PRE- ORDER Fleur's newest novel 'Into the Night'
This is a huge piece of machinery isn’t it?! It’s a D9 bulldozer and it’s about to dig a great big dam for us. Last year was a terrible year, east of Esperance, season wise. We hadn’t had run off rain for nearly 18 months (that’s rain that will put water into the dams) and…
We have a lot of Ibis around our two farms. They love getting in around the dams and putting that long, sharp beak to work, hunting out bugs! They come in together in huge flocks (I assume they’re called flocks and not mobs or ‘a murder’ (as in crows). They are so graceful and hang…
When we all go around the farm in Anthony’s ute, we all have special spots because it’s really only a three-seater ute. We’re four, plus a little dog who really thinks he’s human so therefore he can’t be left behind on the chain (oh, the shame!) Anthony drives, Rochelle sits in the middle, I sit…
Well, we’ve started! The seed is in the ground, now all we need in a bit of rain to get it up and going. The blue skies look a bit too summery for my liking, but since this photo was taken a few days ago, we’ve had 10mm! It’s not enough yet, but it’s a…
If only the wind would go around to the south, I’m sure this massive cloud could drop oodles of rain on us! However, with the wind from the north, it’s unlikely that there will be any rain on our place. The sea is going to get it all!
We’re waiting for rain… and waiting… and waiting some more. We’ve actually got to the stage that we might dry seed some of our crops! As much as this cloud looks hopeful – well, its mates did about two hours ago, there’s clear skies in every other direction. Methinks it’s just beautiful they way the…
Check out this cheeky little fella! I fed some hay out for the bulls who live in this paddock, but they were busy sunning themselves way down the other end and obviously didn’t hear the tractor with the wind that was blowing. The sheep took full advantage of not having to muscle their way in…
There’s always something to do on a farm and we’ve been picking rocks recently. This paddock is going to be seeded to oats, when we get our opening rains. As you can see, it’s pretty dry here at the moment but we’re hoping for rain so we can get this crop and make our hay.…
Life is cruel at times and farming is no different. Our old dog Rex is pretty much had it. Arthritis is in his elbows and his hearing isn’t what it used to be… or maybe it’s just selective and we haven’t worked it out! And as much as we love him and will miss his…
My job was to get the steers in. You would think it would be easy enough! We just wanted to put them in a different paddock and draft out a couple of escapee’s . No prob’s! The steers had other ideas! They were feeling pretty good. Fresh and happy. They took off as fast as…
Among all the excitement of Red Dust hitting the shelves, our ewes have started lambing! This little bloke is one of many. Lambing is great fun to watch. Once they get a bit older they run, jump, pigroot and play around like nothing. Absolutely gorgeous to watch. But the other great thing about lambing (and…
I find that even though our family is close, we don’t often get to see each other as much as we should. With family members scattered from one side of the country to the other, and Esperance being slightly ‘out of the way’, it sometimes makes getting together very difficult. This Easter was a lovely…
Dogs work really hard at shearing time. They make the job much easier by packing sheep into races, getting them into the shed, penning up and of course helping muster the paddocks to bring the sheep into the yards. That’s of course if you’re a work dog. Rocket’s not. But because his legs are so…
This is the second fog we’ve had in a couple of weeks. It’s becoming apparent that autumn is well on its way. It’s cooled down in the morning, calm and magic. Autumn is one of my favourite times of the year. We’re all eagerly awaiting rain and we start to watch the weather charts a…
We’ve been fencing. Late last year we had a machinery shed put up near our house, but it’s also in a paddock. Not good if you have cattle in the paddock because they love to rub and tend of bend things like sheds and machinery if they rub on them! The cattle in the sorghum…
These are the cows that Hayden and I’ve been feeding. There is nothing better than seeing your stock grab huge mouthfuls of hay and slowly chopping away, their eyes half shut. It’s the look of contentment! It’s also a great way to know the hay you’ve made, is good, sweet hay that the stock will…
I reckon there’s a huge difference between inland and coastal kids, when it comes to being comfortable at the beach! Growing up far from the sea, I barely knew what a live fish looked like let alone tasted like. I knew they smelled, and Mum ordered it most times we went out to tea and…
Remember back at the beginning of December we were spreading fertiliser on our sorghum crop and I said it was going to grow fast and furiously? Well, it did! We’ve put our weaned calves onto it and some of the plants are eight foot tall! Can you see the cattle in amongst it? It must…
Rochelle and Hayden were lucky enough to be given a basketball ring from their Gran, for Christmas. Supposedly for the kids, it brought out the competitive nature in all the oldies, who tried to outdo each other in slam-dunking or defending the ring. The kids watched open-mouthed as their Uncle Nick and Papa tried to…
On our visit to Thomas River, there were heaps of jellyfish and ‘things’ like them, washed up on the shore. I haven’t seen anything like this on Thomas River Beach before, so the water must have been really stirred up at some stage to throw them onto the beach. Being orginally from the Flinders Ranges…
After the busy day of Christmas, we decided it was time to head to the beach and work off some of that extra pavlova and wine we had! Some of my family that came for Christmas hadn’t been to Esperance before so we took off down to Thomas River in the Cape Arid National Park…