Excitement.

Look.  It has finally dried out enough that our headers are going around.

Header Harvesting

There is dust and everything!

Header - Driving On By

We are excited.  I hope the heavy machinery aficionados amongst you appreciate how dusty I got taking these photos....

Hope everyone has had a good week so far.  Last day of school here tomorrow.

Little Yellow Planes.

Actually the planes are normal plane-size in real life they just look little in my photos.

We have had some of our canola aerial sprayed recently.  I tried to take some photos but sadly lacked the skill and equipment to do a decent job.

Look - bet you can't spot the minuscule plane.

There Was A Plane There Somewhere...

I can't see it either.  No idea where it has gone as I swear it was there when I took the photo.

It makes an appearance below though. You can see its shadow too.

I See A Plane

And here it is again.

Look

Looking very yellow here.

Little Yellow Plane

There is no plane in the next photo - I just thought it looked pretty.  (And if I accidentally jagged a plane in it then that was a bonus.)

Silvery Gold Barley And An Impressive Sky

Hope everyone has had a good Thursday - as far as Thursdays go.

Take care.

Quarters Update.

Earlier this year I blogged about our plans to restore our old jarrah shearers' quarters.    I thought I would pop up a little update.  It has been a funny old process.  All the interior walls were stripped and then we pondered over whether the white ant damage was so bad it wasn't worthwhile.  We decided to persist though and lots of interior work has been done replacing damaged pieces of wood.  A new verandah is in the process of being built where the tank is in the photo below.

Suitably Derelict Before Photo

See - here is the base of the verandah and the planned bathroom.

Verandah and Bathroom Floor

This verandah will protect the side of the building from weather and hopefully also stabilise it as now there will be verandah wrapped around the entire building.

The inside is looking very, very rustic.  And kind of draughty....

Inside.

The builder has managed to find some old windows at a salvage yard that match the existing ones and hopefully they will make the interior lighter.

All in all progress is being made.  We have been lucky in that we have a lot of pre-existing timber from old farm buildings that have had to be pulled down.

The next step is to re-sheet the roof but that is not possible until the rain stops!  Having said that the rain is brilliant for our crops so we are not complaining at all.

When it is eventually finished our guests will be able to sit on the old verandah...

Verandah

And admire the view.

View Down The Hill

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Farmgirl Checks Crops. Scrabble.

Farmgirl likes to get out in the paddock and keep an eye on our crops.  We all do really - them being our livelihood at all.  Farmgirl takes it more seriously than the rest of us though.  She gives them a thorough once over.

Farmgirl - Up Close And Personal With A Barley Crop

Farmboy likes to multitask and try and catch rabbits as well as check a crop.  Not sure how effective a bug net is in rabbit catching.  (Animal welfare people fear not - he hasn't got anywhere near one yet.)

Keep A Careful Eye Out 

After the crop checking we headed to the creek for a wander.

Pretty

It looks spring-like in the photo but is wintery again today.  Suits us as our crops need more rain and some cool weather.  Hopefully we will get some rain this evening.

In other unrelated news, we headed to The Beach House for the weekend.  I played Farmboy (who had a secret weapon known as The Farmer helping him)  at Scrabble.  I was reliably informed that "humskrapp" was a German work for a steak burger with lots of onions but no sauerkraut.  I think I was had.

Please Rain On Our Barley!

I hope everyone had a brilliant weekend and that Monday is treating you well.

Sheepwork On A Sunday Morning.

This morning The Farmer decided we needed to move a mob of sheep. They were on a rocky outcrop just near the house and the plan was to move them down to graze the grass in one of our laneways.  Apparently it was only going to take 10 minutes or so.  (I can hear all the other farmer's wives saying "yeah, right" to themselves - who hasn't heard that one before?).

Anyway Farmboy and I gamely set off on foot while The Farmer took Farmgirl and the border collie down to sort all the gates out.

Here are the sheep.  You will note they are dotted around the rocky landscape and are difficult to see.

Sheep.  Rocks.  Similar From A Distance.

Now if you are more of an urban warrier than a farmer, there are a few things you need to know about sheep.  First of all they are really stupid.  Incredibly so.  Secondly, the sort of rocky country in the photo above is the worst sort of landscape to get sheep out of.  Mainly because you can't get a vehicle or a motorbike in, so you have to go in on foot.  And use tools like dogs and small children to help.

