Everything I know about rain…

Lemme tell you everything I know about rain…



I grew up in a country Victorian town where shop assistants made small talk about the weather and everyone went around saying how lovely the days were before adding, “but I really do hope it rains… for the farmers.”

“Oh yes, they need it,” came the standard reply, which I soon parroted too, despite not really having a clue whether it was seeding time or harvest time or whether the farmers really did actually need it to rain at that exact moment. The perception was that they always needed it, because of that other faceless, more nasty, identity everyone talked about, “The Drought.”

Thinking back, I can’t actually pinpoint what years of my childhood would have been considered drought years. Although we had cousins with cropping properties not all that far out of town, my day to day existence revolved around in-town happenings and I can’t seem to differentiate between the years when it rained and the years when it didn’t. That is, aside from the memory that we used to be keen water skiers, spending weeks camping and skiing at the local lakes during summer, and one year the lakes started to go dry, one by one. And we couldn’t go skiing any more. One winter we visited our favourite lake and saw that “Mr Farmer” had put a crop in… I must have been a young teen, or tween even, but before that I really don’t recall registering that the lake might have even been owned by Mr Farmer or that you could put a crop in a lake!

When I was 15 my family moved to the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, where, ironically, it rains A LOT. But The Drought was definitely still going on then too because people from “the other side of the highway” used to talk about how dry it was over there, out west.

Soon after that I was living in Brisbane for Uni and there was lots of chat about water restrictions and which numbered days we were allowed to water the lawn. It was during this time that the nearby city of Toowoomba started hitting the headlines. They were fast running out of water and were pursuing plans to use recycled sewage water in their houses – there was lots of scaremongering and I recall the plans were nixed after a referendum, due to people not gelling to the idea of essentially drinking their own reconstituted, purified, excrement. But there was still water coming out of my kitchen and bathroom taps, and flowing down the Brisbane River as I walked to work in South Bank every weekend… so I wasn’t really concerned.

Then I moved to Darwin. There, as a general rule, it’s blissfully sunny and 27 degrees for half the year, and sultry hot, sticky, 33 degrees and raining for the other half. I spent 12 months in Darwin, including a wet season and a Cat 2 cyclone, and was thrilled by the magnetic force of wild wet-season storms and monsoonal evening downpours which could cool off the night like a blissful climatic release.

After Darwin came Townsville, or, as it’s less affectionately known by many North Queenslanders, “Brownsville”… the capital of the Dry Tropics. But still, even in Brownsville the yearly average rainfall can be measured in metres rather than millimetres.

If I list the years of my life by notable moments – things that stick out in my mind about a certain year – then it goes a little something like this: 2003, moved to Queensland; 2005, graduated high school; 2006, moved to Brisbane for Uni; 2007, moved to Darwin; 2008, met ST, and moved to Townsville; 2010, graduated Uni and got my first full time journo gig; 2011, moved to Burragan; 2013, got married.

Conversely, if I were to ask ST to list the years of his life, he could tell me exactly which years were drought at his parent’s property, and which years were heaven sent with the liquid of the Gods. He could tell me which years the Sandy Creek ran (a once a decade occurrence), and which years the dust storms were so fierce the sheep yards disappeared beneath a sandhill. Which years it was kinder to shoot sheep than watch them starve, and which years the roo, rabbit, and snake numbers sky-rocketed with an abundance of fresh feed.

I interviewed enough “cockies” during my first 12 months at Burragan (while I was still working full-time as an online rural reporter) to know they can list the dates of drought and flood better than if they were their own children’s birthdays. Even those of an age when memories fail to recall what they ate for breakfast can tell you which years The Drought broke.

Sometime between the years of 2008 and 2011 ST and I drove from Townsville to visit his parents for a week or so on the property. While I was “on holiday” – reading books and drinking champagne in the garden - ST was put to work as his parents relished the extra set of capable hands to help put new tanks and troughs in. Meanwhile, ST’s Mum and I were feeding hay to the cattle every morning. And one day we pulled two stuck goats from a dry dam.






We moved to Burragan at the start of a brilliant season. There’d been significant rainfall during the summer - before we arrived at the very start of March - and the dams were full, grass was long, wildlife was plentiful, and the sheep were plump and happy. It wasn’t until I saw the countryside like this, green and lively, that I had a little epiphany and realised my previous experience of ST’s mum and dad’s place had been during The Drought… I’d kind of just been thinking “cattle eat hay, that’s what they do, so we have to feed them”… Well, no. I was wrong. Cattle eat grass – when it has rained and there’s enough grass for them to eat – usually they can feed themselves.

Burragan is in an 11inch annual rainfall band; that’s just less than the length of a 30cm ruler. That mightn’t sound like much (and it’s not) but we’re in the same boat as more than 50% of the continent… and most of the time that boat’s in the shed, out of use. Any cockie will tell you that if you get the annual average that’s a good year, any more and it’s exceptional.



Lemme tell you everything I know about rain at Burragan…

A ground tank (or dam) doesn’t just catch whatever rain falls within the space of the hole in the ground that is the tank/dam. I can hear the farmers laughing at me, but yes, this is what I believed happened. Again, I was wrong. There are actually “drains” which are like shallow little channels built all around the tank to collect the rain run-off from around the paddock and channel the water all the way downhill to the “catch tank”. The catch tank is a shallow little dam right beside the big dam which obviously, as the name suggests, catches all the water. There’s then a “fluming” – very, very large pipe – which runs through the bank of the tanks, draining all the water from the catch tank into the big tank. Magic, isn’t it? (Yeah, yeah, I’m the idiot who never knew all this. Laugh it off folks.)

Lemme tell you everything I know about tanks…

At Burragan we don’t have any working bores (that’s where groundwater is pumped up to the surface for use), and due to disrepair following from the previous owner we also have very few poly tanks and troughs, so all of our sheep and cattle drink straight from the ground tanks. Some of them hold water better than others… some of them go dry far too quickly.

Water won’t run into a ground tank every time it rains. Of course, it depends how well set up and maintained your drains, catch tank, and fluming are, and also the soil type surrounding the tank… but at Burragan we’d probably need a good heavy 35 to 50mm (1-and-a-bit to 2 inches) in one rain event to run water into most of the tanks.

