforms.

CONGRATULATIONS big brother on your achievement.  You ROCK cob!!

Anne  xx