Australian Talk.

[Suzie Q]

I cant believe it but I am actually riding Twiggy. If I blink and forget one day on the lunge when rain was brewing and it was getting late, then she hasn't bucked for a couple of months or maybe even 3.

I am not cantering her under saddle yet, but I am asking for it on the lunge and she is not getting excited about it any more.

4 days ago I decided I had to start riding her. Not just getting off after a few circles of her not bucking.

I stayed on her the other day when all at the same time a horse left, via float, from next door. I don't know what he was saying but he upset both horses and Sim neighed and cantered away from the arena, at the same time as hubby left the arena which of course was the same time that a big gust of wind blew. Go me.

We have ridden both this morning. Hubby hasn't ridden Sim for a little while. One way I only had to tell him to lift his hand 4 times in total instead of 4 times in 4 strides.

Twiggy mightn't have looked as good as yesterday, however I was actually riding her. I was even actually able to tap her with an inside leg. I was able to half halt her on her bad way as well as her good way.

Here we are in our new arena

 

[Suzie Q]

60 mm in 2 days from the rain depression associated with the cyclone. We haven't had any wind and it has stopped raining at the moment.

 

[wbvs58]

We've picked up about 33mm Suzie, I would like a bit more yet I have a paddock ready to plant rye, fescue and clover and want just a bit more to convince me to plant this early. Very windy here at the moment but only misty rain.
Ken

 

[townfarmer]

I see a lady from Save the Kangaroo Society spruiking this week that they're still endangered.

Nutcase!!! I saw recently a greens senator arguing that the Kangaroo population can't sustain the commercial kangaroo industry. Barry O'Sullivan challenged him to drive between Longreach and Winton at night to test his theory. :lol:

We got 45mm of rain over the weekend which I'm not mad about. It's nice to see our place and other properties around us looking so good. I was looking at photos of this time last year and there's quite a contrast.

Andrew

 

[wbvs58]

Yeh Andrew, it has certainly been a good summer. It was staring to dry out a bit though with such good ground cover and mild temps it was still OK. We got 36.5mm would have liked a bit more but we will take it as it turned out if we had more I would not have been able to plant that seed.
I was showing Dale the Digit grass I have around at Sugarloaf Rd, it is unbelivable. I put it in about 7 years ago and it has been there but not doing too much. Well this year it has just gone gangbusters the seed heads are head height and the plants are thick and they seem to be out competing the lovegrass. Dale was amazed at how much feed was there.
Ken

 

[townfarmer]

Ken
It's interesting that you planted the digit 7 years ago and this year it's really taken off. Why do you think that is? Slow to get established or simply a matter of getting rain at the right time of year? That's a bonus if it can invade and compete with the lovegrass.

We sprayed the blackberries and the bracken fern last week with Graze On. We might have to have a go at poisoning the love grass as it's really got moving as well. I'll have to pop around some time and check out your place again.

Andrew

 

[wbvs58]

Andrew Digit grass is often planted with rhodes grass as the rhodes establishes well in the first year but fades out whereas the Digit is supposed to recruit and you get more plants each year and I have noticed that but it is slow. This year must have favoured it very well. We will just have to see what happens next year. There will certainly be plenty of seed on the ground. I did super that paddock last year, usually every 2nd year, had 3 lots now so possibly fertility is improving. I have also put out Seradella and it has had some good years though nothing from it last autumn or winter. I will have to get up there and see if it is going to get going this year, it should start about now especially after these storms.
Ken

 

[Suzie Q]

We managed to do hay during that heat wave.

Happy Easter to everyone.

They are lookin at a wet Easter around Brisbane.

 

[Havinago]

Good to see alot of us are getting some good rainfall. Weve had well over 1 metre this year making the weeds thrive. We have a problem with rait tail atm. It spreads quickly and grows so fast.
A question for anyone in the know whats the best 12 volt pump?? Ive tried various ones but trying to find a high volume one is hard. Who uses a 12 volt or do you use a petrol pump to spray weeds?? Ive found a Delavan pump on ebay 26.5 lpm for near $600. The last pump had same flow but is very unreliable.
Steers are looking very fat down to 30 head with plenty of feed.
Appreciate any advice, cheers..

