How to Get a Phone Connected

I think I know at least one reason for the direction of this Telstra graph

Our farm is not far from anywhere, the nations capital is less than two hours away but we have zero phone reception.  No mobile and no landline. In some ways the idea of being cut off from the pressures of life is appealing but these days communication seems to be essential. We've tried walking up the hill and waving the mobile around hoping for at least one bar of reception, we've tried a booster aerial and failed. Finally we decided to take the ultimate step - contact Telstra to get a landline connected.

Here is a handy step by step guide to getting a Telstra landline
* the total number of hours left on hold =   for my own sanity I stopped counting!

Step 1   make at least four phone calls to different numbers
before you discover that you are not getting a phone connection, but a 'pre provisioning order'

Step 2   receive a pre provisioning order number and wait

Step 3   after several months of no action call to find that your order number has been misplaced and nothing has happened

Step 4   go to the back of the queue

Step 5   many weeks later, contractor arrives and begins work, says as soon as he confirms work we will have a phone.      Time frame - 7 - 10 days.

Step 6   after several weeks of no action call Telstra to discover that additional infrastructure work is required and the job will be scheduled in the future

Steps 7- 12  keep calling and waiting

the job that only took 8 months

Step 13   receive a phone call to inform us that we must be present on site for the next stage of work, and contractor will call to confirm. Explain that there is no phone reception so no use calling

Step  14  contractor gets lost, calls for directions, but as there is no reception I miss the call

Step 15  several weeks later, receive phone call from contractor asking what needs to be done, tell him we thought he would know.  He says no, but he'll go and find out.

Step 16  Exactly eight months to the day after first contacting Telstra we have a landline.

The Cattle Yard Shopping Expedition

With the help of our neighbours we've had several cattle round ups, but it was becoming clear that one day in the near future we were going to need our own cattle yards. As part of our research on yards we discovered that we needed to learn 'cattle yardese.'  Here's a quiz- what is a 'man gate'- too easy, so here are a few more --

what is a :-  crossover gate, baulk gate, bullock pacifier, race, forcing gate and  don't forget the double gudgeon because it can either cause trouble or stop trouble.

The initial question for those in a cattle yard free zone is- to go with timber or gal, that's galvanised steel of course. The vision of an old timber cattle yard with corner posts so huge a grown man can't get his arms around them is appealing, but the modern cattle yard has no corners. Cattle inherently love corners, they herd into them head first with their rumps facing the world and refuse to budge.  Its hard enough to make a mob of cattle stay in forward gear, so forget an orderly reverse out of a corner.  To over come this problem, cattle yards these days are built in a series of octagons, hexagons, pentagons and wedges.  That's just the yards, the piece de resistance is the crush. The deluxe model comes with slide gates, vet gates,  chin bar, split slide gates, baulk crush, and hydraulic fold away handles. Who could resist, shopping for  cattle yards is a bit like buying an ice cream, why would you buy vanilla in a single cone when you could have a triple flavour in a hand rolled extra large waffle cone with your choice of toppings.  It's a no brainer!

When it comes to making a final decision, shopping for cattle yards is like choosing your child's school or buying a new car, everyone thinks their choice is the best and  loves to tell you why.  Browsing on the internet is helpful but there are no cattle yard shops, you can't just drop down to Bunnings and pack one onto a trolley on Saturday morning.

So once again it was off to a farming field day where we could kick the metaphorical tyres on the yards to see exactly how they worked.

In the past shopping with 'cattle yard man' has never  been a truly satisfying experience, he has an  attention span of approximately 35 minutes and then we buy 3 pairs of identical pants and forget about the shirts or the red sweater because it all gets too fraught.

On a cool Autumn morning we headed up the freeway on a mission to find ourselves some cattle yards.  Field days are a wonderful magnet for everyone buying and selling anything rural.  Once through the turnstiles, the first few hours were spent testing out yards, then a second circuit of testing was needed, then a third was suggested.  I sensed that my superior experience gained at many Christmas sales was required.  Why once I had managed to grab three pairs of shoes, a handbag, two sets of sheets and a 60 piece cutlery set in just 40 minutes.

'We can't just go and buy a set of yards' moaned cattle yard man.

'Why not.' was my exasperated reply.  'Thats what we came here for.'

'No one just buys them.' he rationalised.

We were in serious trouble, we were on a shopping expedition and about to go home empty handed.

So back we went to the favoured  manufacturer only to discover that we were in a queue. There were two people ahead of us, both with their credit card ready, both buying a complete set of cattle yards.

Five weeks later, the yards arrived on the back of a truck, custom designed to our requirements. In the end it was like shopping at Ikea,  the yards came in a giant flat pack ready to be erected. I expected a huge allen key to be included, along with instructions to 'insert A(2) into T(4)' but no, they came with Troy who set up our yards in about two and a half hours while carrying on

 a running conversation about the joys and pitfalls of cattle farming,  romance, trucks, chocolate cakes, horses and football.

