Noreena’s two legged weapons!
Host: Noreena Downs Station
Written by Kate Paull – Owner, Noreena Downs Station.
So today is the day where I get to tell you about Noreena’s weapons of the two legged variety – the management and the staff. Due to Noreena being a family run business not everyone can be chief, so it goes something like this:
- Tub – manager/big boss
- Joe – infrastructure manager
- Niffy – helicopter pilot that works for Williambury helicopters and does the flying (chopper mustering) for Noreena
- Chooky and husband Leroy – Look after our three farms down south
- Nathan (my husband) – camp clown and a bloody handy bloke to have around commonly known as jack of all trades. We also run an earth moving business on the side.
- Myself/ Kate – midget on a mission
This year we have a camp cook (Amelia) and six station hands (James, Lachy (showbag), Lee, Hayden, Stuart and Benny Boots).
We also have a contract musterer that comes in for just about every muster. Walter is valuable at tracking and just loves mustering cattle, he used to muster for my Dad and Mum in the days when I was just a kid, now he hangs out with me and my siblings when we muster.
Our crew get up early every morning to go to work with little amount of days off and long work days – what troopers! Our cook does us up all the lovely food, cleaning, washing clothes etc and cleans the domestic part of living quarters.
At the moment Amelia is at stock camp with us for six to seven weeks where we cook on an open fire, she lights all the fires, still does our tucker, and keeps the camp clean.
Our station hands come to work with me every day. Every day is different, the station hands jobs include mustering, yard work, fencing, bike maintenance, vehicle servicing and maintenance, yard and homestead maintenance, welding, making things, bore runs, wood runs and I could go another 30 minutes with jobs they get up too but will stop there.
Noreena’s staff are not just workers to us they are people who have come to Noreena to learn or experience something different, most of them with absolutely no idea, concept or experience whatsoever. But that’s all cool, it’s a perfect opportunity to learn.
I don’t just manage and work people, I LOVE to teach people to the best of my ability. I don’t classify myself as experienced, but from the things I have learnt from making mistakes or being taught by someone else, they are just too cool not to share with other people. Plus, I like helping people in order to help them broaden their experiences and make their job a lot easier.
I like people to go away from Noreena at the end of mustering or their employment and hopefully take a good slice of that away with a positive experience towards agriculture, and then they may return to the industry or they may pass their agricultural experience or encouragement for agriculture onto their children or family and friends or even someone in a pub. From that agricultural businesses may have another person enter the work force which let’s face it everyone has dwindled.
I encourage anyone who would like to give it a shot in any part of the agricultural industry or just get a taste of it to have a better understanding of where and how your food comes from. If you embrace it with enthusiasm the majority of people will welcome you with open arms and enjoy helping you to develop and broaden throughout the agriculture industry, so come on anyone who would like to have a go at AGRICULTURE! WHY NOT GIVE IT A CRACK? YOU DON’T KNOW TILL YOU TRY!
The blokes are all growing beards and they always play with them.
What a spunk that bloke is.
So today me and the chaps split up so we could do heaps of stuff and cover a lot of jobs. Nathan and Joe attached the new head bale at Peadonah and fixed the grader tyre, Lachy went home to do homestead stuff, Amelia went home to bake food to feed us. James did water carting and attaching the dribble bar to the homemade water cart. Lee, Hayden and I attempted watering the yards down (bulldust minimizing), fed out hay to the cattle, camp maintenance, cleaned cattle yard troughs, rolled hay bales off the truck (3.5 decks) and stacked it.
We also drafted live export Mickey bulls and Muchea sale cattle at Peadonah cattle yards with Kim Goad (stock agent) from Goad Livestock who are an agency for Landmark. Kim and his son Leon set Goad Livestock agency up this year.
Kim became a stock agent very young (17?) and has serviced Noreena on and off over the years. He can remember coming to Noreena back in the 80’s and Dad drafted in our really old wooden yards where he got a bit of a nailing/bashing from the big bullocks (big steers). Well that was when I was a kid, crikey I reckon, this bloke has seen many a thing and change within the industry. He is very passionate and astute about his job and cattle breeding/selling and is a credit to the industry especially pastoral, there are not many stock agents around with his experience and knowledge.
Kim is a pleasure for my family to deal with as he always looks after his clients and he’s straight down the line, NO BULLSHIT (you know where you stand and what’s going on) and he always does his best for you.
Well that’s enough from me, tommoz blog is stock camp and portable yards and trucking tasty stuff.