 

[wbvs58]

I don't know what brand I have on my tanks but they seem very reliable. They need the filters and the jets cleaned regularly otherwise they won't turn on and off correctly if the flow rate is not right. Are you going to use as a boom spray or those boomless jets seem good?
Yep been a good season here.
Ken

 

[Suzie Q]

Well this is the weekend that we were going to go to the PRARG carboot sale and go out for our first trail ride with the horses at home.

The carboot sale was postponed to the 16th May due to rain we didn't get here.

It did nothing but rain when we did get home. We have woken up on the broadwater this morning and we are cut off from Town. The bridge is under.

I will leave you with some photos taken of me with a horse head that was given to me.

When we build our own Tack Room - one of these days. The horse head will be an ornament along with a framed parts of the horse.

No matter how many times they say on the news that you should not try to cross flooded water, someone has to always try it.

This would have been an expensive swim.

And this is our arena. You should only see one lagoon below it.

 

[townfarmer]

I went down to Gloucester over Easter and bought 5 Devon cows with calves. I got to select out of about 60 cows. The Breeder has two properties and is selling one so he had excess cows. They are all registered cows. I've bought them as inactive commercial cows although I have to the end of the year to decide whether I want to transfer their registrations. Just waiting now for his place to dry out a bit so he can get a truck into his yards. We're selling off the last of our highland cows next week. It'll be a little sad to see the last few go but we're looking forward to building a herd of straight bred devon cows.

Andrew

 

[wbvs58]

Beautifull drive down that way Andrew, those Devons should be just the shot for you, sounds like you got a good pick out of the herd with 60 to choose from. I thought you had a bit of a fancy for the Devons. Will you only have those 5 cows on your place over winter? Forecast for the last part of the year is not looking too flash so might be the way to go. You might be waiting a little longer yet, we had 30mm over last couple days and I think further south had a bit more. Let us know when you get them I'd like to have a look.
Ken

 

[townfarmer]

Hey Ken

I'm definitely going to be waiting a while as the cattle are on a property at Stroud which is having some serious flooding at the moment. I don't really mind the delay as three of the cows have small calves and are currently running with a very nice poll Devon bull. The longer they're there then the greater the odds that they'll get in calf again. As far as stocking goes I'm going to sell everything bar four younger females of our current cows. If the spring /summer deteriorates again I'll sell those four early on.

I'll let you know when they arrive. I'd love to have you over for a visit.

Andrew

 

[wbvs58]

Sounds like they are good where they are for now Andrew and our grass here starts to disappear at a rapid rate from now on with cows chewing on it so if they are not costing you an arm and a leg being there it is all good. I look forward to hearing from you.
Ken
PS I have put some Kidman Rye (perenial) and Demeter Fescue and white and red clover in on about 7 acres of old mining land that I have rehabilitated here and it is looking fairly impressive at the moment. So far only the roos are enjoying it.

 

[Suzie Q]

We are flooded again.

We have had an offer on the property Pepper and I grew up on.

We still need a yes from my sister in Western Australia so here is hoping she says yes.

 

[jilleroo]

Hi all, we're still here, still alive, nothing has improved for us. It's really hard to describe the situation on our place here...I really don't have any words, am past talking about it. We've still got agistment cattle around the Maranoa and Warrego and the 200 heifers at Muttaburra who will get booted off any day now.
I've been keeping myself going though doing whatever, painting, teaching grandson on distance education, taking ponies to the local shows etc. There's always cleaning up to be done, I tow a little trailer around with my Suzuki Jymny picking up any wood, wire, rubbish that needs to be in the dump. I'm getting further and further from the homestead now, its easy to find with no grass! We've also had three lots of Sporting Shooters in culling roos. They've got about 3000 which is only the tip of the iceberg but have more lined up to keep after them. They're good blokes who check the pouches for joeys which takes a lot of extra time but it must be done. We're starting to stockpile hay reading to feed our northern cows when required.
That's about all our news except that we have a new grandson, that's four grotty boys and one pretty little girl!!! Anyway off to our northern place now to do a few days reading and writing....wish me luck....everyone prefers cattlework to school, particularly the pupil!

