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.