Saddly 'FORDIE' developed serious medical problems and passed away from post op. complications 11th Dec. 07.
As we were in the area it was a good opportunity to catch up with Derek and experience farm life. (help with the harvest)
There's town's like this all over the place, and mile's and miles of paddocks all waiting for the crops to ripen before harvesting.
Derek's farm - CALABAR, what a name! It was the name of a drilling rig off the coast of Africa, and Derek used to dream of being back on the beach and out farming.
Now this is about as far removed as you can get from offshore drilling rig's off the coast of Africa!
I helped harvest this paddock, about 360 acre's, a total of about 500 acre's harvested over two weeks. Derek still had several thousand acre's of wheat and barley to harvest.
Some of the equipment on the roads in these parts.
'Fordies' 5th wheeler, which Derek brought for future travels.
Derek and Kerry's grand kids enjoying the sprinkler!
Great dog!
THE HARVESTING BEGIN'S!
Looking the part!
Ended up catching 4 foxes!
As Sunny had done all the hard work, we had to preserve the 'Under Ground Mutton' for ROASTING, wrapped in bacon! Complements to the Chef Marion in Perth.
The header had to be air cleaned of dust every day as it becomes a potential fire hazard.
'Nuff' said!
We had our drama's with broken blade and jammed 'rat tails', broken belts, leaking hydraulic line's, all part of farming.
The most important control - the 'AIR CONDITIONER' , coming in 2nd was the 'RADIO' tuned to the ABC, it's all you can tune into out here.
Derek's mate down the 'ROAD' handles the harvest carting. Now down the road in Australia can mean a lot of things, in this case 'COOL' is only 60k's 'DOWN THE ROAD' one way!
Happy hour turned into dinner, thanks to Kerry, and a bottle or two of wine, our last evening on the farm and Derek's last day as a 6o plus year old. Kerry a part time farmer and was there for the occassion.
Pride of place - 'CALABAR', an enjoyable experience and two weeks, not much fun for Sue with the flies, but enjoyed the stay also.
Off off down the 'ROAD' to Perth - 266k's.