 

[wbvs58]

Sounds like you are keeping busy Jilleroo, must be hard though, I would find it hard to shake the feeling that my life was on hold, sort of like being in jail for a few years really, you can't get back on with your life until you serve the sentence. The long range forecast not good but maybe that is in your favour. We have a fair bit of clover appearing here and that has not happened for about 3 years and we have had pretty good autumns and winters but the rain has stopped at the end of July and the springs have been dry. I think the likes of clover has more intelligence than we give it credit for, I think it knows spring is going to be dry so doesn't bother germinating so if my theory is correct then we should have a good spring, anyway he clover will help over winter.
I had 8 bulls to get ready to sell this year but was fortunate to sell two of them locally, very happy with the money and not having to feed and catalogue them makes it extra good. I have 5 entered for a sale at Kingaroy in August which is the max load of heavy bulls my truck can legally carry and the last one is entered in the Agshow sale which is going ahead even though the Agshow is not. I am doing a lot of feeding at the moment as i had to send in photos with the nomination for the catalogue plus their weights and measurements so they are ready a bit too early but I will be able to take the foot off the pedal and coast them into the sale which will be better for the buyer.
not long now untill the heifers start calving, about the 18th June. Gee the time goes fast, that is the trouble when you enjoy what you are doing so much, much won't be long before I'm in the grave.
Ken

 

[Suzie Q]

Good Luck with the sales Ken.

I hope it pours for you Jillaroo.

The contract has gone unconditional on my childhood property so we are starting to believe it.

They wanted a 3 month settlement so we agreed to that.

It has dried out a bit so we have done 2 lots of hay. The horses don't like the new stuff but the cattle love it. We have plenty of shredded hay to keep the horses happy.

I bought a fault finder at Farmfest and fixed all the fences, so the herd can go across the creek again. There is quite a bit of feed for them there plus we have started giving them some roundbales.

We have quite a few calves at the moment and really need to bring them up to eartag and castrate.

It turned cold at the start of winter and we had 3 days of frost

 

[jilleroo]

Thanks for the good wishes Suzie. Glad the sale is going ahead for you, if its what you wish. Our Warrego and Maranoa agistments had some useful falls of rain and have a green tinge through the buffel at present. The next frost will take care of that but at least there's some moisture in the soil. We branded up the Charleville calves and everything was in good order so that's that job done. We should be shifting cattle from agistment up N of here to a new agistment place out of Roma in another few weeks and have bought a caravan for someone to live there with them. Not sure who that will be yet, but we'll probably take turns.
No livestock left on here except 9 cows we can't place anywhere and three ponies. All rely on hay to eat, no grass here. Oh and the cat. My little dog got a 1080 bait so that was another blow. The littlies did well on the ponies at the local show and got lots of ribbons to my surprise - the judge just liked us.
The Waltzing Matilda Centre burning down was a terrible shock for Winton. It started in an inaccessible area of the ceiling above the art gallery it seems. The annual art competition exhibits were hanging and were all lost of course.
The building can be replaced but the lost material from the museum will never be replaced.
Apart from all that, we are poking along. Hubby is building a new big weaner feeding yard in his spare time...I wonder how long before we've got something to put in it?
I've been doing whatever as usual, have had a couple of painting sales which is good. I'm not a prolific artist (read very lazy) but generally manage to get rid of what I produce. Really missing the cattle though...No heifers to watch!!