Anyway - Farmboy and I were ably assisted by Herbie The Wonder Puppy.  Traditonally miniature dachshunds are not known for their sheep working ability.  However we seemed to have wound up with him instead of our border collie who was riding happily around on the back of the ute.  Like all good farmer's wives do, I made the best of what I had.  Farmboy and Herbie applied themselves with considerably more enthusiasm than skill.  The end result was the fact that the sheep in the above photo should have been heading somewhere behind my left shoulder.  Unfortunately Farmboy had got a bit excited and yelled at the wrong time......  Reminding myself that the most essential tool when doing sheep work has always been a sense of humour, I eventually got them going back the way they came.  The Farmer then turned up and we all managed to get them through the gate.

The whole thing took over an hour but according to The Farmchildren it was all good fun.

Farmgirl Running Very Fast And Shouting Loudly (Good Sheepwork Methods)

In other Farm news - school holidays have started and The Farmchildren are super excited.  We aren't going anywhere but have some fun stuff planned.

After all that running around this morning we are having lamb for dinner.  I found this recipe on a lovely blog No Fuss Food I have just discovered.  Needless to say I doctored it to fit what I had on hand. (Particularly the fact that I am clearly using a leg of lamb and not a shoulder....!)

Marinated Lamb

I will let you know how it goes.  The marinade smells amazing so far.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend.

Take care.

The Greening.

The colours are starting to change around here.  There is grass instead of dust.  Our crops are just peeking through in some places and up and going in others.

I like it.

Baby Crop

The Acid Green of New Growth

The birds seem to like it too.  These pink and greys need to find a tree further away from my garden.

Pink and Greys

I hope everyone had a good weekend.  I am weary as it has been a busy week and we have had lots on this weekend.  All good though.

Take care.

It's Raining. At Last.

Guess what?  It's raining here. Officially raining with water coming out of the sky and everything.  Very Exciting.

This is what I see when I look out the window.

Wet Paddocks

And in case I needed electronic confirmation, this is what the little weather station whatsit says.

Cats and Dogs

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.

Looking For A Rainy Day.

It needs to rain here on The Farm.  It is all getting a bit dire now.  I try not to think about it as there is not a lot we can do.  Except wait.  And wait.  I think it is a bit of a cliche that farmers go on about the weather so I try not to do it too much on the blog. (Although it is one of the most important variables we can't control in our business.)  The fact is though, at the moment it is ridiculously dry.

Look.

I took these last week.  It is our airseeder coming up the hill near The Farmhouse.   See all the dust in its wake.

Air Seeder...

....And Dust

It's horrible out there.  Like the desert only dustier.  Plus I am sick of the sight of the skeletal remains of weeds everywhere.  It is time to bring on the green.

There is some hope on the horizon as there is a tentative forecast for rain towards the end of this week.  I want to see it on the ground though!  So that our crops can come up and do their stuff.

Clear skies have been making for chilly nights here at the moment.  I have been practicing lots of evening couch time.

Cosy Couch Accessories

I have also been thinking about driveways after my previous post.  Driveways seem to suggest a little journey.  You never quite know what you will find at the end the first time you drive down one.

Hope all is well wherever you are.

Driveway.

One of the most common Google searches that lands people on my blog is "farm driveway" or "country driveway."  It is pipped at the post by "verandah" and "apricot chicken"!  The searches people do always make me laugh.

Given that there seems to be so many people eager to look at driveways, I thought I would show you a few photos of ours.  I took these a couple of weeks ago on a walk with The Farmchildren.

Looking Down The Driveway

And just to mix things up a bit I went for a retro look with Hipstamatic.

More Driveway

So - here's hoping that keeps the driveway fanatics happy.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.  Quick question though - why are people obsessed with driveways? Ideas anyone??

Fire and Dust. Shepherd's Warning.

It needs to rain.  The whole landscape now just seems barren, dusty and dry.  The stubble in the paddocks is no longer golden but a dead grey colour.  Some paddocks are charred and blackened as their stubble has been burnt.  Each evening there is plumes of smoke and the glow of fires as our neighbours burn their paddocks.

Every year at this time I feel like the landscape is just waiting silently for rain.  Hoping it will come soon.

This morning we were up early and Farmboy came excitedly to grab me to come outside because "The sky is just so beautiful Mum."  And you know what?  He was right.

Look.

Sunrise

I am so hopeful that the red sky this morning is indeed the shepherd's warning of rain.

Take care and enjoy Friday.

Seeding Has Begun aka Look At The Big Tractors.

Our seeding programme has finally got off the ground.  We have started getting our crop in and our tractors are going which is a relief.  I actually find the weeks leading up to seeding worse than the actual weeks we seed.  Everyone is too busy to get stressed when things get going and at least it feels like we are making progress.

