The Third Month's Update

Well it's mustering season in this part of the world, and everybody is rather busy. The bulls have just finished their annual 60 days of fun, and have been shifted to a paddock all by themselves to recuperate, and no doubt do their fair share of bragging. The rest of the cattle have been divided into a whole stack of categories that we're not sure we've yet got absolutely worked out. Just what is the difference between a poddy calf, a heifer, a weaner, a vealer, a yearling, a steer, a bull, and a dry cow? Heaven help us there is even a heifer weaner. However, we think we've kind of worked out how not to embarass ourselves too much. When we're with farmers we refer to them as cattle, and when we're alone we refer to them as steak.

Anyway, to simplify it for us city folk, the steaks are mustered by a hired helicopter and walked to large area near the farmhouse where they are sorted out (drafted), and pregnancy tested in the time honoured way. They seem to end up with 3 groups - one group off to the meatworks to replenish the bank account, one group who is about to be vaccinated, de-horned, castrated (anyone for inland oysters?) and branded, and the third group who stand around making huge amounts of noise whilst their calves get the treatment. Even from a kilometre away we can tell when its all finished, as the noise stops when those who were spared a trip in the truck are finally reunited in one paddock.

Today was the third group of cattle to go through the process. The helicopter had been last week and mustered the first two groups which were all done by yesterday, and then it came back here again at dawn today to muster all of the cattle on the other side of the property, and by breakfast time the dogs were marching them across the paddock past our caravan towards the pens.

Just to add to the excitement, the helicopter was also here last Sunday when the annual goat muster took place. Goats are an important source of income to the farmers when they are sold to the market for meat, but because goats are wild and move from property to property, they don't 'belong' to anybody, and so it's a very hit and miss affair, and definitely secret mens business. Seems that you don't tell your neighbours that you are mustering, as they will whip out and round up all of the goats on their property the day before so that they don't cross the fence. You have to time it as late as you can in the season, but not when anybody else is mustering. It all depends on the wind, as goats walk into the wind, so 500 on your property one day can end up on your neighbour's tomorrow. Seems that this is what happened this year, and final numbers (read income) were disappointingly low.

Talking of preg testing (you didn't think you were going to get off that lightly did you), our host Craig augments his income by preg testing cattle on other properties in the district, and seems to estimate his throughput at 2 per minute. Try imagining that over an eight hour day.

Here on the property there are cattle, with the dogs and horses to assist, the laziest cat I've ever seen and goats which are welcome, and kangaroos, emus, pigs, foxes and rabbits that aren't. Mandy has had dogs, cats, ponies, birds and frogs wander into the classroom during the day to join in the lesson. Craig has talked several times of putting in a kangaroo proof fence, but you can't just do a bit of your property, and with over 100 kms of boundary it's a huge investment. The thing is, it may pay for itself with increased pasture yield if the rains are good, but if the rains fail it just adds more misery to your overdraft, so like most things on the land it's a gamble.

But enough about animals, what about real people. Well, the family we are staying with are lovely (what else can you say - they are reading this). They are very welcoming, and tolerate our lack of knowledge with kindness. We have placed our caravan at the woolshed which is about a kilometre from the farmhouse, though we can still hear the cattle and dogs when mayhem ensues. We have power at the shed, and Craig plumbed a waterline from the bore for us, though we also have a water cooler full of rainwater for drinking which is welcome. There is a thunderbox next to the woolshed with great views of the property and cattle to keep yourself amused. (You'll have to get Austin to explain it to you Renee) Our Foxtel satellite box arrived which was very exciting for Greg, so we can now get 71 channels of sport day and night. All in all its very comfortable and home'y. The only downside is that when it rains the red dirt turns to mud around the van, and the road tracks fill up with water, so the short trip to the homestead is rather a mud bash, but who can complain when areas around us haven't had rain for three years, and we've been given use of an old farm car around the property anyway.

