Farm Experience: Saturday, 4th December, 2004

"Today was a fairly relaxed day as Len didn't have shearing to do. From what I gather, most shearers don't shear on weekends. I think I can perfectly understand that... shearing is too much hard work and the shearers definitely need some rest days! But which makes it all the more difficult for farmers to finish their shearing as quickly as possible. If it rains, the sheep will be wet and the wool can't be shorn. If it's too hot, the shearers tend to knock off early because the heat is unbearable. Farm activities are too dependent on weather... if it rains, or if there's too much wind along with too much heat, harvesting can't be carried out either. The strong winds carry a high risk of spreading fires that may start easily in the hot weather due to cigarette butts or electricity faults, so harvest bans are likely to be imposed. Len is the deputy chief fire control officer, so during these few days that I'm on the farm, he is quite busy with checking that people are following the rules under a certain set of weather conditions. There has been a couple of fires in Western Australia over the past week, and issues like this usually become the topic for discussion among the farmers during tea breaks. From what I heard, one fire has caused the loss of the entire farm and death of a few mobs of sheep, and the owner has gotten injured in trying to save the animals. It's sad to watch the news and hear that they have to start from scratch after this traumatic experience. Farming is such a risky investment, come to think of it.

Anyway, in the morning I went with Len to inspect his sheep and to feed them mineral blocks which had run out. I was smelling the mineral blocks and they immediately reminded me of Singapore hawker centres. Little did I expect the sheep and I to have similar tastes. Len then pointed out his farm machinery to me and I was desperately trying to scribble as fast as I could to jot down what they were. Frankly, they are just greek to me, but probably as easy as child's play to him. Superspreaders? Scarifiers? What the...?

There wasn't much to do in the afternoon so I watched half of a Marilyn Monroe movie while Len was busy fixing his fire control unit. It is something which he has to carry around to help put out fires (if any) when harvesting. I thought it was rather admirable that he could probably fix anything in and around the house all by himself. But then again, that ought to be the basic requirement of a farmer. I couldn't help him to fix his machinery, so I stayed out of the heat and in the living room to stare at the baby (which I do a lot!). Nicky's mother wasn't at home today so Gail had to look after her and do all the necessary stuff like feeding and bathing her. For the first time in my life, I fed a baby a bottle of milk. No big feat, but I suspect that with more time spent with Nicky, my fears with regards to babies are slowly eroding away.

The main highlight of the day was really what we did at night. Stan, who is a neighbour of Len's and Gail's, came over with his shotgun?rifle? and vehicle? and we set off to shoot some kangaroos for dog meat. Sounds cruel I know, but when you think about it, these wild kangaroos are more of a pests to farmers as they eat up the crops grown, and their dead carcasses are fully utilized when fed to the dogs. It became terribly chilly as we sped along Len's paddocks in search of the roos, even though I was all bundled up in a few layers and wearing Len's holey beanie. They had warned me beforehand about how cold it can get but I guess I hadn't completely heeded their advice, and should have borrowed extra clothing from them. So I was quite a useless heap at the start, standing up in the moving vehicle and covering my ears with both my hands at the same time, and wondering how long the shooting is going to take. We didn't spot any roos in the first 15 minutes; instead, shot a few dead foxes, which were detrimental to the sheep anyway. It was only after we had entered Tony's paddocks, which were adjacent to Len's, that we began seeing heaps of roos. In the night, they looked merely like two glittery eyes when illuminated with the huge beam of light we brought along. I initially wondered why the animals are stupid enough to stand still when the light is shone directly at them, but was then told by Stan that they froze because they were blinded by the light. Stan has quite an amazing aim, having shot animals professionally when he was younger. 8 of our targets fell within the 2 hours we were out, and after they went down, we went to take a torchlight and search for their dead bodies and drag them back to the vehicle. Len or Stan would then cut open their bellies and remove their guts and drain the main arteries of blood, before slinging the bodies over the back of the vehicle. It could be gory for most people, but I had already gotten used to dissections and the sight of fresh blood, so it wasn't that big a deal to me. As soon as we got back, we had to hang the carcasses to dry it for the next day before chopping it up into various portions for pet meat. Truthfully, I felt really sorry for the kangaroos, especially since they look cute and are not vicious animals. But then I reasoned that as long as shooting was not carried out simply for the sake of pleasure, such an activity can be justified. The dogs, had they been let out every night to go hunting nearby, would have similarly killed the kangaroos ( and the sheep, unfortunately). This is not a simple issue of whether it's right or wrong. In the best of the farmers' interests, such shootings has to be carried out. "