Sometimes on a farm it is amazing how quickly life can get busy. We had wheat and barley in the paddocks to be harvested and beautiful bales of first cut lucern hay baled up in the paddock and ready to be picked up and carted to a shed. We didn’t have quite enough man power to conquer the work load on our own especially when the harvest needed to go on.

The solution arrived in the form of 2 trucks with dogs to convoy the hay back to the shed. It was a wonderful sight to see all the fresh lucern bales slowly filling the shed while our harvest went on unhindered.

Brother Bert and young Blade took on the contract to move the bales at the cost of nothing but the satisfaction of helping out when needed. Bert also brought along a couple of extra labourers to speed up the job.

Never had there been any plans to sell that lucern hay. There was no doubt that from time to time it had become very saleable however it remained in the shed as insurance against dry times and feed shortages for our stock.

The lucern was stored for 8 years before it was relied on to feed ewes and lambs. In May 2026, after 5 months of very little rain, feed had diminished and there was no longer enough in the paddocks for our hungry ewes and lambs.

A daily schedule of laying out feed trails began and the sheep took no time to learn that the rattling old Toyota was carrying much needed feed. When a ewe has 1 or sometimes 2 lambs to rare she needs all the nourishment she can get and these bales of lucern were there in the shed ready for them when they were needed.