Stubbo Farm

It's official. Luke and I have put our Aussie East Coast travels on hold and are currently pursuing careers in modern day sheep farming. We are new-age shepherds!

A few months into our trip Luke and I were so impressed with Australia that we decided to do the three months agricultural work required to apply for the second year working-holiday visa. We have a lot more Aus to cover and one year just 'ain't enough!

Stubbo Farm - Tim and & Jess' place

When in need, hug a sheep!

With our decision made we contacted Tim the friendly Aussie farmer. Tim is Rob's cousin, who's a friend of Luke's. Luke met Rob in the UK before we left who passed on Tim's details, recommending our contacting him if and when passing through and/or requiring somewhere to do our agricultural work. It just so happened that when we contacted him he needed a helping hand. Everything happens for a reason, as they say. So, here we are working on the farm for Tim and his father Bruce.

Bruce the Sheep Farmer come archer!

Our daily duties mostly include herding sheep from paddock to paddock using quad and motocross bikes (It's a hard life, but someone has to do it). There's over 1,700 acres on the farm we're staying at, hence the motorized steeds. Plenty of room for the 4,000 sheep to roam around on! Each day a tetris equivalent manoeuvre is required to move the sorted groups of sheep to other paddocks where the grass is better/longer and give the last one a chance to recover from the intense sheep gnawing. They eat A LOT of grass.
As we discovered in the first few weeks, it's important not to mix up the different herds of sheep, there's young ewes that aren't ready to meet the charming rams, wethers (castrated males) and various different breeds that can't be mixed up. Not to mention the confusion we caused the rams when a wether got put in their paddock, or the poor wether who has been put in with the persistent rams...
Fortunately we work under Bruce's expert guidance who is very patient with us inexperienced pommies and our silly mistakes. Oops!

Luke driving a tractor!

We also help out with some of the many other farm duties. We've done a lot of dump runs, mainly taking scrap fencing and chicken wire. Luke has had a dab at ploughing and has become rather nifty with the various tractors on the farm and I have been having a stab at baking. I made my very first sourdough loaf last night after nurturing my starter for the last two weeks. It was worth it, I used a lovely recipe from Artistta, which turned out great. We've been commissioned to paint a room that has been long neglected due to the many other farm duties on Tim's very long 'To Do' list, we just need to get around to doing it, among the other farm chores...
We've been helping out with sheep classing (classing sheep!?) and crotching (sheep equivalent of a haircut and Brazilian from the shearers). Luke had a dab at shearing and even got to clip a ram. We do actually have a rather funny video of the freshly sheared rams making their way back to their paddock with their rather large testicles penduluming to and fro. Fortunately their well practiced 'ministry of silly walks' technique was put to good use to overcome that obs-tackle. Thankfully no speed bumps on the farm. I could go on?

Digging holes for fence posts?

Gulgong is the local town to the farm. It's small but has all the essentials. Mudgee is the nearest large town. Both are beautiful and have very a very colonial feel. We initially arrived in Mudgee and stayed the night in Autumn, just outside the centre. We woke to our usual coffee hunt and  decided to do a little exermacise. The local park, Lawsons, has a beautiful winding stream with an abundance of willows and a large variety of bird life. Luke and I actually spotted a turtle bobbing around the other day in a day trip in - sweet!

Mudgee region is also famous for it's wines (Australia is the place to be!). There're a fair few organic wineries around the area too which we've taken an interest in, we're actually waiting on a return call for a potential two days work picking grapes this week - fingers crossed, we'd love to be involved in the process.
We were lucky to also visit a biodynamic winery (Lowe Wines) which is owned by a distant relative of Bruce's, who kindly took us to visit and, seeing that he knows the man himself (David Lowe), we got the star treatment in the form of a personal guided tour and a little tasting session at the end.
We visited a honey "cellar door" in Mudgee too. We tasted all different kinds of honey and also a spot of Meade which is said to be the oldest know fermented alcoholic drink, dating back almost 5,000 years. Tastes pretty good too!

Stubbo farm map, everything you see!

Life on a farm is hard work, the farmers work long hours, often every day. There's always work to be done and a time frame to do it in. The sheep have to be kept well fed to produce good wool, not only does this involve moving them often from one paddock to the next but also feeding them additional grain which is a big job in itself - the oats/rye need to be seeded in fertilized, turned soil which doesn't get done itself and is a costly investment. The wear and tear on the machinery is also another outgoing that I would never have considered until now. The end result makes it all worth it, except for the drop in wool prices the current market is experiencing. This is mostly due to a decrease in demand for high quality fine fibre wool, largely the cause of the economic depression in Europe (Italy is the largest producer of fine wool tailoring) but it is of my opinion, that our current way of life sees us expecting too much for too little. We should pay the extra money to purchase goods made in our own countries. Not only will we receive better quality for our money, less harmful synthetic material and not to mention ensuring the welfare of our fellow countrymen, who receive a more humane salary, but also saving the economy by lowering pollution from long-haul transportation. Lecture over. Buy woolen clothing!!

Luke and Allan's cows

We are so grateful to Bruce, Marilyn, Tim and Jess for not only welcoming us here on the farm, but recommending some great places to visit too. Among them we've enjoyed mice racing, local village fairs, beautiful scenic drives and a trip to Allan's farm, where we skimmed stones on his beautiful river. We hope to have relieved the Maxwells of some of their many chores and are truly blessed to have made such good friends in the process. So, it is with utmost sincerity that we say: "Thank you for having us!"

Stubbo farm - sunset extraordinaire!