Calendar girl

Well here we are half way through August, which is very special as I have just fulfilled my life long dream of becoming a calendar girl...cringe.... bring on September so I don't have to keep staring at myself.  Ben looks bloody massive and I have made fashion faux pas of the century wearing baseball cap and beads. We had no idea this picture would end up in  the calender of YP AG the company we buy our chemical through, what a laugh.

Over the last week we have had 24mm of rain which we are very excited about, the crops were starting to really need it.

We are putting out fungicides at the moment on Barley and just about to start the wheat. The Barley is showing signs of spot form net blotch and has been getting sprayed with Amistar Xtra and also we have found stripe rust in the Gladius wheat so that is being sprayed with Opus (Epoxiconazole).

Ben and Steve discussing one of our wheat paddocks, this was the first wheat  sown

and looks magnificent at this stage. Our other paddocks of wheat were actually sown 11 days later. In hindsight we probably could of sown a few more paddocks before we stopped sowing and waited for rain.  

The Peas and Canola are growing well. The canola will be in full flower in a couple of weeks, unfortunately the hill that has struggled for cover because of the summer fire has come to nothing, but at least seems reasonably stable from drift at the moment.

We have been having a massive bin yard tidy up, and last week the scrap man came and removed 7 old chassis bins. Unfortunately his excavator fell apart during the bin bashing and crushing process so he will be back in a few weeks to finish the job. He also pulled out our old sheep yards, ramp and spray dip that's Ben's dad John built over 40 years ago. We now have lots of empty space that we are not quite sure what to do with. Hopefully we get a big cheque at the end of it.

Any Bin marked with an X has had its day on this farm

 The kids posing for one last photograph before the old ramp was taken away

I just thought I would finish with this photo. One of our favourite things to do, Ben and the kids watching the sun going down over the paddocks

Everything is green and growing well, and we have had 11mm of rain in the last two weeks. This is topping up the moisture in the soil just nicely. Ben has been putting out Liquid nitrogen(UAN) on the Barley and a second lot on the canola as it is starting to bolt ( starting to shoot up and flower). When we were out with Steve last week we noticed that the Twilight peas were starting to get Powdery mildew, which is a fungal disease. We can control this with agriphos which we can add to the grass weed mixture when we spray out the grasses in the peas.


Commander Barley growing in between last years stubble rows

Ben was spraying broad leaf out of the wheat and barley at Tamar when he took this picture of the Dow Agriscience guys spraying the weeds in the trial plots. He had to wait for them to leave before he could finish the paddock. It was good to see we were obviously spraying the weeds at the correct time.

We signed up more wheat at $304 and Barley at $257 last week. We are pretty much at our limit for forward sales for this coming harvest for wheat. So now we can sit back and watch what the market does. The pea price is starting to look attractive, but we can never forward contract too much, as it can potentially get hailed upon, as has happened the last 2 out of 3 years.

This year we are not happy with the way the soil compacted behind the seeder. We have a tow behind box that usually causes no problems, but this year in many of the paddocks we have area's like the picture above where the compaction is stopping the plant pushing  through. Now to work out whether or not we were sowing to deep or maybe its just time to bite the bullet and either buy a new seeder or have ours converted to a tow between box. Quite a few people we know who have this configuration actually put a video camera on the box so they can see if any of the hoses have blown off. This was out initial reason for getting the tow behind box so we could actually see the bung ups and hoses, again decisions...

The Kids and I have been having lots of fun the last few weeks on the farm. We have been planting tree's round the farm and eremophilas around our extended garden. I wish sometimes that we had it fenced so there actually was a cut off point between the garden and scrub. We actually have about 15 acres of yard and Garden so its a big area to keep the weeds under control in. We have an old cottage on the farm about 300m from the homestead which Ben's Mum and Dad and three siblings lived in for about 9 years when they were first married and starting their family. It was built in the fifties, so has lovely asbestos cladding. It has not been lived in now for over 6 years. We were quoted about $15,000 to remove it because of the asbestos, so we are contemplating whether to spend that money renovating it, or just demolishing it hmmmm... decisions

What was funny though was today I was putting out a knockdown around the cottage and came across this agave with the most amazing flower. I reckon this has only grown in the last two weeks. Here are a few images of what we have been up to for the last few weeks.

