The next generation-families, farming and all that fun!

A good friend once told me that parenting gets “physically easier and emotionally harder” as the years go by. I reckon that is spot on.

My middle wombat George who is 11, was asked recently what he thought he would do when he grew up. His response surprised me-he said he would finish high school, take a gap year, then go to agricultural college to get a degree and become a farmer. This of course begs the most important question: what am I going to do when I grow up? 

My eldest wombat Hamish has left school this week at the ripe old age of 16 and I am bitter and bent out of shape about it. But I am going to breathe deeply, and let the anger and frustration  melt away because he is happy. 

It’s his journey, not mine, and in fairness COVID was very unkind to this whole generation of students. While it feels like he has chosen the harder road at the moment, his story is just beginning, he is amazing and the chances are very high that he will excel at whatever path he takes. 

It will not be farming and I support that.  A good friend once told me parenting gets “physically easier and emotionally harder” as the years progress and I reckon that it’s spot on. 

If I sound flat as an old board, irrigation season is what wears me out (luckily my elite physical condition helps me carry the workload). I started the first pump on August 1st and there has not been a break -except when I fell off the motorbike and put the handlebars in my ribs-but it has nearly finished, with only one more week to go.

The silage season has been good, with better than expected yields and is also nearly finished, only one more cut, so two weeks to go there. The spring calving season has also almost finished, there are only about five straggler cows holding up the show, so basically in three weeks I will be as free as a bird until next Autumn. 

Although on consideration, we are starting preparations for barley harvest in about two weeks and we start joining cows in about three and just after (let’s say four weeks) we start supplying 40 Coles stores with chocolate milk. In preparation, we have to commission a bottling machine and date coder before then so when I say free as a bird, I’m not thinking Willie Wagtail free, more like an old Isa Brown Chook with a fox complex. 

Which brings us back to there initial problem: what am I going to do when I grow up>

I have no intentions of finding out. 

Paul.