BINGARA 'Farm Stay'

The last few days Kerry and I have been staying on a 1700 acre property owned by our friends Gary and Linda, who we met a couple of years ago at a Sound Healing Retreat run by Chris James.
We had been meaning to visit for sometime, so we were pleased that the rain relented enough to allow us through.

We have spent the last few days brushing up on our farms skills; mowing the extensive gardens, digging 3ft deep holes for energy towers at their investment property in town, and most of today Jillarooing (if that is such a word), bringing in a mob of 180 head for market, and moving 3 mob of weaners into their new paddock - as they cell graze here.

Cell grazing means in this case they have approx 70 paddocks sectioned off by a single hot wire and the mob spend no more than 3 days in each paddock. They move them around and do not need to supplement their food, as by cell grazing they have 3-4mths of grass at anyone time. The rest time allows the paddocks natural grasses to recover through a rotating system.

We had an interesting time with the cows and calves this morning, needing to get them back in time from a couple of kilometres away. Kerry and I had our instructions, quick demo on how the quad bikes stop and go, and then the rest was up to us! We were going okay for the first 500m or so, the mob was split and we needed to bring them all together. Once we'd achieved that it was all systems go - then they kept slowing right down and trying to turn back on us. It took a minute or two to realize we had two bulls, one in particular who was asserting his authority and weaving back and forward across in front of the mob, attempting to turn them back! Agh!!!! We persisted for another 10mins, moving forward at snails pace - then I yelled out to Kerry - 'I bet I know what this is all about! It's our emotional issues with the male controlling us!!' Yep that's exactly what it was!
So we decided to face our fears and individually confront this bull head on!
Hearts racing, shaking with fear as this bull stared us down, he eventually relinquished his affront and allowed the cows and calves and younger bull to move onward without attacking and bullying them - an interesting law of attraction event!
All in all a fun couple of days. This area is so beautiful, we could see ourselves one day coming back here for an extended stay!!