Community Spirit

We haven’t been suffering nearly as badly, as our counterparts in NSW or Victoria, where the rain has been coming down in inches, wreaking crops and washing away roads, fences and hope, leaving nothing but maintenance work, in its wake. The cruelest thing about the rain is it’s come after suffering years of drought.

WA’s wheat belt area has had it tough with a big dry this year. If there isn’t any wheat, then there isn’t any bread, pasta and many other types of food. If there isn’t any barley, there isn’t any (gasp, wait for it!), BEER!

Farmers amaze me with resilience. One I spoke to just shrugged his shoulders and said; ‘Next year will be better.’ It’s attitudes like this that make our farming communities special.

And it’s when times get tough, that farmers help each other.

A family suffered (and still is) an horrendous ordeal, recently, with one of their members being diagnosed with cancer, soon into this year. The death occurred right as harvest was starting.

Local farmers, businesses and groups rallied around – they supplied ten headers, around five or so trucks, chaser bins and everything that is needed for harvest, so this family could grieve, they wouldn’t have the worry of trying to get the crop in, but still know their livelihood would be brought to the bins and they would be paid. They got the whole crop off in a day, instead of the family taking weeks and having to work through the pain.

I love living in a community that cares for its occupants.

*Thanks to Warren Slater from Ratten & Slater Machinery, for this photo.