One of the things about farm life that I'm still getting used to is the rhythm and repetition. In the city, life seems to cruise along at more or less the same pace, marked by occasional events like birthdays and Christmas, and, back in the day, big dog events. Otherwise, its just weekdays, weekends! Weekdays, weekends!
Now, it's like we're following a path through the year: every week we're tackling something different, plodding along or running to catch up, usually following known routes over well-trodden ground but sometimes heading into rougher country. Drenching, crutching, rams go out, rams come in, spraying, seeding, lambing, tailing, crutching, weaning, shearing, harvesting. Poor old Michael Finnegan, begin again. You can look ahead and anticipate uphill slogs or nice easy downhill cruising, but in the end the terrain of farming life is mapped out by the weather. The long range forecast controls not only our working hours and tasks, but our moods, our sleep, our spending habits.
In the city, its so different. Sometimes you wear long pyjamas, sometimes you sleep nude, sometimes agility training is rained out or it's too hot to ride to work, but generally weather is just something that happens on days off.
Not commonly seen in the city- a roadside goanna:
On the farm at this time of year, it's all about the break. That's the break of the season, not a wave or a fracture or anything so frivolous. What we need is rain, then some more rain, followed up by more rain. We have pregnant sheep looking for food in bare paddocks, weeds that have to germinate so they can be sprayed, and crops that need to be planted or they won't have time to grow. Last year had a late break followed by very little rain, and the end result wasn't pretty.
Sheep trailing over the hill at dusk:
Just a short while ago, the world was coloured blue, red and yellow. I'd harvested most of the summer garden and started preparing for replanting. We lived in shorts and shirtsleeves and watched the skies for signs of the seasons shifting. Dust rose above mobs of sheep as they trailed across empty paddocks, and mixed with the smoke of early stubble fires, warming the evening light and setting sunset ablaze with colour.
We finished drenching, taking rams out of their mobs, and moved the ewes here and there to access what feed was still available on the ground.
Back in the yards:
J was pretty happy to get back into sheepwork:
JJ was doubly happy:
Kate, on the other hand, was a little underwhelmed by her first yard experience:
We kept the sheep alive with daily trails of oats across the dirt, and the lawns alive with the fire truck.
Then the redgums began to flower, big dark trees erupting with cool yellow blossom along the roads and across the paddocks. The bee man arrived with his caravan and hives, and left us the usual complementary buckets of honey. Predictions of an early break to the season were heard.
And right on cue, the clouds began to roll in.
With thunder and lightning we got the rain, rolling down the hills and filling the dams and watertanks, flooding the roads, soaking the earth. Hopes were high for a good season. Everyone went flat out to prepare for seeding, moving machinery and stocking up on chemicals for spraying.
Photography skill << awesomeness of scene. So if you could just imagine a large lightning fork striking the hill just beyond the tree, that'd be great. Cheers.
And again:
Wet stuff falling from the skies, and grateful (if damp) sheep:
Welly weather!
Is that green grass, Fin?
Yes, Jack- it does look like actual green stuff growing from the ground!
Really, really green! Everywhere!
But now the promise of more rain seems to have evaporated (sorry...). It's been weeks without anything more than an early morning drizzle. The subsoil moisture from the early rain kept the grass growing well for a few weeks, but now that's petering out and the green paddocks are fading back to a dusty pallor. The Boss' mood has been sinking accordingly, and while he's kept busy with preg testing (130% for the first couple of thousand ewes tested- w00t!), feeding and moving sheep and burning stubble, tempers will be starting to fray shortly.
Stubble fires in the back paddocks:
Exhibit A: Cranky farmer:
More rain, please!
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