Also, (farming folks, please politely restrain your laughter) I was unaware that the high water level of a ground tank is NOT the top of the bank… Apparently it’s the top of the fluming, which is often MUCH lower than the top of the bank. So why is the bank so high then? Good question. I’ve voiced that one myself and got laughed at so let me save you the same embarrassment by sharing the secret with you here. All that dirt that makes up the bank is what is taken out of the hole that is the tank. And every time the tank is cleaned out (which can only happen when it’s dry), then dirt gets piled up on the bank and the bank gets higher! Magic, isn’t it?


Lemme tell you everything I know about water…

Having taps that have water come out of them is quite the awesome privilege. Because sometimes I turn the tap on and no water comes out, or sometimes the water stops soon after I’ve turned the tap on – this is usually when I’m halfway through shampooing my hair in the shower, or when my hands are covered in meat juice while preparing dinner.

This requires a trip the House Tank – about a three minute quad bike ride away – with the jerry can of petrol to start the pump, which fills the Overhead Tank at the house, which gravity feeds water into the taps in our kitchen, bathroom, toilet, laundry and yard. Magic, isn’t it?

A lot of the time House Tanks are fenced off from livestock to keep them cleaner but ours isn’t , meaning the sheep and cattle call all drink, defecate and die (ok, that’s a bit overboard but I couldn’t resist the allure of a possible alliteration!) in there as well. But truthfully our dam water is exceptionally clean and clear… you could drink it, if you were desperate, but instead we drink rain water.

Which brings me back to everything I know about rain…

On the last day of February last year it started raining at Burragan and didn’t stop for seven days and seven nights… I’ve since referred to this time as “The Big Rain” when we received 8.5inches of rain in one week. That’s more than three quarters of our annual average! Some friends just 100km south received more than 20inches and watched their wool shed, shearer’s quarters and house go under. This was once-in-a-lifetime stuff…

ST, his parents, and I had just finished cementing the base of our intended-to-be snake-proof fence all around the perimeter of the house. Yes, essentially we’d built a dam wall with ourselves on the inside! Braving the elements ST and I spent hours trudging through the mud, digging trenches across the yard, underneath the cement fence base, trying to drain the water away from the house.



You might have heard me mention previously that the Burragan house is in the middle of an old “dry” swamp… that week the swamp certainly wasn’t dry and I was monitoring the rising water level daily, wondering when I should start suggesting it might be time for ST to consider servicing the motor of the tinnie.


Rob Dog plays in the then full swamp beside the house

When the downpours eased ST and I would don our gumboots, wading through the water to check out the levels on all the nearby ground tanks. With what looked like rivers of water barrelling down the slopes around the house paddock, the tanks were all filling quickly, as were our gumboots when the heavy showers would start again before we made it back to the house. Low lying areas became makeshift dams of their own, with water pooling around the outside of dams, old creek beds and clay pans for months. One spot where there are four dams in a row flooded into one massive lake which became known as "The Big Water" - even the old windmill on its bank was underwater. It was an amazing, instant transformation, with the sudden deafening chorus of frogs of a night time and bird life and insects of a day time.


On the seventh day, when the sun came out, we could honestly hear the angels singing and a string quartet accompaniment. But since then they've obviously cracked the shits, shut up shop, and gone to sing on some other street corner.



Although we’ve had a few showers since then to keep the grass from completely dying out, we’ve now not had any rain run-off into tanks since The Big Rain… That's, ohhh… 14.5 months. Too many dams are now empty, with sheep and cattle getting bogged in the ones that aren’t quite. A quick look at the rain record tells me we’ve had 61mm for the year so far (and unfortunately I can’t locate last year’s record.)…but for January to May that’s about half of what we “should” be according to the last 134 years of recorded averages from the Bureau of Meteorology. There are people worse off - heaps of them. But honestly, now would be the perfect time for that 8.5 inches to become twice-in-a-lifetime rain…

In Dubbo last month during the usual trip to Town the Woolworths cashier was chatting to me about how lovely the Autumn weather was. Spending so little time in shops these days I'm no longer accustomed to making small talk, and it was a blast from the past when she added the line, “but I really do hope it rains… for the farmers.”

I smiled and replied, “I am a farmer. I hope it rains too.”

Sitting Pretty... in the idiot's corner.

I’ve had a reader request from someone (OK it’s from ST… he does like to read my blogs when he gets a chance, just to make sure I’m not giving away any of his secrets)… following on from my previous blog, “How not to muster a paddock.”

When ST heard the last title his first words were, “Is it about that time you tried to muster Pretties Paddock?”… “Umm, no,” I replied surprised, “But that WOULD have been a good idea.”

“You should do that one next,” he said.

And so here we are… That time I tried to muster Pretties… Oh sweet Lord, I’d tried to block it from memory…

It must have been shearing time six months ago, so around September last year, because I was on the quad bike which is still considered a relatively “new” addition to Burragan. ST and I had discussed the game plan the night previous as we prepared to muster Pretties Paddock. The plan, as usual, was for ST to head out an hour or so before me and gather the majority of the sheep together before calling me on the UHF. I was then to ride out and help put the mob into the small set of yards out there in the paddock. Due to it being a rather long way from the wool shed yard, we were going to rest them in the smaller Pretties yards first and walk them the rest of the way in the evening.

Now this was all making sense to me, though it did seem just ever so sliiiightly odd that we’d be resting the sheep in the yards in Pretties seeing as the yards were closer to the back of the paddock than to the end towards the wool shed. But you know, I’m no expert at this stuff and ST’s been doing it since birth, so I wasn’t about to question him.

Next morning - mustering day - smoko time nears and I’m still waiting for that call on the UHF. Bugger it, I thought, I’ll just start heading out there and call him on the way to see where he wants me. So off I go, fuel up the quad, check the tyres, and head off up the hill, past the wool shed and into the bottom end of Pretties.

It was a warm day for the beginning of spring so I hadn’t worn a jumper. As I straddled the uneven tyre tracks of the water run road through Pretties I was beginning to wish I had donned another layer. The cold, rushing air was quickly infiltrating my skin and a dark cloud was suddenly, and quickly, manifesting on the south western horizon.