I took some photos today of our gear going around the paddock.

Look.

Tractor and Bar Coming Up The Hill

As you can see we need some rain....!  It is dry and dirty work at the moment and The Farmer comes home looking like he has a bad fake tan from all the dust most days.

This photo shows the gear a bit closer.  (The photos are not brilliant as they were taken out the car window and I was trying to stay upwind of the dust.)

Air Seeder

There is seed and liquid fertilizer in the orange plastic tanks and they get forced down the pipes into the ground by air pressure.  They lay in a little trench which is dug by a blade first and then are covered up again.  (All my mechanically minded friends will laugh at my incredibly simplistic description of what is actually a fairly high tech process.)

The machines get fully serviced every 24 hours and when we have ironed out all our teething issues they will go 24 hours a day (with different shifts of staff).  Fuel, food for staff and any parts required for breakdowns need to be supplied as soon as they are required at any point in the 24 hours.  We have a good routine going now but it is quite a stressful time.

So that's what will be keeping us busy for the next few weeks.  It means very long hours for The Farmer.  (Starting this morning with him rolling out of bed at 4.30am with a bit of a hangover and asking me if I wanted to go and look after the early morning servicing and start up.  I refused. My refusal was only because of my lack of mechanical knowledge and had nothing to do with the fact that it was freezing cold outside and I was very cosy in my bed.)

I hope everyone has had a good weekend.  I have spent lots of time outside with The Farmchildren raking up leaves and lighting little bonfires.

Take care.

Mornings.

Reading my blog recently I don't think you would even know I live on a farm.  Farmwise we are actually very busy getting ready for seeding.  The "getting ready" stage is not super exciting though and photos of backpackers getting off buses, quarters being cleaned and tractors being serviced don't make for a thrilling blog post.

Just to remind you though, I thought I would pop up these photos that I took yesterday morning from the verandah.

There is something special about being able to step outside in the early morning and let the peace just seep into you.

Dawn

Looking South East

Take care.

The Bionic Possum Strikes Back.

We have got a creature living in our roof cavity.  It brings new meaning to the phrase "things that go bump in the night."  We have thumps and bumps and very loud scratches and scrapes.  We regularly wake up with a start thinking "what on earth was that?"

The local pest man has told us we have a possum.  But it is obviously not just any possum.  We have the bionic possum.  We can't catch it, can't kill it and can't even sight it.  The bionic possum laughs at our attempts to move it to a more suitable possum-like residence.  It is no ordinary possum.  It can steal fruit from traps without setting them off.  We tried small traps - the bionic possum is so large apparently it could steal the bait and its body would stop the trap door closing.  Not to be thwarted by a mere marsupial we got a large feral cat trap.  The bionic possum treated this with scorn and has stolen the bait without setting off the trap.  Every possible entry to our roof cavity has been sealed and closed.  Still the bionic possum goes in and out.  The Farmer has scoured every inch of roof space with a torch searching for this marauding marsupial. (And incidentally made less noise doing so than the possum does at 3 am.)

It is not as if the bionic possum is lacking other suitable housing.  We have trees and bush galore.  But no - it chooses our roof.  Look possum - wouldn't you like to live in the old shed or trees shown below?? Surely that must be the possum equivalent of a 5 x 3 with ocean views, home theatre and an outdoor kitchen?

Suitable Homes For Possums

Alas the possum seems fond of our roof cavity.  But that's OK possum - the battle will continue to rage. It's going to be "hasta la vista, baby" any day now.

On a completely different note to whinging about nocturnal noise I would just like to send a bloggy shout out to my real life friend Suz.  I love your comments and the fact that you read all my posts!  So lovely to feel "in touch" when we are all so busy.

Anyway - hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend!
Take care.

Traffic Or The Lack Thereof. The Country Commute.

My friend SSG was bemoaning the traffic in Sydney today which I can fully understand.  After ten years of country living I really struggle with traffic when I am in a city.  I think I may have gone too far the other way now though.

Look - this is how you know you are turning into a country hick.  When you see a traffic light on the way into town your children are so excited they make you take a photo....

Traffic Light

They even put up a little sign to tell you what to do when the light is red.....

A Turtle For The Holidays. (Or Just For The Afternoon.)

Some of The Farmchildren's friends have given them a turtle out of their dam.  It is not a permanent pet, more "on loan" for a little while.  It is what we would call a long-necked turtle.  I think in the Eastern States it is sometimes called a snake neck turtle.  It does look very snake-like from the neck up.  We are going to look at it for the afternoon and return it to the dam this evening.

