Farmer Wants a Life

I guess the first question you might want to ask is, “How did you wind up on a five hundred acre hay farm in Central Queensland?” Well, there’s a Facebook group called Grey Nomad Caretakers where farmers and rural property owners can offer farm sitting and paid casual employment, usually because they’re off on their annual holidays. You don’t have to be a grey nomad (of course…lol), however there is a cabal of full-time travellers who look out for time off the road, and others who do this on a full-time basis. I had a month to fill in waiting for Ken to untangle himself again from the chagrin of his life, and this happened to be en-route to our rendezvous in Rockhampton.

So a two hour flat run from Dalby saw me turnoff between Munduberra and Eidsvoldt down A Creek Rd (I kid you not) to Destiny’s Pocket to meet Graeme and Annie who were packing madly for their three week escape to Cape York. They had an immaculate older Landcruiser with a bells-and-whistles camper body on the tray. There was the usual ‘pre-departure tension’ in the air, but Graeme had the riding instructions all worked out and we methodically went through the daily chore list. The next morning they were gone early. I was officially the Farm Manager for the next three weeks.

I made a coffee and sat on the verandah in the bright morning sunshine. Temporary ‘Lord” of all he surveyed.

I was on my own, however I was definitely NOT alone. Even though Destiny’s Pocket was a producer of organic lucerne-hay, my primary tasks involved keeping a dog, two cats, five chooks, six horses, twenty cows and several gardens fed, watered and hopefully alive (I still wake up screaming after the great pet escape back in Darwin.) Roll call was at 5pm every afternoon. There was one exception.

Meet Gnarly. A failed working sheep dog, but a favourite of Annie’s. He has all of the instincts, but has a lot more fun corralling quad bikes and tractors than cattle. He gets let out of his cage first thing. Like Andy Dufraine when he finally clears the sewage pipe in Shawshank Redemption, Gnarly breaks the shackles of his confinement in triumph, bounding madly and insisting on a good head rub before disappearing into one of several ‘secret’ locations, where he could keep an an ear on any engine sounding noises.

Speaking of which, my favourite treat was to take out the quad bike at the slightest excuse and hoon around the farm. Well if 20kph is ‘hooning’, but it felt a lot faster without a windscreen.

The farm comes with it’s own cemetery of local pioneers and workers. Apart from one broken headstone, this fenced area is only recognizable by the memorial plaque at the entrance, With the list of to-do’s taking about an hour a day, I had plenty of time to take a good hard look at the van interior and decided a make-over was in order. The van is of a certain vintage where the ‘timber look’ was the sign of van opulence. However, on a bad day it could feel like the reception area of a funeral home. Definitely too ‘woody’, and the kitchen was looking a bit cracked and flaky, anyway.

The long term plan is to reduce the timber down to a trim and feature level and I’m already eyeing off solutions to the bathroom. Amidst all this project stuff, I still made time to sit out on that verandah or go for long walks to soak up this experience with my now, constant companion, and new BF. It’s very quiet here. The occasional ute will churn up the dust on the way through to somewhere, but only the birds break the silence.

One of the great traditions of rural Australia is the improvised mailboxes created by farmers to collect all kinds of letters and packages. Mailboxes can be up to kilometre or more from the homestead and the irregular deliveries are only to the farm gate. Farmers are very utilitarian by nature, so nothing goes to waste that can’t be repurposed. In this case, a microwave and a bar fridge would do nicely. Three weeks went quicker than I thought. Apart from the occasional run into the hardware store in Munduberra, I was farm bound but kept in contact with the owners, updating them on the rainfall gauge etc.

Annie had recently installed a stunning outside firepit, and I took it upon myself to collect as much ‘burnable’ as I could find to fill the wood stand.

The magic hour, just after sunset, and I could see the attraction of farm life.

Also doing a bit of burning were the neighbours across the road, setting fire to a paddock on consecutive nights. Contrary to popular belief, the longer the grass, the less nutrients and less attractive it is to cattle. Then one day, it was all over. Annie and Graeme returned, and I downloaded as much information about Cape York from the ‘brains trust’ as I could. I packed up, said my goodbyes and I was back on the road heading north-east towards Rockhampton on the coast.