Strangely I was starting to see the odd sheep scattered around Pretties as I zoomed up the road. Jeeze, he’s done a shit job of mustering this end, I thought, Wonder if I should start pushing these ones up to the yards? Surely if he was going to the north end yards he’d have done this end of the paddock already.

I tried calling ST on the bike’s UHF but got no reply. I kept riding.

The closer I got to the Pretties ground tanks and the vicinity of the yards the more sheep I saw, just leisurely picking their way through burrs and grass as if I was little more than a fly buzzing by. These sheep we relaxed and disinterested. These were definitely not sheep in the middle of being mustered.

I tried for ST on the radio again, several times, with only silence to answer. This was interesting… verrrrrry interesting.

The wind was picking up, blowing the threatening southerly storm cloud rapidly closer and heightening my panic at the same time. Why wasn’t ST answering the radio? I turned my bike off to see if I could hear the hum of ST’s Suzuki in the distance. All I could hear was the storm blowing in.

My mind was racing. Sure, his radio could be on the wrong channel by accident, but HE was due to call ME, so you’d think he would have checked it by now and realised, right? Maybe he’s had an accident? None of the sheep are mustered! There’re no sheep in the yards what-so-ever. My heart was starting to thump heavily at all the possibilities crashed loudly into my thoughts, riding in on the furious gusts of the approaching thunderstorm. He’s had an accident, I determined. So, let’s think straight here… there were no bike tacks on the road up through Pretties so he’d obviously come through Lyn’s Paddock. I’ll ride in that direction, I thought, and see if I can pick up any tracks criss-crossing the road through to Lyn’s.

Heavy rain droplets started to fall, stinging my cheeks as I pressed the throttle down harder. And I thought, How bloody typical is this? My fiancé is missing in the middle of 70,000 acres, probably crushed beneath his bike, and no one knows except me, and the only rain to pass through here in months has decided to come right now, while I’m riding around blind, squinting my eyelashes together in an attempt to see through the bloody water haze and hoping to just magically spot a bright yellow motorbike somewhere nearby, and I’m likely to die of hypothermia trying to find him just because I forgot to wear a stupid friking jumper!

As my frustration and terror grew, so did the storm. I slowed down on the road to Lyn’s keeping an eye out for tracks or anything out of the ordinary, when suddenly the radio began crackling. It could just be the moisture in the air from the storm, I thought, but a gut feeling forced me to stop.

“Is that you ST?” I answered.

And the radio crackled back.

“I can’t hear you! I’m near the Pretties tank, can you come to me?” I talked into the hand piece.

Crackle, crackle, it replied.

Ohhh shit. Oh shit, shit, shit. I thought. This is bad. He can’t even talk. He’s severed his spine! Ohhh God, how am I going to find him?

I still hadn’t come across any tracks… So he obviously hasn’t even made it to Pretties this morning… he’s somewhere along the road in Lyn’s. He’s hit a roo on his bike going too fast along the road and come off at speed… Oh God, Oh God…

“Are you ok? Can you press the UHF button in twice for yes, and once for no?"

No response.

I pressed the throttle down hard and made a b-line to the gate into Lyn’s.

The UHF crackled again, more clearly this time… or as clear as crackle can be. Crackle, crackle, crackle… “Are you there Bess?” I heard ST’s voice come through distantly between the crackle.

“Yes! Oh my God! Where are you?” I yelled down the line in relief.

“Where are you?” he questioned back, ignoring me.

“I’m just at the gate going into Lyn’s from Pretties. Where are you? Are you OK? Tell me where you are and I’ll come to you.”

“What!?” came his incredulous response, “What the hell are you doing there?”

“I’m looking for you! Where are you? Are you over at the yards? There’s sheep everywhere down the bottom end, do you want me to go back and start pushing them up?”

“I’m at the house.” Oh GOD! I thought, he’s had to make his way all the way back to the house, with broken limbs, to call the flying doctor and I’m not there!

“Why are you at the house? What happened to mustering Pretties? ARE. YOU. OK!?” I yelled.

“Of course I’m OK! What are you doing in Pretties?”

“Why are you back at the house already? There’s sheep EVERYWHERE!”

“Of course there’s bloody sheep everywhere. We weren’t mustering Pretties…” He said.

“What do you mean we weren’t mustering Pretties? I’m out here, now, waiting for you, ready to muster!”

“We were mustering Candy’s. And I’ve finished already so I’m back at the house wondering where the hell you are!”

Ohhhh. Mmmyyyyy. Godddddd, I thought.

“Ohhhh. Mmmyyyyy. Godddddd,” I said. “So you’re OK?” I questioned a bit more quietly this time.

“Yes I’m OK! Are you OK?” his voice was getting louder and angrier…

“Yep, fine. Just cold and wet. I’ll see you back at the house soon.”

I rode home fast, bracing myself against the needle-like rain and slowly feeling my panic turn to relief, before exploding over me in a massive, big, heap of embarrassment. I started giggling hysterically for a little bit as I pushed the throttle down again, deliriously embracing the cold wind and the power of the dark clouds hanging overhead.

As I neared the house the rain stopped. ST was standing on the front lawn with a cup of coffee in hand. I was readying myself for the likely onslaught of how-could-you-have-buggered-that-up-so-royally anger, but instead, as I rode past the front yard with a little apologetic smile on my face, ST doubled over in laughter, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Just five paddocks and 30 kilometres in the wrong direction Bess,” he teased as I swung the yard gate closed behind me and ripped off the top layer of my soaking shirts.

“Where’s my coffee?” I grinned.

How not to muster a paddock

Well, after four weeks of crutching and shearing across three properties, we have finally finished… And four weeks is practically world record time!

Crutching and shearing are pretty much as busy as it can get here – it’s a wool grower’s equivalent to harvest, though I’m endlessly glad we don’t have to do the 24 hour tractor driving sifts. Sometimes late at night on the drive back from Town, we pass cropping country where rows of tractor headlights are making beautiful symmetry in the paddocks after dark, and ST and I concede how lucky we are we don’t have to do that. (Though ST’s the kind of person who could work through the pain to see the gain, I’m the kind who’d be driven to the bottom of the whiskey bottle during week one.)