I must admit the shape of its neck makes me feel a bit eek as I am not a reptile fan really. Having said that, Farmgirl has literally sat outside and watched the turtle swim around its trough all afternoon and so it has provided lots of school holiday entertainment.  Farmboy was also interested but did get bored after the first hour or so of watching!!

Long-Necked Turtle With Eeky Snakey Neck

These turtles are often found in dams and creeks in our area and can get quite big.  They will also eat down the yabby population in a dam and so many farmers are not huge fans.  It's definitely a prehistoric looking animal, that's for sure.  It's a more welcome reptile than the snake we found in the garden on Sunday afternoon anyway.

So - how's your day going?  Any random reptile visits?

Stormy Weather. Christmas Cooking.

The Weather Gods are not really smiling on us at present.  I would go so far as to say they are rather cross. We have been trying to harvest but keep getting interrupted by rain.  If it's not rain, it's a harvest ban because it is too hot and windy.  I need to put an order in for no wind and 32 degrees for the next few weeks.  Unfortunately The Weather Gods are renowned for ignoring orders.  Seriously, they are worse than Telstra.  (Actually maybe not, now I think about it - there is a lovely randomness to the weather, at least sometimes it goes your way whereas Telstra is a different story.)

Yesterday we were hit by a huge storm and shut up shop for the day. The headers were parked up and all workmen hightailed it to the pub. The Farmer came home early and we decided there was nothing for it but to sit on the verandah with a nice glass of wine.  Desperate times calling for desperate measures and all that...

This was the view.

Ominous and Un-Harvest Friendly Weather. Take Note Weather Gods.

Oh well.  As always the weather is beyond our control.  Our crop is actually yielding well and we haven't had any major quality issues so if we could just get the rest of it off we would be sorted.

Have you done any Christmas baking yet?  I am at the "thinking about it" stage.  I am hoping this will turn into the "doing something about it" stage in the not too distant future.  But I am not promising anything.

I have two favourite Christmas recipes.  I posted them last December so thought I would pop the links in, just in case anyone wanted to take a peak.  They are both fantastic and dead easy.

Super Easy Christmas Cake

Meringue Christmas Cookies - there is a link in this post to the original recipe.  I pretty much go through it anyway though.  Just don't forget to preheat your oven to 150 degrees celsius and cook for about 30-40 mins.

Oh and I will always knock up a pav for Christmas Day.  If you need a recipe for that click here.

If you have any super easy but super impressive recipes for Christmas I would love to here about them.  Feel free to leave a link in your comment.  I would arrange a link up thingy but I think it may be beyond my IT skills.

I hope everyone has had a lovely Tuesday.  Take care.

Harvesting. (With Random Added Crayfish.)

We are still harvesting away like there is no tomorrow here on The Farm. To paraphrase Faux Fuchsia we are "harvesting it the hell up". Today I was looking at my blog stats and saw that one of the most common searches that brought readers to my blog was "big tractor" and so I thought I would share some photos to appease the heavy machinery fans out there.  These photos were taken a week or so ago when we were still harvesting canola.  We are now onto the barley crop.

Here we are, heading out to deliver The Farmer's lunch.  You will note the fact that this is Farmgirl's idea of a "farmwork outfit".  I thought you would all like to see the dress code for our paddocks.

Boots required. Matching Hat and Dress Optional.

We then had a ride in our header.  For those who came in late, a header (aka combine harvester) is what we use to cut the grain off.  Crop gets cut and goes in the front and gets put through a serious of sieves so that the grain is separated off. The grain then accumulates in the bin on the back of the header.  Here is a photo of one of our headers, complete with the ever obligatory dust.

Header, Doing Its Thing

We went for a ride and I took this photo out the front windscreen.

Swathed Canola Going Into Header Front

The Farmchildren always think it is hilarious to say "nom, nom, nom" as we have a header ride because they think the header is gobbling up the crop.  This crop had already been swathed which means it had been cut and left in a row in the paddock to dry out.

This photo shows how we unload the grain (in this case canola, which is black) into the chaser bin which is being towed by a tractor.  Both the header and the bin keep driving during unloading so it takes some concentration on the part of both drivers.  I took this photo out the side window of the header.

Unloading

We will still be harvesting for several weeks yet.  Our crop is going fairly well though so we won't be complaining.

