A big hello to all those members who, in their profiles, mentioned farming as part of their past or present occupations.
Many of you would have had acreage or a hobby farm large or small, to a man of the land it does not matter the size of land you had but what you were running on it,
Whether live stock or crops. It would surely be of interest or a good talking point to begin with.
I myself coming from English country stock, migrated to Australia in 1969, and lived in Sydney for twenty years getting my feet established and yes as they say “the lucky country” and yes it was good to me, several trips back to old blighty and buying a house and doing it up.
We got fed up with the big smoke, sold up to move to the country, we tried Bathurst/Orange because I did a lot of 4-wheel driving.
So the next choice was Tasmania, found a property near Port Arthur on the Tasman peninsula. 130 acres two thirds usable rest scrub and trees, good established paddocks and plenty of dams, some spring fed and a spring on the hill that ran 24/7 all year round and fed the house.
Now the house on the property was built in the late eighteen hundreds by a settler or even a free man from Port Arthur goal and had earned his freedom, we never found out? It was very basic built from split timbers and interior walls of shakes covered in hessian sacks and then papered with newspaper, very basic
It did not take me long to get my hands dirty. First off the electrics had to be upgraded, rats and possums in the roof had chewed through a lot of the wiring and had to be replaced, wall plugs were one to a room, I definitely had my hands full, then the stove in the kitchen
was what is called a “wet back” it had to be kept alight 24/7 as it served the purpose of heating the water and cooking as well, and as we found with use, it cooked roasts and cakes better than an electric or gas stove!!
After the home was established it was time to look to the land, a look around some of the paddocks the fences of five barb had being strung on swamp gum posts and over the years they had rotted at ground level, so I found a lot of fencing flat and useless. “Oh boy” Was I about to become a bush cocky.
A drive down to Hobart 90 km to “Roberts Rural supplies” where I acquired Gallagher fencing unit and bundles of picket posts, rolls of wire, fencing tools, and fittings, the next acquirement was a chain saw an 18 inch Stihl for log cutting, in the beginning this became useful for small logs and small timber for keeping the kitchen fire alight. But as I found out, a longer bar was needed to drop trees and cut them into wheels and then split so I acquired a 36 in bar, a few felling mistakes made in the beginning but never made twice..
Once we established ourselves, the next question was what to run on the land, no good for cropping to hilly and rocky, so cattle was the choice, after fixing the fences, I soon found out why farming was such a labour-intensive job. Luckily I had met other farmers in the district and one was reducing his stock so bought twelve Friesian yearlings from him.
I was also given a jersey cow of indifferent age still a good milker, very handy as my son of 18 months still on a bottle loved his milk no matter where it came from, so dad that was me up at 5-30-6-00 out in all weathers bucket and stool milking the old girl, fun and games of becoming a farmer.
I kept three paddocks closed off to let the grass grow to hay, a fellow, long time farmer had a slasher, rake and baler and when he had finished his hay baling came over and did mine, 300 bales, later carting to the barn and stacking was backbreaking, had to be done, winter feed for the cattle.
Over the years I became proficient in fencing acquired more cattle mostly steers a herd of between 30/50 and when fat enough sold them at the Bridgewater sales yard, not much profit in farming but the pleasure and enjoyment I got from living off the land far outweighed the hard work of eighteen years sweat and tears,
David Peplow
