Sunday, August 19, 2012

Day at the farm

Day at Shimmy's farm

Today some friends and I drove out of town for over an hour to spend the day at another friend's beautiful farm in the Monaro region.

Day at Shimmy's farm

There were sheep and lambs! Teeny baby lambs! And alpacas (not as cute as the lambs).

Day at Shimmy's farm


Day at Shimmy's farm

Day at Shimmy's farm

And sadly some poddy lambs (one died while we we there. Not one of these though). :(

Day at Shimmy's farm

The big wide Murrumbidgee ran at the bottom of the property. I could imagine swimming here on hot summer days (not so much while it's snow-fed though, like it is during winter)

Day at Shimmy's farm

I have long dreamed of one day owning a small property outside of town, where we can have a mahoosive vegie patch and pigs and ducks and chooks and did I mention pigs? We'd have a Rayburn cooker and bake all our own bread and make lots of lovely cheese with the milk from our cow. I mentioned a cow, didn't I?

But the reality is the farming life really isn't for me no matter how much I dream about it. My grandad and dad were farmers, admittedly in the centre of Brisbane in the days (not too long ago!) when they had farms in the centre of Brisbane. My husband grew up on a farm in the middle of whoop whoop and brought up pigs for pocket money. My brothers-in-law still farm. Farming is such hard work and for such little gain. Poddy lambs die in front of your eyes. Floods happen and you lose your entire flock including your prize ram, which is what happened to my brother-in-law last year. And there is no avoiding that I like the convenience to my local quilt shop and the corner supermarket and being able to pop up to my local coffee shop when I want to meet with friends.

Day at Shimmy's farm

But I will continue visiting my friend out in the country, sit on the verandah with her overlooking the Murrumbidgee, and keep dreaming anyway.

5 comments:

  1. squeeeee! those lambs!
    i feel almost identical about your dream, it'd be amazing, but super hard work. we can keep dreaming :D

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  2. Such beautiful pictures and lovely lambs! Your dreams sound wonderful. I can’t even imagine how hard it is to work on a farm.

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  3. I'm a farm dreamer too. In fact, I went as far as studying rural science at Uni, but then diverted into teaching it, rather than practicing it myself. Lovely pics - it might be that a lot of what I want from a farm is that depth of perspective you get from a owning MORE space.

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  4. I think a lot of people have the little farm dream, but yes, the reality is quite sadly a bit different - has those good things, but also those challenges, which so rarely feature in our dreams!

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  5. I thought about living on a large property for about a nano-second once; reality quickly kicked it!

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