For some reason Blogger has been posting random photos as I write this.  Well actually just one random photo.  And for some reason that is a photo of a crayfish dinner we had recently when our friend Hunter Gatherer got us some crayfish.  I have given in and decided The Blogging Gods have spoken and want me to include a random crayfish photo.

Look.

Crayfish

Take care everyone.

Pink and Greys. A Harvest Ban On A Thursday.

In the mornings I like to wake up early and go for a walk before The Farmer heads off to work.  I don't manage this every day (because sometimes he heads out way too early, even for me and my complete inability to sleep past 6am) but I probably do 4 days a week.  Today I was out for my walk when I saw these galahs having a bit of a chat in a tree.  They very happily posed for me.

Pink and Greys In AWattle

Pink and grey galahs are everywhere at this time of year.  They eat the grain left over after harvest and along with the white cockatoos make a huge racket.

Today has been hot and blustery here.  A fire risk day.  I always feel a faint sense of unease on these days.  Like those overcast, still days at the beach where the water is oily and smooth - they are shark days to me.

Our Shire placed a harvest ban on early this morning.  For the non-farmers amongst you this means that no-one is allowed to drive any vehicle in a paddock including a ute.  It is officially called "a harvest and movement of vehicles in paddocks ban" - like I always say, we like literal labels in rural Australia!  This is to minimise the risk of a fire starting from a spark from any vehicle. We are notified of a harvest ban by an SMS service and half hourly announcements on ABC Radio. Sometimes it seems to take ages for the announcer to read out all of the Shires with bans on.  Today it sounded like the whole of wheatbelt WA was not harvesting.  Before the SMS service was widely used it was the job of many a farmer's wife (myself included) to listen to the ABC and then update everyone on the two-way.

A harvest ban is always taken incredibly seriously and all vehicles are pulled up the minute we are aware it has been put in place.  So today The Farm feels quiet, the two-way is silent and there is no activity anywhere.  In some ways it is a welcome chance to get other jobs done and give some of our staff a much needed rest. Bans are normally lifted by early evening if it cools down and the wind drops, so we will harvest again then.  Until today we have had our headers going around the clock.

I was listening to the ABC Radio today when I was picking Farmboy up from the school bus.  There is several fires in Western Australia today, one of which is an extremely large fire in the Margaret River region.  Scary.

So - what's the weather been like where you are today?  (Nothing like using an old chestnut of a conversation starter for bloggy interaction....!)

It's Official. It's Raining Cats And Dogs.

We are getting a ridiculous amount of unseasonal rain at the moment.  Way too much.  Our harvest is being held up and I am too scared to even think what the rain is doing to our grain quality....  Anyway.

This morning even our little electronic weather station was in agreement.  In case I couldn't look out the window and see for myself it informed me of exactly what was happening.

Very Official Weather Observation - "Cats and Dogs"

Yep - cats and dogs.

Hopefully the last of the rain is passing over today and we get some proper harvest friendly weather.  I did see this beautiful rainbow when I was out walking early this morning.

Rainbow, Looking West, Main Driveway

I am taking it as a sign from The Weather Gods.  Blue skies are coming soon....

(PS - Am working on a couple of recipe posts.  Hoping to get them up semi-soon)

Harvest. There Is Such A Thing As Too Much Kenny Rogers.

We are super busy harvesting here on The Farm.  Actually it would be more correct to say we are super busy trying to harvest between showers of rain.  Lots of rain at this time of the year is bad for us as we can't harvest our crops if they are too wet.  We also run the risk of having the quality of our grain down-graded or  having our grain sprout.  This is all Bad News if you farm.  Like so many things though, there is not much we can do about it and so we are just getting on with the job as best we can.

I was driving up the driveway the other day when our harvest crew were moving to another paddock some kilometres away.  The headers were all moving along in convoy, so I grabbed this photo as they trundled past.  Each header tows its 'front' when it moves along.  The 'front' is the bit that cuts the crop and feeds it into the machine itself.  It is called a 'front' because it is usually attached to the front of the header.  And the header is called a header because it cuts the heads off the crop.  We love simple nomenclature when it comes to farm machinery.

Header Towing Front

In other news there has been a change of bedtime routine on The Farm.  We have finally coaxed Farmgirl into giving her night time dummy to the dummy fairy.  This was a huge adventure but we got there in the end.  The problem is that Farmgirl has now formed an attachment to a different sleep prop.  She has decided she needs music to go to sleep to.  And not just any music, she needs Kenny Rogers.  And not just any Kenny Rogers, she needs this song.  Over and over and over again.



Sing me a song sweet music man...


Take care.