Big Year, Big Plans
Host: Farrcombe Contracting
Written by Raine Farrcombe – Owner, Farrcombe Contracting.
This is our 3rd year hosting a blog on Central Station. It’s been amazing to watch this website develop and grow and be a part of it. I do find this task challenging every year in an attempt to entertain readers and write something of equal quality to the other hosts.
2016 so far has been our biggest and busiest year yet in terms of running a business. Our crew has been very busy since starting our mustering season at the start of March. The wet season in the territory started off well with an extremely wet week during Christmas, the rest of the ‘wet’ was dismal and therefore it was unsure whether the rain was coming late or not at all. It did both, we got April rain but not enough to make up for the dismal ‘Wet Season’. This has meant that stations have wanted to muster early and quickly in order to pull the large weaners off in time to allow the cows not to deteriorate in condition too early in the year.
First Muster of the Year. Yarding up at MacFarlanes Yards, Newcastle Waters Station.
Our season kicked off at Newcastle Waters, situated on the Stuart Highway on the northern end of the Barkly Region. We had some crew members return from last year and a few new members to the team who came with vast amount of knowledge and experience. All in all we have a fantastic crew this year and it makes our job so much easier and enjoyable.
Since our blog last year we have covered some new milestones in our lives. Potter and I purchased and more recently sold our first ever lot of cows. We got engaged! Achieved some personal goals, extended our business, and purchased some new additions to our campdrafting string. I will touch on some of these in more detail throughout the week.
Potter and I at our Engagement Party.
Last year I left you as we were about to head to our friend’s wedding at Lake Argyle in Kununurra WA. Well, what a weekend, after returning home from our weekend away, my best friend must have caught the bug as he got down on one knee. At sunset, in our paddock of what has been my home for 26 years, surrounded by our favorite horses, I said yes to his spontaneous proposal. Potter had tried to propose about three times throughout the day at scenic places on our drive home from Kununurra, each time I had shut him down with negative statements about the surroundings, the view, or being short on time. However, the final touchdown could not of been more perfect as it meant the world to me by being at home for this special occasion. This meant big plans for the next 11 months as we planned to get hitched on the 8th of July 2016!
Shifting our dogs to higher ground during flooding over Christmas.