settlement day

apparently it all settled ok but the cheque will not arrive til the end of next week.

we bought the farming property 12 years ago for 140,000 with stars in our eyes, great pride, lots of misgivings, and a 2nd mortgage, and no money to stock it.

the first two years crops failed miserably. then we stocked it with sheep and the man learnt what to plant where (trial and error) and things slowly improved. we decided not to build and live on it because of the isolation, strong winds and blowing sand factors. the man slept many nights there in a van in a shed, the kids and I not so many. now fenced into 11 paddocks from the original three, with cement watering troughs in each, gravity fed from a huge tank on highest peak, supplied from mains water pumped in new pipes up 8 kms. running 600 merino ewes with white suffolk cross lambs every year, wheat, barley and cereal rye in a two year rotation..

as well as all the paddock fencing to reduce erosion and allow stock, crop rotation, we replaced the boundary fence where the property backs onto a wilderness reserve with emu and roo proof fence. (nothing stops them though) once the man counted 45 emus in one paddock of wheat crop having a big feast. we’v had several fires in the reserve that threatened our land, but there was one that would have burnt the lot, ready to harvest crop, stock, etc if it wasn’t for 4 aerial water bombers, nine fire trucks and many neighbours fire units on farm utes.. and our huge water tank. it was absolutely terrifying to be so close to such a huge fire. we had to replace our new boundary fence but we didn’t lose anything else. the man nearly lost his sanity (completely) and my hair is whiter after two days of fighting it. kids got a bit traumatised and one got some smoke inhalation.

the end of travelling back and forth, with machinery etc, 55 kms from home farm, the endless stock checks and late, tired driving home in the dark hitting kangaroos…

end of an era for us really… beginning of a new one??

sold 625,000

we now have too many about-to-lamb sheep on acerage suddenly halved, that we were expecting to crop. having to do some quick changes to plans as we have not secured another property to replace it with.

but that is all ok. actually it is very ok. it will be very nice to be $600.000 less in debt!