Despite the absence of a round the clock roster, it’s still a fairly full on period of pre-dawn to post-sundown shifts, seven days a week, for four - and sometimes up to six - weeks in a row. Twice a year.

While some days during this time my assistance is not required in the sheep yards or the paddock, and I’m relegated to regular “farmer’s wife” duty, other days it’s all hands on deck to make sure the sheep work runs smoothly. And on those days, I’ve got to tell you, I take a little issue with the tag of “farmer’s wife”. And yep, I know that’s a tag I’ve given myself – I’m well aware it’s up there in my little bio on the top right of this page. But on those days - and let’s put it out there that it probably boils down to most days -I feel I deserve the tag “farmer.” Not “farmer’s wife.” (And I’d put money on the fact that ST’s never introduced himself as a journalist’s husband…)

As a farmer’s wife I wear a lot of hats – executive chef, managing director of housekeeping, head of landscaping, administrative director, artistic director, costume designer, set designer, facebook account manager, and chief operating officer of any of my own projects I’ve got on the go. But just as often I wear my farmer’s hat, and although it’s not an Akubra, it’s still fairly freakin’ wide brimmed.

Unfortunately the wide brim does NOT increase the level of farming-nouse. In fact, you could probably say that the larger your hat, the smaller your… nouse... if you get my drift. And, perhaps more unfortunately, the sheep still haven’t got the memo that when I’m wearing my farmer’s hat, it’s supposed to mean I’m the boss.
Now, I don’t want to upset anyone by perpetuating the whole “sheep are a stupid animal” belief. But I have to say, even if they are generally intelligent, merinos are still definitely the dumb blonde of the species… (And now I’ve upset the blondes… woops!)…

It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I head out on the quad bike to help ST bring the sheep in, my nouse isn’t getting any bigger, and the sheep still don’t seem to understand that we simply want them to walk in an orderly fashion, in the correct direction, at a suitable pace.

In the larger paddocks ST will usually head out before me, gather most of the sheep together in a group and then call me out to help walk them to wherever we’re taking them. (This is usually to the sheep yards at the shearing shed). But as soon as ST utters the words, “You just look after this mob while I go and check for more on the other fence line,” the little woolly bastards make a run for it. I’m fairly certain I can actually hear them plotting against me, “Oh! It’s this idiot again. The girl. She has no idea what she’s doing. As soon as the bloke leaves, you go that way, I’ll go this way and the rest of you should run directly at her.” Ahhhgggg…

It’s the same old story every time and I’m not quite sure what I’m doing wrong, aside from even bothering to leave the house!

Though I actually have an excellent sense of direction, for some misguided reason ST’s usual first query when he leaves me in charge of the mob in the middle of a 10,000 acre paddock is, “Now, you won’t get lost will you?”… and my standard reply is, “No. I’m not going to get bloody lost. I know exactly where I am. I’ll make it back to the yards just fine….. Now, I maaaaayyyy not have aaallllllll 800 of the sheep with me when I get there, but I’ll get there, don’t worry. You just run along babe.” For the men reading this, the above is woman speak, roughly translated to, “DON’T FREAKING LEAVE ME HERE WITH THEM! I CAN’T TELL WHAT THEY’RE THINKING, AND THAT SCARES ME!”

But he does. Every. Single. Time. And within seconds the leader of the pack will be veering off through a thicket of hopbush so dense I may as well be mustering monkeys on a unicycle in the Amazonian jungle. Of course when this starts to happen, I try to ride around them as quick as possible to turn them back in the right direction, but riding a quad bike super-fast through the crater-like pot holes of an ancient clay pan ain’t as easy as it sounds… and generally by the time I’ve lollygagged up to the front and turned the trouble maker around, some smart-thinker on the opposite side is hot footing it in the other direction, and the stragglers at the back have stopped walking altogether. Yep, it's. Just. That. Much. Fun.

It’s about this time my tongue loosens up and I’m vomiting expletives like the proper lady that I am.

In fact, I think we need to set some code words before I tell you this next tale. It’s no secret those of us here at Burragan are big fans of the odd well-placed colourful adjective, or noun, or verb. We’re still pre-children and the closest one I can think of would be about 60km away (Hey Clare! You’re probably not old enough to use the computer yet, but say hi to your mum for me! ) so we’re quite free to express our feelings in “mature” and “emotive” ways. I want you to think of the top three most awful swear words you have ever heard. Thinking of then? Yep. Those ones. The really, reeaaallly bad ones. And now we’re going to replace them with ‘Holy crazy cow udders,’ ‘Hallelujah brother, Amen and Mercy! ’ and ‘For the love of God, Ryan Gosling should father my babies.’ (Sorry ST, you’re next in line, I promise xx)

But back to the story at hand! Soooo, despite what I’ve mentioned above actually coming across as complete incompetence, I USUALLY do end up with MOST of the sheep where they’re supposed to be . And that’s in the big paddocks. So it was with great overconfidence during this shearing that I took to the task of moving just 30 sheep from a dam (or tank! ‘scuse my Victorian heritage there for a second) on one side of the House Paddock, through the House Paddock, and out a gate on the opposite side of the House Paddock, all by my little self.

Let’s a get a visual on this shall we… Aptly named due to its geographical situation surrounding our house, the House Paddock is among the smallest of paddocks on Burragan. Though no exact measurements have been taken, conservative estimates would put its area somewhere between 500 and 1,000 acres (yep, basically I have no sweet holy crazy cow udder of an idea). As you’ll see from the diagram below, the Burragan homestead is somewhat central in the layout of the paddock, with sheds ‘n’ crap to the north, the rubbish dump to the south, and a dirt road extending from its east to west boundaries. I’ve also added some green as a rough indication of where thick patches of Box Gum trees are present, due to the House Paddock’s location in the middle of a great big holy crazy cow udder dry swamp bed.



So, I’m on the quad, right? Starting from the dam down the bottom, right? And ST always says it’s easier to take the sheep around the far side of the paddock, away from all the sheds ‘n’ crap because sometimes it can be tricky to keep them walking through that area. So they go through the gate at the bottom no problems and I shut it behind me just in case there’s a monumental Hallelujah brother, Amen and Mercy! But just as they should, my little mob veers off to the right (Good work team!) so I push them along in hopes of steering well clear of the old dry dam because it’s always a disaster zone there.

