Life on the farm

View From Cave Entrance Chillagoe



We have dropped the owners at the airport so their holiday starts and we begin work which includes keeping the area around the homestead green, feeding the ducks and horses about 6.30 each morning then after breakfast letting the ducks out and removing the horses feed bags collecting eggs and moving all the water hoses around which we have going constantly, feed the dogs , I then go for a short bike ride and run while Marion catches up on her chores of feeding the gold fish and the friendly Magpies.

During the day I have been replacing the spring bushes on the van, polishing it and general maintenance ready for the next leg of our journey, I have also done a service on the car changing all the filters and replacing a rear wheel bearing which is not a simple operation on these modern vehicles. While checking the van I noticed the coupling bolts were almost rusted through which could have been disasterous but now replaced. Once a week we have to feed the horses with a large hay bale then help move the cattle into a different pasture and keep an eye on their water trough and molasses supply plus check the electric fences every now and then. We take the dogs down to the river for a swim (only dogs) weekly then go for a ride on the quad bikes around the fence line to check all is ok, we feed 2 of the horses again late afternoon, let the chooks out for a run check their feed and water and put them back to bed before dark feed the dogs then settle down for the night ready for the next day.



Chillagoe Smelter Remains

The temperature since we have been here has not been below 30deg with the last couple of wks around 32 which as is the case with most of Aus. at the moment is not normal, we take a trip into town(Mareeba) once or twice a week 90k round trip and we had a sightseeing trip to "Chillegoe" 200k round trip where we visited some caves and local historic sites had lunch at the local pub (always good food in the outback) then on the way back home we had to negotiate a bushfire which had got out of control. We went into town to the RSL for lunch for my birthday and when we arrived home the cattle had broken the electric fence and spread out to another paddock so after repairing the fence I had to test my droving skills with the quad bike, I was successful  after awhile because I was very careful not to upset them as the Brahmans can be a bit nasty, Marion has been busy making lots of chutney & pickles from all the organic food here and we have been having green & citrus juices then vegie burgers from the pulp leftovers, all in all we are becoming very good at being Mr & Mrs farmer brown and when we leave here we will be that healthy it will be hard to get back to the real world.

There is an abundant of wild life here with bush turkys, magpie geese, peacocks, kangaroo and wallabies, turtles, crocodiles, dingoes, and numerous other birds but there are no rainbow lorikeets which we will have to find out why. Photos  We have less than 2wks to go will be looking forward to a holiday.
Til Next Time.....