The best pets ever!!!Lilly Dallas and Ginger the chickens, they are also very useful, unlike some other animals that we have . When Ben was making Hugo's birthday cake, we had to keep sending the kids down to check for eggs as we were one short. luckily they came up with the goods in the nick of time.

We had a new friend over for dinner last Friday, Clancy the 8 month old red kangaroo.

He has been adopted by friends of ours Wade and Nicole Harris.

Our newest ebay purchase, this is going to go above the work bench in the new workshop when it is built. It was pulled out of a house in Hyde Park. Someones trash is someones treasure!!

My little man Hugo turned 3 last Sunday so we organised a pirate party down at his favourite spot, Tippera rocks sand dunes with a few of his buddies. We are so lucky to have such amazing beaches close to home, and again we managed to fluke a beautiful day. Of course being winter, no flies.

Anyway we are off to the local Apex fundraiser Ball this weekend down at Barley stacks winery  near Maitland, so time time to dust off the heels and Ben to get his kilt out woo hoo.

busy times

Well its the time of year when we are flat out, unlike many people we know at the moment our ground is not so wet that we can't spray. We have been applying fertiliser to the Canola at 70 litres per Ha. Also the wheat that was on last years canola ground got fertilised  as it was the most nitrogen deficient, that also received 70 litres per Ha.   Steve our agronomist came out last Monday and gave us plenty of jobs. At this time of year he comes out at least fortnightly, or if we have any issues arising with crop health or nutrition he will come out and recommend what to spray. We are putting a mix of Intervix, Select and Lontrel on the clearfield canola, this should kill everything and leave only the canola standing. After this the wheat paddocks that need it are getting crusader which works well on a wide range of broad leaf weeds and suppresses grass weeds. We are then spraying my favourite chemical on the barley... Affinity. Although it works well on the broad leaf weeds it makes the crop basically look terrible for a while. I tend not to look at them for at least three weeks afterwards.
             The first time we used this chemical, Ben actually  applied it when I was overseas visiting my mum in Scotland, when I came back I thought I would go for a leisurely drive and check the crop progress. I remember driving up to our back paddock at Fergies which is 108 Ha and seeing this yellow looking crop in the distance and having a huge panic to myself! Two seconds later I was on the phone to Ben who was  away on a motorbike ride, I'm shouting the crops dying aghhhhh! He calmed me down quickly and told me it was perfectly normal reaction to the chemical and that it would grow out of it.

Ben coming back in the yard from one of his many spraying trips

Hugo behind the wheel

We took the kids for a crop check yesterday and let Hugo drive, remembering he is only two. He loved it but consequently now we have twice as much crop run over with his erratic steering.

Dow Agrosciences trial patch

We were asked last week  if we would allow Dow agrosciences to do some chemical trials on our new block, as they were looking for paddocks laden in weeds, and we had one that fitted the bill. They chose T3 which I had already renamed Bifora city! They have started pegging out the area which is a boomspray width 32m by about 40m. Ben basically just switches of the boom when he is going over this area. Any research done on weed eradication is good news for all us farmers.
Since my last blog we have had 30mm rain. We have missed out on some of the big downpours around but we are still happy with the amount we have had. Overall everything is looking good.

I am starting to get very excited about grain prices. We have a signed up physical multigrade wheat at $300, mutigrade feed Barley at $255 and canola at $598. They have gone up a few dollars since this but we were very happy with these prices, and were keen to sign up into the present rally that is going on. Although heatwaves remain throughout the world I'm not sure how long these prices will last, better safe than sorry as they are historically good prices, and if it goes up at harvest, even better.

The plan is to turn this pigs ear into a silk purse!

We have also been busy cleaning out sheds on the farm. We are pulling down this oldie and actually using the roof trusses to build a magnificent entertaining pavilion up at the house, if we don't hurry up it will probably fall down itself. White-ants have damaged the uprights over the years.