It doesn't get any better.

The First Great Cattle Muster

Our small herd of Herefords consists of five cows each with a calf, four heifers and one little bull calf. And now the time has come to turn the little bull into a steer. These days this is done with elastic bands, they're slipped over the bulls balls and a couple of weeks later they drop off and - da dah! you have a steer.  No pain, no blood and best of all no great skill involved.

An early problem was quickly identified- we have no cattle yards, well we have the decaying remains of what we refer to as the rustlers yards, now mostly used by termites to sharpen their teeth and breed their young.  So what do we round the cattle up into.
Problems like this are easily solved in the bush. You talk to a neighbour and not only will the offer of their yards be instantly forthcoming, in our case the offer of their kids to help round up the cattle was also thrown in.

A family muster was organised on our side of the fence and on the appointed day our surfer dude son arrived down our dirt road in his shiny black car. He came fully equipped in thongs, Oakleys,  boardies
and a straw Fedora.

'Don't worry Mum, I've come prepared.' was his response to my raised eyebrows.  With this he kicked off the thongs and changed into a pair of white leather Nikes.  The eyebrows stayed raised.

Sensing that something was up, the cattle had chosen the far corner of the property across two creeks to  check out the possibility of some new grass.  The humans set off like a pack of Blue Heelers to bring the cattle in. They took the scenic route but eventually they were herded toward our open gate out onto the road and hopefully down the road to the neighbour's yards.
There was a slight hesitation at the gate and in a flash the cattle weighed up the situation and took off in a dozen different directions into the bush across the road.  In a Mt Eyjafjallajokull like moment - chaos erupted   -ahead of the cattle was dense bush and a rocky escarpment leading to a 4 metre drop into a creek.

Like lemmings, the humans followed the cattle into the bush.  One human ran with more purpose, the neighbour's 8 year old raced around the left flank yelling instructions to the adults
'I know where they are, go round'  and sure enough the cattle emerged with the pint sized human behind them herding them in the right direction.

To say that they quietly wandered into the yards would be some way from the truth, but to cut a long story short, they did end up in the yards, the bull calf was separated from his mother and secured in the crush.

Then it was time for the elastic bands to be applied.   In  Bull Castration 101 the first job is to locate the testicles. All the human males were down the correct end of the calf but something was missing. Maybe they hadn't descended, perhaps there was a veterinary problem. Maybe with all the excitement they had contracted.  More prodding and gentle encouragement, for city slickers its a wondrous sight to see a group of grown males murmuring soothing words as they gently stroke a bulls nether regions.  The result was exactly nothing, no balls, no result.

The ruckus we had created attracted a curious neighbour who thought we city slickers sounded as if we were out of our depth. Its interesting that he could tell this from over half a kilometer away.  He sauntered up to the cattle yards- took in the calf from the front then the rear and then had a good look at his head.  Wrong end,   we know- it -alls were thinking.

'Doesn't look too bully to me, he's been done, you can tell by the head and neck- oh and he has no balls!'

Infrastucture

Our farm on the unknown road suffers from a number of deficiencies, apart from obvious problems like no workable address, we have ancient fences, trees on fences, heavy crops of weeds, no power, no telephone,  no sheds, no house, the list of 'nos' is a long one. However that is about to change.  The buzz words today are 'infrastructure' and 'going forward' ...  so - going forward we are investing in infrastructure.

Getting the trees off the fences would classify as going forward, but there is nothing concrete to see once the trees are gone,  just less of what was once there. What we need is to ADD something in our going forwardness. We need something that says 'infrastructure'.

Now I know how the politicians feel, it's all very well to have cups of tea and meet the people tours, but what you need is bang for your bucks - a big announcement followed by a big building program!!

And so the idea of 'The Shed' is born.

The shed is not just a big idea it is an vital one, it fulfills a life essential - shelter,  and most important of all - mans primordial need for A Shed.

Shed Man burst onto the scene  - we have no phone booth or phone so you just have to imagine how it might have looked. This would be no ordinary shed, no pre-fab job here, this would be a proper infrastructure project. Shed Man also discovered that someone, sometime had once started down the infrastructure path before him, there are piles of old corrugated iron, bricks and timber scattered around, all waiting to be recycled.  There are also the remains of an old bed, a sofa, a window and even an ironing board, but that's all way too sophisticated for us.