Unfortunately as we approach the dry dam, for seemingly no reason whatsoever, my one mob of 30 splinters into three mobs of 10. That’s OK, I’m calm, I’m calm. This always happens, I’m prepared, I can deal with this. “Holy crazy cow udders!!!!!!” I’m thinking to myself.

Riding around to the left, I try and push them back together as the far-right mob moves further away towards the southern fence line. “OK everyone, just stay calm. Look, if we can just stay together in one group, and walk in the right direction, no one’s going to get hurt OK? It’s all really simple. Just do as I tell you, and you can all go home to your loved ones.”

My pack leaders are galloping (do sheep even gallop? I don’t know, but I’m sure that’s what they were doing!) ahead into the Box trees, some stowaways in the middle were attempting a run for it through the saplings on the bank of the dry dam, several others were just dazed and confused, wondering which mob to follow, and one stupid Hallelujah brother, Amen and Mercy decided right then would be the perfect time to sit down behind a tree. I rode over to her and revved my bike, urging her to get up and join any of my mini-mobs.

Revvvvv, revvvv… I got off and tried to help her by lifting her 50kg frame to her feet, “Holy crazy cow udders!! Hallelujah brother, Amen and Mercy!!! Amen and Mercy! Amen and Mercy!!”… My frustration turned to panic as I realised I’d lost sight of the mob leaders. I’d spent way too much time on this holy crazy cow udder – I’d have to leave her behind.

Back on the bike and racing ahead, I tried to re-join my mobs over the other side of the dry dam. If I could just make these back ones walk fast enough to catch up with the first ones, which were quickly veering much more south than necessary, then we’d be fine. Easy girls, easy…

For some reason totally beyond my comprehension sheep like to walk on an angle… let me demonstrate to you via way of another diagram, the direction those sheep walked me across the House Paddock this day… and yes, I said THEY walked ME… not the other way around. Basically I was just a misplaced human chaperone on their leisurely Monday morning walk…



You with me?? Right so now we’re up the top of the paddock and this job has already taken about 50 million times as long as it should have. I’m feeling horrible because A) I’m dying of thirst despite not being more than two kilometres from the house, and B) I’ve said some things to those sheep that I’ve never said to anyone before in my life. Things that can’t be unsaid.

But we get to the road and I’m like, “Hallelujah brother!” because look, guys, look, there’s a road leading straight to the gate that we’re supposed to be going through. It’s easy! Let’s just all stick to the road, walk in a straight line, and we’ll be there in no time… But nope, nut, not interested…



Rather than walking on the road, my 29 sheep walk all. Over. The. Holy. Crazy. Cow. Udder. Paddock. And I’m bawling my eyes out, “For the love of God, Ryan Gosling should father my babies!!! How could you do this to me!? WHY! WHYYYYY!?”

And I’m screaming it, “For the love of God, WHY!?” Screaming it like a choir boy possessed, “Just father my holy crazy cow udder babies! Ryan Gosling! Sweet, brother, Amen and Mercy, just holy cow brother, father them Ryan Gosling!”

And it must have worked. Finally I was speaking their language. And my 29 sheep trotted through the top gate, cow kicking as they jumped over the next hill in search of fresh feed and cool water.

And I rode back to the house, hung my farmer’s hat on its hook, and poured myself a mother freaking wine biatches. Mission completed. Who’s the “farmer’s wife” now, hey?

Just five more months until next shearing…

Urban Dictionary of a Farmer – Contributor Edition

Thanks so much to everyone who wrote into the blog, and on Facebook, with their additions for the Urban Dictionary of a Farmer. I’ll continue to add to it over the course of the year, as other terms and definitions pop into conversation. Please feel free to keep sending in your suggestions, but for now, here are some favourites!

Up the road – Any place between five and 5000 kilometres away. (From The Farmer Has a Wife)

I’m right on it – Don’t hold your breath. (From The Farmer Has a Wife)

Old Mate – that man. (From The Farmer Has a Wife)

Example of use:
ST: I was talking to old mate from up the road the other day and…
Bessie: Which old mate? The young bloke, or old mate with the moustache?
ST: Nah, you know old mate who just married that woman from Town.
Bessie: Oh THAT old mate! Yeah, what about him?

Chook food – any meal without meat in it. (From The Farmer Has a Wife)

Cow - a cow is a cow unless it's a weaner, heifer, steer, bullock etc. (From Elise on Facebook)

Example of use:
Me: I saw some cows in Kelly's this morning, are they meant to be there?
Bossman: Cows? No there shouldn't be any cows in there, there's some weaners in there. A fence must be down but there's not even any cows in the adjoining paddocks? They must have come from airstrip and gotten in through the lane, maybe that fence is down too or someone left the gate open? How long since you've checked those fences?
Me: Sorry, I meant weaners. I saw some weaners in Kelly's this morning....

The other day – any time in the last five years or so. (From Elise on Facebook)

Do you read? – UHF speak for “Are you on channel?” Always makes me think... Yes, I read quite a lot. I prefer murder mysteries. Not the correct answer! (From Elise on Facebook)

Roger – can mean ‘Yes will do’, ‘Oh really?’, ‘Yeah right, understood’ (or pretty much anything in the affirmative) depending on the way that it is said. (From Elise on Facebook)

Sucker - a lamb that was recently sucking on Mum but isn't anymore. (From Elise on Facebook)

And these from Robyn on Facebook…

Waterhole - pub
Joe Blake – snake
Plank – plane (particularly if you're a helicopter pilot)
Bush chook - emu
Hit the frog an’ toad - meaning hit the road-get going!

Urban Dictionary of a Western New South Wales farmer

Weather/Whether/Wether – Yes, your whole primary school education has been a lie! There are not just two, but THREE different spellings of weather/whether/wether. While I’m sure you’re familiar with the first two, the third and lesser known spelling, wether, indicates a castrated male sheep.

Example of use:

ST: Did you check the wethers in the House Paddock today?
Bessie: I saw some sheep. They looked fine.
ST: Was is the young wethers? Did you see any of those old ewes?
Bessie: Uhuh.