Another shed clear out, using the invaluable yellow tipper

I have been spraying all the yard weeds, I am finding a lot of it easier with the backpack spray as we have so many trees to get around, I think I have put out about 8 lots over the last week, which is a killer on my back. Ill get more work done this week as Kindy starts again from the holiday break and I have Hugo in childcare 2 days a week. We are also doing work on a rental house we have in Kadina, as we are in between tenants at the moment, so any spare time we have we are fixing cracks and painting. A few more weeks of chaos and then hopefully everything will settle down again. Im off mid August  for a road trip with 10 friends to the Rural women's gathering down at Penola in the South East of the state, so look forward to that. Ita Buttrose is one of the guest speakers so I may learn a thing or two from her. I went two years ago to the one at Melrose and it was fantastic, full of very inspirational women.

well we wanted rain!!!!

You cant see the weeds if you go fast enough!!!
 Ben checking for blocked boots/ heads/ missed strips etc

Well since my last blog when we finished seeding we have been fairly quiet on the farm. All the crops are up now and looking good. Last week we sprayed the Canola with Select and verdict ( grass weed sprays) and combined this with Dimeothate ( insecticide ) as it was being munched by lucerne flea. We managed to get away for 5 days and had some R&R  in Adelaide. While we were away the heavens opened, and we ended up having 54mm rain over three days, once again following terrible northerly winds. I was glad we were not at home that day but the sky in adelaide was brown with all the dust in the air.



The burnt patch( about 5 acres) hammered again by the winds, we will not resow as it is coming through slowly.

We are yet to clean the seeder as we had to resow yet another section of Canola, this time it was only a boomspray width that was about 200m long. We learn by our mistakes here all the time. It was due to the grass weed chemicals settling in the tank and lines for a few days in between paddocks. The concentration must have been so strong that when Ben started the next paddock it basically burnt off the first 200m until it diluted again. Of course its right beside the roadway, in a gateway that is prone to drifting so fingers crossed no more Northerlys for a while.



Chemical damage on Canola

Bifora city in wheat !!!!

One new thing we are trying this year is putting Boxer Gold on Post emergent for control of ryegrass in Wheat and Barley, at our new block called Tamar. The timing has to be accurate in the fact the rygrass has to be no more than 1 to 2 leaf and it has to be followed by rain in order for the chemical to be washed into the soil  for root uptake. If this works it will take the pressure of using the group B chemicals as it is a different mode of action. Last year we planted lentils over there and we struggled with all the Bifora that came up as we could not control it. So consequently this year the Wheat paddock is full of the stuff. Luckily we should have 5 years to control it if we use Canola as our next break crop.

Steve round the kichen table doing a planning session

We have had Steve our agronomist out looking at our fertiliser requirements for the year based on our deep soil test nitrogen results and target yields. The target yields will be adjusted throughout the year depending on rain fall, but so far looks promising.

We Sold our first wheat swaps yesterday, time will tell if it was a good move or not. The physical price is trending upwards at the moment because of production issues in the US and Russia. This is exciting news for us, and hopefully these prices continue improving through to harvest.

Also some news is we are planning on making  changes to our farm yard, we are looking into building a new american barn workshop in a better position in the yard. We will eventually knock the old one down. It has done the farm proud, it was built in the 1920s originally as stables for Ben grandfathers racehorses and Clydesdales. It was made at the time from reclaimed material from the Moonta coppermine buildings when they were demolished. We will try again and salvage as much as we can for our next project. We have a lovely little orchard smack bang in the middle of the yard with the best orange and apple trees growing in it, that is going nowhere so we will just have to drive around it. Anyway  we are busy for the end of the week spreading more snailbait and eventually putting the seeder away for another year.

Seeding over for another year....

Well we finished seeding this afternoon.  One of the most hassle free seedings we have had to date ( touch wood). All up it took 20 days with 11 days in between, while we were waiting for rain. This works out to 44 Ha per day, which isn't great!!, but all the changeovers from one crop to another takes us about half a day. We had to go back and re-sow about an acre of canola that didn't survive the howling winds we had a few weeks ago, just before the rain. The area was on top of one of our hills that was burnt by a lightning strike back in January so there was no stubble cover over the hill.  We cant leave the hill bare for the year, or it will drift all year. Hopefully it comes up.