Mandy is having a lovely time in the schoolhouse. After a day or two of keeping an eye on her to ensure all of the technology connections went smoothly, Sue has wandered off to do fun things like castrating and branding, and left her to it. Being in grade two Brooke has a full day of lessons supervised by Mandy, and daily on-air sessions with her remote teacher. It's pretty flat out from 8:00 till 3:30, with a morning and afternoon smoko, and lunch when Sue and Craig get in from their morning work. Zoe has a smaller workload, still with daily on-air sessions, but it's mainly wrapped up not long after lunch. Paige spends some time in the classroom joining in the fun sessions, does her kinder type sessions, and amuses herself around the place the rest of the time.

About once a term they have district day in St George called a cluster muster with other 'close by' kids in their distance class, and about once a term everybody makes the long trek into Charleville (4 hours) to meet with the teacher so that everybody gets together - parents included. In addition, every second Friday the three girls all troup into town to the St George Primary School mainly for socialisation, and Mandy has the day off. Other families don't seem to do this, and for some reason the distance-ed people don't seem greatly enamoured with the idea, but Mandy thinks it's a great thing for them to do.

On the property Greg has tried to be helpful, though sometimes you inevitably seem to take up more time than you save. He has painted gates, checked troughs and tanks, maintained boundary fences, moved equipment around, cleaned windows, hung washing and done other bits and pieces.

In town, two of the big social events on the calendar have occurred since we've been here. The Australian Campdrafting Championships were held in St George this year, and we spent a couple of sessions there watching the cutting and the campdrafting events. Basically a rider on a horse starts in a pen with a number of cattle, rides around the pen until he (or she) chooses one of the cattle and isolates it from the others (cutting out), then chases it out of the pen and around some markers in the main arena in a defined pattern (camp drafting). If they can't get the cattle to do what they want, its all over red rover, and if they succeed they get marked on horsemanship by a judge. With good horses being upward of $30,000, it's all taken very seriously.

The 131st St George Show was last weekend. Certainly a huge event for the town, but a reasonably modest event as they go. We were both quite surprised at the lack of animals at the show - very few cattle, horses and other animals were exhibited, and there weren't many fleeces and the like entered. In days of yore it was a three day event with lots of animal exhibits, then a two day event. Now its just a single day, with a few events, lots of crafts and various submissions by schools, and a few trade displays. The highlights of the day are the rides and showbags for the kids, the travelling rodeo for the adults, and the fireworks at the end of it all which amazed the girls as they've never seen them before. To boost their numbers Greg entered a number of his photos in the various competition categories, and came away with two first prizes. Didn't quite make back what it cost to enter, but he was chuffed to be made an honorary local in order to enter.

With every second Friday off, we take the caravan two hours along the atrocious roads into town for a long weekend and to do the big shop and our laundry. With one bakery, one hardware shop, one clothing shop and two supermarkets, it's not big town, but you can get almost everything you need. (Isn't ebay marvellous!) The caravan park is lovely and we have permanently reserved our favourite spot for our fortnightly visits.

We've ended up at the local Uniting Church which is a member of the evangelical wing of the UC. (imagine that - an evangelical Uniting Church that's more fundamental than a Baptist Church. If that had been around in our day, we may not have left.) We sing Hillsongs and similar songs, and feel quite at home. They've been very welcoming, and have certainly got their act into gear. Two chaplains at the local schools, youth groups. Sunday school. and bible study groups most nights. They put Syndal to shame with their videocasts, pocasts and daily devotions that go out to 300 people. Greg has been roped in to assist with getting their new website live, making their system of podcasting robust, and expanding their technology to their youth and remote members with social media.

I guess that's about it from us before you doze off. We've been publishing photos regularly on our blog. If you would like to look at some of them, just click on the 'Previous Entry' link down the bottom of this page, or use some of these links:

The property here: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gregd999/16/1429343451/tpod.html
Mustering: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gregd999/16/1430352000/tpod.html
School: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gregd999/16/1429496107/tpod.html
and http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gregd999/16/1430459666/tpod.html
Campdrafting: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gregd999/16/1429142400/tpod.html
The Show: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gregd999/16/1430611200/tpod.html

Till next month....