Ch ... ch ... ch ... ch ... changes

As of May 2020 Graham is not working off farm. This means, for the first time in his life, he can call himself a full time farmer.

It also means he has met Kristina's criteria for being allowed to (again) have cattle. "You buy them - I look after them." has been the objection up to now.

It is not a trivial undertaking to 'have cattle' responsibly. Carmyllie has been wholly devoted to plantation forestry for just over 20 years now. The infrastructure that previously supported livestock is long gone.

There are really 5 elements to the cattle farming future of Carmyllie:

Fencing

Four years ago we substantially completed the replacement of boundary fencing that had fallen into such disrepair as to be practically non-existant. We have a kilometre (of 5.6 km in total) to finish where there are old fences we will have to replace - in concert with neighbours. Then we will have to do the internal fencing that will allow us to cell graze what we (aspirationally) call The Meadow.

Water

Cows also need water. We have a 130,000 litre tank of rain water which we installed when we built the house - specifically to provide high quality reticulated water for livestock in future. We now have to put in the pipes and troughs.

Yards

Old farmers need good yards. Graham is a big bloke, but a cow still outweighs him by a factor of 3 to 5. Good yards and (particularly) a good crush makes looking after cattle properly much less stressful - for cow and farmer. Graham has, with the help of ArrowQuip, designed a very functional set of yards (he thinks). The plan that came with the quote is shown below.

Pastures

Twenty years ago The Meadow was a degraded, salt affected area through the middle of the property where it was not possible to grow trees. Now the salinity has receded and we have made a start to reestablishment of pasture. Graham has been mowing and slashing what he can, brushcutting some spiny rush and spreading a lot of horse manure. There is a lot more spiny rush (Juncus acutus) that will require heavier equipment to mulch it and allow pasture species to re-emerge.

Here Graham is slashing with his Apollo 110 HP tractor. There are a lot of thistles and young spiny rush plus other species of reedy grasses we don't recognise. It all becomes mulch that will compost in place. We think there are enough eadible grasses volunteering to graze cattle. As we go on we will broadcast other species to establish a better pasture mix.

A system

For now the thought is that we will run what is known as a cow calf system. That means we will have cows and breed our own young stock. This is what we did at Moora and we (Graham at least) enjoys the challenge.

So this is the plan. It is not a trivial undertaking ... and it is underway.