An unusual sight, puddles in the yard

We  had another 4 mm rain two days ago, we really just missed out as friends both 20 minutes North and 20 minutes South of us had close to 18mm, around here its definitely hit or miss depending on what cloud you are under.

Blue sky here, pouring down a few miles away

Our last paddock today was  45Ha of Twilight Peas. We had a little seed paddock in of this variety last year and they yielded very well at 3Tonne/Ha. They looked great all year and had very little disease. I also got a bit excited when I saw that the forward Pea price for 12/13 was $380, but when I phoned the grain marketers to do a contract I was told that it was a mistake in price, and I was about the 6th person that had tried to do a contract in the last 10 Min's. From memory the price on offer was $330 but that's not tempting enough yet!



I love Bens expression when I keep saying look busy!!!

and I'm seriously loving the colour of the Pea pickle.

 All the Barley went in well.  We are sowing Commander which is a Malting, but also have purchased some feed Fleet seed which is meant to be excellent in Sandy soils. We are doing a side by side comparison in the same paddock between the two varieties. We usually for one reason or another fail to get malting so if the fleet out yields the commander then we may opt again for a feed variety.

We had a few issues last year at the silos as our nearest Silo Wallaroo was not accepting Malting Barley. We were therefore having to cart Commander all the way to Ardrossan which for us is an extra 20ks each way. We also lose money on the freight differential  between Wallaroo and Ardrossan as Ardrossan is not a deep sea port and the grain has to be trucked down to Port Giles. When the difference between F1 price and Malt 1 is only $10/$20 per tonne, we are far better off growing Feed, delivering it to Wallaroo and getting a few extra loads away everyday.

Trying to get the last of the fertiliser out the truck, I should of left him there, meanwhile he is shouting at me to concentrate on filling up rather than taking photos!!!

We have made another ebay purchase for the farm this week, Ben is a bit of an addict but so far we have purchased some really good gear. We have bought a wireless  reversing camera for the truck, as it really is painful reversing up to Augers all the time, especially at night, its OK if there is another person there to back you up but on our farm that rarely happens. So far from Ebay we have bought Pumps, compressors, solar systems, indicators etc etc. I also practised my Semi driving in the paddock, I'm not aspiring to be a truck driver but its handy if I can fill the seeder myself. I still cant get out of 2nd gear in the old T-line, but have hit 3rd in the freightliner. I definitely will not be signing up for my truck licence in the near future. ( your job is oh so safe Lyndon)


Well it was Bens 44th Birthday on Saturday, so we had chocolate orange birthday cake and Ice cream for breakfast, as we could not guarantee for the kids that he would be home for dinner. It was the most relaxing breakfast ever, no shouting at the kids to finish their weet-bix.  He lucked out a bit on the old presents, the kids got him some magazines to read on the tractor. One of them I love is RM Williams Outback magazine, the stories and images are fantastic. One of these days we will finish seeding in time, so we can have the day off.

I love the way when my mum brings the kids out for a ride she dresses them for the Antarctic



We sowed our new block also this week, which we call Tamar, it is about 380 acres. We bought it last year, so this is our second year of working it. The soil is so different to the deep  sand over clay we have here, even though it is only 3 kilometre's away. It is heavy loam and a lot darker than we are used to. We were a bit worried about getting bogged, but all was good. Its good to have a different view for a change when we are over there.

Well I'm glad its finished now, Ill look forward to spending more time with the kids, maybe getting the horses out for a ride and I suppose the big clean up of all the machinery, oh and maybe a few vino's.

and the rains came....

Well we wanted rain and we certainly got it, we started seeding again on Monday the 21st May, in anticipation of the rain coming mid week. Since Thursday we have had 42mm which is great. We are now exactly half way through seeding. We have all the JNZ wheat in and two more Gladius wheat paddocks to sow and then we will move onto barley.

