It doesn’t matter what the weather is doing some jobs on a farm just have to be done. It’s all part of being on a farm and there’s something about a rainy day, puddles and putting on gumboots that brings out the inner child in me.
When our guests check in, they often ask ‘If it’s raining, is the daily animal feed still on?’ and we answer that ‘Yes it is.’ Like any farmer our daily chores don’t stop just because of the weather. Rain, hail or shine animals still need feeding, fences still need fixing, and some things just can’t wait until the shine is shining again.
There are many things that I have done in the rain since I first arrived at Diamond Forest Farm Stay. I have done numerous daily animal feeds in the rain, bottle fed lambs and calves in the rain, checked animals and fences after a particularly bad storm, moved branches in the rain, helped deliver an Alpaca in the rain, put the ducks to bed, moved animals, unblocked a rainwater tank’s leaf guard just to name a few. I’ve even done a few of them while it was hailing. And of course there are the February summer days of 38 degrees plus where I have also been out and about on the farm doing what needs to be done. And there’s nothing like a good rain storm to create some great puddles to jump in. Yes, some days I just can’t help myself and kids love it too. It certainly makes for extra entertainment and laughter on our daily animal feed too. A little bit of rain, good wet weather gear and gumboots make it all the more of an adventure.
I remember the first time we had to go out in the rain to do a job. I had knee-high gumboots on, my wide-brimmed Akubra hat, my dryz-a-bone buttoned up to the neck, buttoned at the sleeves, buttoned right down past my knees. It was like a rite of passage. I was standing there all buttoned up and watertight feeling that I had finally made it as a farmer. I had crossed that boundary from someone playing at farming to being a serious, fair dinkum farmer. I was so pleased with myself. That is, until I realised that I had to pee and I had to take all my gear off, except my hat, to go inside and use the toilet!
I’m smarter now, more experienced. I use the bathroom before I gear up!
My most memorable experience came during my first lambing season. George, a sickly little lamb whose mother couldn’t feed him, needed a bottle. It was mid afternoon. The sun was shining. I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, no jacket, no hat, no wet weather gear. I prepared his formula and off I went out into the paddocks to where George was impatiently waiting. He was half way through his bottle when the wind whipped up, the temperature dropped in seconds and the sky opened, not with rain but stinging hail.
Here I was standing in the middle of an unsheltered paddock getting wet and pelted with hail. I left George even though he hadn’t finished his bottle – he was not impressed – and bolted for the nearest shelter, the aviary. With freezing fingers I managed to get the lock open and shove myself inside. There I stood amongst our cockatiels, quails and pink and grey galahs listening to the deafening roar of the hail on the tin roof, dripping wet and shivering.
It passed in a matter of minutes, thankfully, and in the quiet after the hail our pink and grey galah, Jake, flew over and landed on my shoulder. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, one of the few phrases he was known to say and I told him. Because I was cold and wet and my bare arms were stinging from the hail and I was cranky. So I stood in the aviary telling a bird exactly what was wrong. And then Jake laughed! Which made me laugh too and then he said the only other words he knows ‘kiss, kiss’ before he flew off my shoulder and suddenly I wasn’t cranky anymore.
And that’s how it goes when you’re a farmer. Rain, hail or shine you sometimes have to go out in all kinds of weather to do things that just can’t wait. In the end I went back to George and gave him the rest of his bottle. He was very grateful, so grateful he insisted on following me, even wanting to leave his mum in the paddock to go back to the house. Maybe he didn’t like the hail either.
So yes, our daily animal feeding is on rain, hail or shine. We will be out there and you can join us in your wet weather gear or you can sit on your verandah and watch us. You’re on holidays. The choice is yours. We don’t mind. For us, though, feeding animals in the rain is all just part of being a farmer and part of the fun.