Tank – a big hole in the ground which stores water. Like a dam? you ask. Yes! Exactly like a dam, except because we want to confuse you, we call it a tank. And yes, a tank is also a giant plastic/corrugated iron/cement/poly container for storing water as well. And yes, we have tanks (the latter kind) sitting on the banks of the tanks (the first kind) also.

Example of use:

ST: Did you check the tank in Strip Paddock today?
Bessie: The ground tank or the poly tank?
ST: Both.
Bessie: The actual Strip Paddock tank? Or Jimmy’s tank at the other end of Strip?
ST: Both.
Bessie: Yeah… Sure.

Traveller/Roadie – No, this is nothing to do with a backpacker or person on a holiday, travelling anywhere, at all. It is, in fact, a beer you drink while driving back from one property to another after a long day of hard work.

Example of use:

Bessie: Would you like a traveller for the trip?
ST’s Dad: Better get me a couple I think thanks Bess.

Lamb Marking – the systematic process of ear tagging, tail docking and castrating (the males) all the young lambs on the property. Depending on how many lambs there are, lamb marking also generally refers to the period of time during which this process is occurring.

Example of use:

Neighbour: Would you like to come over for a BBQ this weekend?
Bessie: Sorry, we’re lamb marking.
...
Friend: Would you like to camping on the long weekend in June?
Bessie: Sorry, June’s lamb marking.

Crossie – A sheep which is not a purebred. Eg. A merino crossed with a dorper.

Example of use:

Bessie: How did you get that bruise?
ST: Bloody crossie kicked me.

Killer – The best looking sheep or cow in the herd, which we will eat ourselves rather than sell.

Example of use:

Bessie: We’re running low on meat in the freezer.
ST: There’ll be a couple of good killers in the mob I’m getting in the yards tomorrow actually.

22, 303, 243, 410 – Various types of firearms used to dispatch pest animals.

Example of use: I saw a massive boar at Strip Tank today but I didn’t have the 243 with me so it got away.

Town – any town within a 500km radius. Never assume it’s the closest town; always ask for specifics.

Example of use:

ST: Dad’s got to go to Town tomorrow if you need him to bring anything back.
Bessie: I’d love some milk, bread, potatoes, we’re out of carrots and some fruit would be great… where’s he going, Cobar?
ST: Wilcannia.
Bessie: Oh. OK…. Just some milk then, from the servo I guess.

Huts – also known as Shearer’s Quarters, Huts are permanent onsite bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen and dining located near the Shearing Shed (also known as the Wool Shed) which accommodates the influx of the shearing team at shearing time.

Example of use: I still have to go and clean the huts before shearing starts on Monday.

Swamp and Creek – A dry depression in a paddock which can be either sandy, rocky or clay-y which looks like once upon a time it maybe, might have, used to have, been a swamp or creek, a million years ago, back when there was actually water around.

Example of use:

ST on the UHF: Where are you?
Bessie on the UHF: In Lynn’s Paddock somewhere. Near some Box trees.
ST on the UHF: Have you passed the swamp?
Bessie on the UHF: ………… Sschhhh…I…sshhhuuuchchhh…. f-shschcch…ing….kn-schhhhhcchh-ow!

Feed/Pick - the amount of edible grass and burrs growing in the paddock for the stock to eat.

Example of use:

Neighbour: How’s the feed looking over there?
ST: Yeah some green pick coming through. Bit dry over the back though.

Hanging – When all the townsfolk gather in the public square to watch... woops! I mean, when sheep forget where the tank is in a paddock and decide to all just “hang” out in a group on a fence line instead of trying to find some water to get a drink.

Example of use: Would you be able to check those crossie wethers we put out in Bore Paddock after lamb marking, make sure they’re not hanging near the old creek in the corner at the top end?

Water Run – the 800million-kilometre round trip to every tank on the property to check the water level, how boggy the tanks are, how the sheep are looking, and how much feed there is. The length of the water run is often measured in how many travellers/roadies you need to take with you (depending on the time of day of course! We’re not all alcoholics out here. Just me.)

Example of use:

ST: I’m just going to do the water run.
Bessie: Sure, which way are you going? Should I come? How long is going to be? Will I have time to make dinner once we get back?
ST: Better grab some roadies for the trip…

The Trip to Town

Question: When does 70,000 acres become too small for two people?

Answer: After six weeks of shearing.

It’s about the six week mark, and I guess not just of shearing, but of being at Burragan without a break, when things start to teeter on the edge of homicide and there’s not enough room in this 70,000 acres for the both of us some days. Yet, ST can still go out “to check the sheep” for a couple of hours and I miss him. I think that is the key, that even when you’re ready to start shooting the pellet rifle at the other’s feet to watch them dance like a popcorn kernel, you’re still on the same team. Seventy-thousand acres is too small to hate each other for too long. Though, once the bottom lip is dropped, in a 20 room house with 32 doors, there’s a lot of angry foot stomping and door slamming to be done.

By the six week mark we’ve well and truly run out of chocolate (that usually happens at around week two, unless it’s the month after Easter). Even the cooking chocolate supplies will be disappearing fast. It’s most likely we’ll have also run out of any supermarket-bought vegetables and fruit, including staples like onions, potatoes and garlic. We’ll be nearing the end of the frozen vegetable stash, and will be relying almost totally on tinned or jarred goods to back up anything ready to harvest in the vegie patch.

At the six week mark scotch finger biscuits will diminish completely, making for a grumpy ST. While dwindling supplies of peppermint tea will be making for a grumpy Bess. Margarine and butter, naughty snacks like chips and biscuits, coffee and white sugar may well be on the blink. The freezer will be void of any chicken, bacon, or beef mince, and treats like puff pastry and frozen chips will be long gone. Fortunately, given we grow lamb, there will always be a plentiful supply of beautiful, home grown lamb… but after six weeks of shearing you’re usually left with cuts like neck chops and shoulders which require more effort and inventiveness than you feel like giving after 42 days without an espresso coffee.

By the seven week mark I’ll consider ordering this stuff out in the mail, but then I’m sure we should be heading to Town any day now, so I usually decide that as long as no one calls in and catches us surviving in this state, we can live without these things for at least a little while yet.