Rain coming rolling in, we were trying to get the seeder filled as quickly as possible before the rain came

We are stopped again at the moment as it is too wet now, we would get the trucks bogged in the paddocks if we were to try and move them. Only a few minor electrical faults on the seeder to contend with so far, which isn't bad.

It is so good to be sowing without dust everywhere, I love when the soil is turned over and looks dark for a change, making new patterns in the landscape, the colours always look great when there is a dark sky but the sun shines through.

Looking her best for sitting on the tractor

Ive had my little helper Indy out with me this week when she is not at Kindy, she can tolerate a couple of hours at a time, we like to sing and have the radio up full blast. Seeding and Harvest are actually about the only time of the year when I actually catch up with all the current affairs and news as we are listening to the radio all day.

JNZ wheat up and away, although it is an older variety it is a consistent performer for us, so definitely not ready to throw it away yet

Also this week we wiped our hands clean of last years crop and sold the last lot of Nipper lentils this week for $500 per tonne. Time will tell I suppose if it was the right thing to do, although the price did drop $15 after we sold them, so obviously we swamped the market !!!

I also I thought that there was a good opportunity at the end of last week for doing Canola and wheat swaps for this coming harvest. We have already signed up some Canola for this year at a good price but we are nervous about signing up anymore physical until it is well and truly up and out the ground. We decided on Canola as it had reached $567 for January 13 swaps, only to find out that we did not actually have a facility in place for Canola swaps only wheat, Doh!!!!!, hopefully it was a blessing in disguise.
We were told it may take up to two weeks to get the facility in place, oh well we live and learn!

Hopefully get started again tomorrow morning, when it dries out a little.

Still waiting for rain.....

Well its now been 7 days since we last had the seeder in the paddock, though we are not sitting around idly, we have been burning chaff cart heaps. The chaff cart which we pull behind our header ( harvester) was made by a local engineering company, and  has been an amazing tool for us on our farm. Anything that saves  having to rely so heavily on chemicals for weed removal is great. They can collect up to 80% of ryegrass seeds. The only problem is in the removal of the heaps, I dread it every year. They can burn from anything from 1-4 days, and the smoke creates a social impact on all surrounding rural communities. (I'll appologise now to all our neighbours) Also a fire risk to neighbouring paddocks. By Law they must be pushed over so they are no higher than 40cm. This year we have had sheep on agistement in some of the paddocks, they managed to flatten the heaps for us. I was initially worried about the sheep spreading the ryegrass seed around the paddock, but after doing research the amount that is still viable as a seed when it passes through them, is very little.

Burning chaff heaps

This is probably as good a time as possible to mention that Ben and I have a difference of opinion on nearly everything that happens on the farm. From marketing grain to what crops to plant. We are very competative and even compete to see who can burn chaff cart piles the quickest, who can sow a paddock the neatest,or can capture the best grain prices and so on and on!!! We have been having discusions for the last few days on wether to start sowing again or not, but came to the mutual decision not to.
 The  thing is Ben and I chose to live and work togther, so I can only imagine what it is like for siblings that are on the farm together who do not entirely see eye to eye, which is a  problem in so  many farming families.

Our delivery of UAN ( liquid nitrogen) also arrived this week, which was great, as we were told that there was a national shortage. We now have about 37,000 litres  on farm, which is about a quarter of what we will use this year.

Soil testing was also carried out by our Agronomist Steve Watts last week, we try to test as close to seeding as possible so the results are as relevent  as can be for the growing crops, as we base our nitrogen requirements on each individual paddocks results.

This is a deep 60cm soil sample showing soil profile in one particlar paddock

We had Steve  out yesterday checking out some weeds and also mouse action, so unfortunatly we are baiting some paddocks before seeding now as they are heavily infested, the first paddock we sowed is coming up now and that is getting its second baiting, just around the borders.

Well its forcast for rain wed/ thur next week so lets see what happens, we will start seeding a couple of days before hand if its looks certain. Then I suppose we will be pulling some very long hours to try and make up some lost time.

 Canola 7 days after it was sown

 wheat just 4 days after it was sown