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.