By the eight week mark I’m making cakes out of beetroot, ground almonds and honey, because I’ve got beetroot growing in the vegie patch and we’re on serious rations with the sugar and flour. And because I’ve still got more beetroot, and am craving anything remotely junk-foody, I’ll decide that making baked chips out of beetroot would also be an awesome idea. And it is awesome. But really, who wants to painstakingly slice beetroot into bible-page thin slices to bake into delicate homemade crisps after a 12 hour day in the paddock when I’ve still got to water the garden, feed the dogs and chooks, put on/hang out/bring in/fold up the washing, clean the kitchen, mend ST’s jeans, and butcher up a lamb shoulder just to make a stir fry…

At the end of eight week I’ll convince myself a spoonful, or ten, of condensed milk is appropriate for smoko, and dessert, and a midnight snack, and sometimes even breakfast. It was okay when I was 14 and my parents were out, why is it not okay when I’m 24 and my parents live 1000 kilometres away? And if I do happen to get visitors, they’ll have to be happy with lamb chops and lettuce for dinner, and if they really want dessert they can have condensed milk too, maybe whipped and frozen, maybe with some beetroot.

By week nine I’ll have run out of tonic water and I’ll be wondering if it’s okay to start mixing gin with coke. Bathroom soap may well be gone by now too, so we’ll start bathing with shampoo. And in desperate times, kitchen dishwashing liquid has been known to be replaced with antibacterial hand wash.

It’s basically impossible to get the shopping quantities right. Even if I were to buy ten extra of everything, then I can guarantee there’d be a mini tornado hit the walk-in pantry at the five week mark, totally destroying all edible stores, leaving only the tinned asparagus in its wake. Murphy always wins.

Ten weeks is the longest continual time I’ve ever spent at Burragan sans Town visit. By the ten week mark ST and I are doing well if we’re still talking to each other. And that’s less to do with not getting along than it is to do with actually being lucky if we can still remember how to speak English after two and a half months total of social isolation. Although, by that stage, often not talking is safer than what the voices in my head are telling me to say.

Maybe it’s a female thing but by this stage every day seems to become one of “those days” where everything gets to you and you feel like screaming the house down because of something as simple as, say, you know, you wanted cheese for lunch. But you ran out of cheese and you live 200 freaking kilometres from the closest cheese store. And why doesn't anyone else around here care about the supply of cheese? Why is it always me who looks after buying cheese and doing everything to do with cheese? And “everyone else” acts like they don't have enough time to get cheese. Yet, they don't have any problem eating cheese. And they seem to have time to do other things that in the big scheme of things, probably aren't really as important as ordering cheese. But they'll still do those other things before ordering cheese, even though having cheese is a pretty big freaking deal. And in the end they just leave buying cheese up to you, even though you bloody well hate having to be the one that buys cheese all the time.

Sure, cheese is symbolising a lot of things in this story, but I think it about sums up the general thought process at the ten week point. I’m certain ST thinks the same. Just replace cheese with doing sheep work or renovating the laundry. Anyone for a whine with that cheese?

The worst thing though, is that a trip to Town after 10 weeks is a kamikaze journey. I’m not joking. It. Can. Make. You. Want. To kill yourself. With a supermarket green bag. But the good thing is you accidentally left those in the cupboard at home (again), which is 500km away.

Five-hundred kilometres!? I can hear you ask. But Bessie, it says in your little bio up there on the top right of the page that you’re only 110km from the closest town, and 200km from the supermarket? Well my friend, that’s true. We are only 110km from Wilcannia – you’ll notice I’ve put it in italics there. That’s because I want you to read the word in such a way that it has so much meaning and emphasis, that it conveys exactly what I’m trying to say about Wilcannia, without me actually having to spell it out for you here…if you know what I mean? Anyway, without going into detail, there are no shops in Wilcannia, so it’d be totally pointless driving the 110km to get there.

To our east, 200km away, we have Cobar… (Notice there’s no italics; Cobar is nowhere near in the same league as Wilcannia.) Cobar’s nice enough. A mining town. Two IGA supermarkets (where I can order groceries from to be delivered in our twice weekly mail if I wish), a bakery, a few coffee shops, an excellent motorbike shop, a Subway and Eagle Boys… (I don’t eat either of those, but I wanted to emphasise the lack of a MacDonald’s, KFC or Red Rooster)…

But still, we’re running 70,000 acres here! We’ve got NEEDS! Like car parts and shed supplies and building renovation materials, and WINE! And not just any old wine, but BULK, well priced wine! The kind of wine where you get a discount for buying six or more bottles. We require Dan Murphy’s and Bunnings, speciality farm supplies shops, stock feed shops, and auto parts shops.

And I require Thai food and the shoe department at Myer.

And so, when we “Go to Town,” we drive 500 kilometres east to the bright lights of Central Western NSW’s major centre, Dubbo! (Notice lack of italics AND the addition of an exclamation mark.) To everyone who’s ever heard me say, “We went to Town yesterday,” or “I popped a letter a letter in the post for you in Town,” or “I found something for you in town, I’ll post it when I can,” or ‘I just got back from town, so it took a while to unpack,’ I want you to listen to me right now, very carefully: there was really no simple ‘popping’ or ‘finding’ or ‘just’ or ‘a while’ about it … We drove 500km there, and 500km back, we paid $130 for a night in a three star motel where the shower head most likely fell off , and we forgot to take our green bags.

SO - after ten deprived weeks at Burragan, without chocolate or margarine or scotch finger biscuits, Town becomes this mythical Atlantis where people can walk to the corner store without having to pack a cut lunch, where ice cream comes on sticks out of huge freezers and there’s, like, 50 different flavours, and where women can wear ballet flats made out of felt and suede, in colours like beige without them turning dirt-red, and where you can still drive around when it rains, because the ground is covered in this stuff called cement and bitumen.

Delirious with anticipation at the magical things which happen in this place called Town, I envisage a Grace Kelly like version of myself waltzing into a day spa, ready for a full day of pampering, waxing, preening and hair styling. The pre-haircut scalp massage is so undoing that other ladies in the salon point to me, “I’ll have what she’s having,” they say.