The shed began life right on the farm as the trees growing up in our road and on our fences, they had to go, but not too far.  The straight ones were felled, the bark skinned off them and lined up in our mini timber yard.   Like all good infrastructure projects this was not going to happen overnight.  After a huge amount of calculation, the next stage began with the digging of the post holes. Several weeks and stages later it was time for the roof to go on. While Shed Man is a great handy man, this was to be his first 3 bay shed.  As the neighbours  came and went offering advice ( picture a movie in fast forward - clouds fast tracking overhead, trucks and utes buzzing back and forward)  Shed Man continued steadily on with his  project.  An old school mate arrived for a visit and became a builders labourer, one of our sons arrived for a day in the country and quickly found himself up a ladder with a sheet of corrugated iron to nail down.  Someone pointed out that a vital component was missing, if the whole structure wasn't braced it could start to list then fall neatly to the ground or worse, blow away. A stop work order  seemed the best option until and the concept of bracing was researched.

Many weeks later and now fully braced, the roof of The Shed was completed.  Its a fine piece of infrastructure -  the only piece for that matter. There it sits, providing shelter for the tractor, for us and as we have discovered, the cows who all like to camp under its roof and scratch against it's poles.  What about some walls you might ask, well the pyramids didn't happen overnight and neither will our shed.

It Just Keeps happening at Lightning Speed

'The damn grass is growing so fast it keeps me awake at night!' is a common complaint in the bush just now.  Fingers crossed because I don't want to put a hex on the weather... BUT it looks like the drought of a generation has had it's back broken.

Now that we are farmers we have a rain gauge and we track a website that gives hourly weather data for our area. With a few clicks, I can check on the wind direction and it's strength, the relative humidity, the rainfall and all the historical weather data I could wish for.

Meanwhile the grass continues to head skywards. We need either a slasher of the mechanical variety or the four legged variety.  Weighing up the options it appears that both produce emissions-   carbon monoxide or methane -  choose your poison!

The methane producers won out.
Next job is a phone call to a local agent for some advice about cattle. The pros and cons of steers vs heifers vs heifers with calves are weighed up.  It seems our grass is already too long for the picky habits of some cattle, so the agent says he'll have a think about it and see what turns up.

Now for the lightning!   Next day we were hard at work on the usual round of fences, weeds, sheds when a cattle truck rumbled down our road, now our road is not exactly in bold font on the map, in fact Telstra couldn't even find it as I tried to guide them through Google Earth- but that's a story for another day.  So it is an event to see something other than the neighbours comings and goings down our way.  Twenty minutes later the truck rumbled back down the track and with much bellowing arrived at out gate.

'Where's ya set up luv?' yelled the driver. 'Didn't know anyone lived on this place.'

Set up, I wondered, should I know what a set up is?

'Ya yards, luv, where's ya yards?'

'We don't have any, not yet anyhow. And why do I need yards?'

'Cos I wanna unload this lot for ya."

And so our cattle arrived within 48 hours of our musings about what to do with the long grass. The driver backed up to a rise in the paddock and the 'girls' and their offspring stepped daintily off the truck and took off like a pack of Pamploma bulls to the far corner of the paddock.

The 'girls' are a bunch of Hereford's each with a calf and they are working very well at keeping the grass down.

It's not going to happen overnight

What is the most difficult part of going bush for the city slicker?
Learning to be patient.
The most repeated piece of counselling from city friends was
"You'll go nuts waiting" 
"No one hurries in the country, it'll take you years."


So when the list of projects started to mount up, I was determined not to let my citified hyperactivity get the better of me. A Buddhist approach seemed the obvious answer. My mantra became -- ' it's not going to happen overnight.'  


A covert click onto Wikipedia confirmed that my method had every chance of success. I learned that 'a mantra is a group of words capable of creating transformation.'   Ah ha! I'll transform myself ... or if that fails I'll transform the sleepy bush. A win win scenario!

Sitting on the floor meditating on ---' it's not going to happen overnight' doesn't come easily to a brand new ex city slicker, Buddhist. The sense of urgency still eats away in the background.
'While I'm sitting here I could be doing something!!'
I was failing before I'd even begun when another ancient philosopher came to my rescue. Back in Greece before they sentenced him to death by drinking hemlock, Socrates thrived on creating debates by posing questions and working through the possible answers.  My Socratic dialogue went something like this
Do I need my old world?  
Why am I attempting to leave the city behind me?
to which I answered


I know I can do without the text message saying --'we're nearly there -- oh look down the street,  I'm waving I can see you already!!'
and if I place an order online will it kill me if it is not on my doorstep in 24 hours.  
OK it might if I have a life threatening illness requiring online only medication, but I don't.
I could hear the master Socrates saying -   who needs instant gratification and why?

The first test came with the order of recycled timber from the local second hand materials yard. It's an Alladins cave to some and a confusing yard full of left overs and rejects to others. It's run by a crew straight out of central casting.  The delivery truck must have come from the props department circa 1954. If you remember 'Steptoe & Son' then you have the picture.

