Extreme Farming
Host: Liveringa Station
Written by Lisa – Cropping Crew, Liveringa Station.
Because we wrote about most aspects of our working life here at Liveringa last year when we hosted the blog, we thought that we needed to come up with a new idea this year. We decided to focus on the ‘extremes’ of life up here.
As well as the cattle production side of things, Liveringa also has a busy farming/cropping program going on. Lisa, an agronomist and one of the cropping crew, wrote the following piece based on ‘extremes’ at Liveringa from her point of view . . .
– Karen
Farming is a rather variable enterprise and full of extremes. Being located in the Kimberley only seems to make it more so.
Extreme Weather Conditions
Being on the Fitzroy River flood catchment means that our paddocks are either in or out of water. The two photos below are of our lowest pivot, which generally goes underwater.
Then it dries out and it looks like this . . .
And then we grow a crop on it and it looks a bit like this . . .
Extreme Machines
Being so far from anywhere and having a very intensive hay making program, we own a lot of machines (it’s pretty hard to get contractors around here!) Our seeding rig isn’t the largest in terms of “down south farming” but it is forty foot wide and I am grateful that we don’t have to dodge trees!
The John Deere
The tractor that we use for pulling the seeder, plough, and other really big stuff is a John Deere 9530, and the tyres are about seven feet tall! As you can see below, when it went on a bit of a trip to rescue the grader one day, it can sometimes have issues fitting through standard station gate ways.
And in case you have ever wondered how you get a Hilux off the back of a truck . . .
Unbreakable!
There is also a bit of earth moving gear here for the digging of dams, road maintenance, and other jobs. The photos below are of our team digging out a dam late last year. The farm crew were digging and the stock crew were setting fire to things. This felt a bit extreme at the time!
While digging the dam, we still had cattle in the paddock, and they learnt pretty quickly that even though the pub was being renovated, it was still open.
Extreme popularity . . .
During the dry season, our pivots can be the only green with the exception of gardens and lawns for quite some distance. This means that we attract all sorts of wildlife. Cattle, pigs, snakes, cats, wallabies, dogs, and birds of every kind have been seen and chased from our crops. The Brolgas are a very common sight in our paddocks.
The photo below is of the hawks that come racing into our presence the moment the mower engine is started. When we mow and bale we flush out grasshoppers and mice, and these guys just fly in and circle all day, swooping and plucking things from the sky right in front of the windscreens.
My little point and shoot camera isn’t the greatest but this was taken while I was trying to rake . . .
You’d be popular too!
So there we have an insight into extreme farming at Liveringa. Sometimes it is a bit mundane, and other days I can’t help but think that I need a good video camera! I hope that you enjoyed reading it.
Tomorrow, a couple of our ringers write about their experiences of ‘extremes’ at Liveringa . . .