Afterwards, ST, who’s donned a suit and tie for the occasion (which I haven’t have to spend hours dragging him around every bloody men’s shop in Town to try on), takes me out to dinner at the best restaurant in Town where we feast on seafood that’s been flown in fresh from the trawlers that morning. We might catch a movie after dinner, or we might hit the local wine bar for cocktails and a cheese platter.

We’ll enjoy a full 12 hours of sleep on a King-size bed with luxurious 1000TC sheets, and who knows, maybe we’ll be upgraded to the Premium Deluxe Room, just because. A full cooked breakfast will be delivered straight to the door come 8.30am and we’ll be ready to complete our remaining few Town jobs by the time the shops open at 9…

And then, when you’re two hours into a five hour car trip to Town, reality comes crashing down – because actually, by week ten, the trip to Town is like a 15 minute trip to Disney Land where Mickey Mouse throws up on you on the giant tea cup ride. I’ve never been to Disney Land, or had Mickey throw up on me. But my point is that there’s just way not enough time to any of the fun stuff, yet you can’t avoid the bad stuff – it sticks to you and smells gross.

When we lived in Townsville the local supermarket was less than a block from our house. I used to visit every second day. So say, for 15 minutes every second day, for ten weeks, is… 8 hours and 45 minutes of supermarket time... How much fun do you think there’s to be had in cramming 8 hours and 45 minutes of supermarket time into 2 hours max?! And say $20 per trip for every second day over 10 weeks, equates to $700… yep, that sounds about right… it hurts when that figure flashes up on the checkout scanner. And you haven’t even been to Dan Murphy’s yet.

The trip to Town is a nightmare. You will NEVER be able to achieve 100percent of the jobs on your list. You will NEVER be able to complete the supermarket shopping without causing a scene with your loved one in the canned food section. You will NEVER be able to find the right motorbike/car/truck filter at the first, second, or even third store you visit, so you will spend precious hours visiting every, single auto parts store in Town and you will have to forfeit your time in the Myer shoe department. You will NEVER have to time for a three course dinner – if you’re lucky you might get a 50cent cone to eat in the stinky, cramped motel room after Thai takeaway. You will NEVER have time to see a movie at the cinemas.

You will have a fitful sleep, and you will wake up at sunrise just as you normally do. You will be grumpy the next morning as you scoff a McMuffin for breakfast and then you’ll proceed to run around like a headless chook still trying to find yesterday’s motorbike/car/truck filter. The garden nurseries will NOT have any of the plants you’re looking for, and the ones you do manage to buy will need to be tightly wrapped in plastic to ensure they still have leaves after a journey home in the back of the ute. And even then, they’ll still probably die once you re-plant them and you’ll be waiting another 10 weeks until you can buy new ones (and there’s only five lots of ten weeks in a year!)

Then, just as you wish you could stop for the day, have a coffee and head back to the motel room for a nap before dinner and stay another night to finish you list, nope, nup, sorry, I forgot to mention you had to check out of the motel by 10am, so allllllllllllll day every time you got out of the ute, you had to shift stuff from the tray to the front seat so it wouldn’t get stolen, and back again every time you got back in the car.

It’s also incredibly likely that something will go wrong with your car during this trip to Town and you will have to drop at the mechanic and complete the remainder of your 700 mile long shopping list by foot.

And then, finally, you get back in the car for the last time, ready for the glorious 500km journey home… and to be honest, you can’t wait to get home so you can just breathe again. But you’re not looking forward to unpacking everything at midnight.

Whoa, whoa, whao! Hold up! Deep breaths… Have I scared you off yet?

Let’s go back a step…

Let me tell you about week number one.

The first week back at home after a trip to Town is glorious, with all the treats you bought from the supermarket, justified because “we live in the middle of no-where, dammit, we’ve got to have something worth living for!” As you sit back on the veranda at dusk, cicadas chirping, the scent of citronella in the air, a postcard perfect sunset dipping behind the Box Gums, sipping a glass of great champagne (because sometimes it’s worth it) with strawberries ripe from your own garden. Dogs fed, trees planted, veggie patch watered, roast in the oven, contented fiancé, the only two people around for 280 square kilometres.

70,000 acres, just the pair of us.

And it feels like we own the whole world.

Horror in the hothouse!

We’ve had a fatality at the farm, a passing on the property, a homicide at the homestead, a casualty at the country-house, a slaughter at the station, a death at the domicile (seriously, is that even a word? Mr Thesaurus seems to think so), bereavement at Burragan, a… OK, I think you get it. There’s been a - how do I put this - an “incident.”

Last night I plodded over to the chook pen to feed our four Isa Brown laying hens. I hate going over there when no one else is home, for fear of encountering slithery, slimy reptilians of the deadly, Brown variety. But ST was out in the paddock and unlikely to be home much before dark, and we’d had a particularly hot day of about 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), so I wanted to check they still had plenty of water.

It was there that I made the ghastly discovery of two fat hens lying face down in the dirt at the back of the pen. I hooted and hollered and clapped in an effort to wake them from what was surely just a very relaxed, reclined, deep slumber. But they made no attempt to get up. Their two mates clucked around at the front of the yard, waiting for me to toss them some feed. They seemed suspiciously unconcerned. Perhaps it was murder, I thought, as I prodded the corpses with a stick, hoping for any sign life.

The water dish was still full, and there was no sign of fowl play (forgive me Pun Master). Sadly, I’d known it from the moment I’d set foot near the chook pen that evening, the most likely cause of death was heat exhaustion.

You see, it’s well known chooks like to just keel over when the going gets hot. You know that saying, “fall off your perch,” yeah? That’s exactly what they’d done. But it was a shock to my system, given that just two weeks ago we’d endured days on end of 48 degree heat, even topping 50C (122F) one day! And the hens hadn’t even batted an eyelid that week. (There’s a thought for you; do chooks blink?)

There once had been six, then there were three, then six, then five, then four, (yeah, OK, it's a very complicated situation) and now there were two. My dedicated egg makers. Cut down in the prime of life.

Looks like we won’t be making too many Pavlovas for a while. Not that I think I’ve ever made one of those in my entire life, ever. But I bet I get the urge to do it this week… just because I can’t.

Dammit! I just googled Pavlova to make sure I’d spelled it correctly and then all these really fabulous pictures of yummy, yummy pavlovas came up... and now I REALLY want to make one!