Delivery was looking dicey-- the truck was tied up for the next few days  -- there was some debate that the timber wasn't available in the right lengths -- the delivery driver had another part time job somewhere else.
Hmm...   Socrates to the rescue!!

'Not a problem'  I said.  'There's no rush, we have lots of other projects to carry on with.'

So back on the farm the job requiring the timber was put on the back burner. There were blackberries to kill and sheds to fix.

One and a half hours later an ancient truck came gasping down the road, turned at our gate and chugged up the track, the central casting crew had arrived at Apple Gully.

The timber was delivered.
Beat that in the city.  Not likely!

Checking out the field

The farm with nothing worth insuring is about to change it's status. The significant other is feeling the call of the tool shed-

there is no shed,   the call is a primeval instinct encoded into many significant others about the time their ancestors first stood up and walked on two legs rather than four.

"Me want stick,   me want stone. " 
"Me figure out how to hook stone onto stick"
"Eureka!  me invent tool!"
At least that's how I read the DNA coding.

What usually follows goes something like this
"##xx**#   -- stick broke,  me need to have a beer with mate and figure out how to fix stick."

The mate has the solution
"mate you picked up the wrong stick, you need the newer bigger model."

And so the research into farming tools begins. A chainsaw is an essential to clear the fences of all the fallen trees, but will a 30cm bar be too small or will a 3.0 kw with a 37cm bar,  be too heavy and how much torque do you need?

The decision is made to attend a farming field day where all the experts will be in the one place at the one time.  Directory of all Australian field days & shows

So we pack the dog, the sun cream and our hats and set off down the highway early one Saturday morning. At 10 am a freshly slashed paddock now doubling as the car park is 3/4 full,  Families with babies in strollers,  fellow hobby farmers, machinery tyre kickers and most of the local community are all funnelling through the turnstiles, it's showtime!

When you're past your teens and sample bags and dizzy rides no longer seem so fabulous, the field day is the perfect antidote to revive that fizz of excitement.   The displays and marquees are full of gleaming mowers, water and sewage recycling systems, axes too good to put any where near a log,  solar panels, composting systems, alpacas in every colour and row after row of tractors.

After the third machinery display we agree to split up, tool man is on a mission and I'm attracted to the whip cracking show,  the low line cattle and strangely, the axe display!

At lunch time we meet up and compare sample bags. The dog wanders off to check out a couple of fluffy white Shitzus and a brown poodle. Where are all the kelpies and blue heelers? Home on the farm, doing a days work it seems.

Late in the afternoon two dusty, thirsty, learner farmers leave their first field day with a brand new 35 bar  chain saw and visions of Kubotas and Yanmars with 'conveniently located PTO levers' dancing in their heads.

Things that burrow, grow or move

The dog has just attempted to disappear down another hole, he's only a Silky Terrier,  but even if he was an over weight labrador he'd still fit with plenty of wriggle room.

These are wombat holes, fantastic construction sites that could have doubled as sets on the movie 'Lord of the Rings.' Some resemble old mine shafts, others seem to have whimsical facades - either way, JR Tolkien would surely recognise them as part of middle earth.

At sunset the residents emerge, bleary eyed after a heavy day snoozing. They squat on their front patios and survey the world as they sort out their agenda for the evening.  First, a ramble through the paddock on the lookout for dinner or is that breakfast. Mosses and grasses will do for starters. These over stuffed duffle bags on four short legs can be the farmers friend because they don't mind munching on tussock grass or spear grass.

There is just one problem, they breed-   then the new generation out grows the parental home - so another outbreak of burrowing begins. Judging by the number of false starts and abandoned holes burrowing appears to be an art learned on the job, or maybe the wombats are just upwardly mobile, always on the look out for a better piece of real estate.

Then there are those smaller holes and hollow logs down by the dams, the dog can't fit into them, but he knows they have a resident, usually our friend the red bellied black snake. Luckily the dog is startled by a snapping twig and sometimes even his own shadow, so the snakes are safe as long as we are not on the same path at the same time.

 The fauna down in Apple Gully is benign compared to the evil green, spiky menace of 'Rubus fructicosus' and it's sidekicks waiting to mug the naive city slicker.  The mega fauna of Australia may be extinct but the mega flora is thriving. 'Onopordum acanthium' grows to 2 metres, it lurks in packs and it must have been crossed with a stegosaurus at some stage in it's evolution.

Yes, we are talking about the Blackberry and the Scotch thistle, these two thugs have claimed Apple Gully as their patch and when they need some enforcing done they call on their weedy mates, Blady grass and serrated tussock and there are probably more gang members lurking down the rural equivalent of dark alley ways.

Watch this space - gang warfare is about to break out as the city slickers get down and dirty and take on the noxious gang.