Chambers Hobby Farm

I was expecting our first night on the farm to be a tranquil night where I would fall asleep counting sheep, I should have known better.

Around 9 pm we were sitting in the lounge room watching tv when there was a rumbling sound and the verse from War of the Worlds sums it up “From the railway station came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance.” the train station about half a click up the road. It must have been a freight train as I could feel the tremors of its passage; it got louder and louder and louder until you would think that it was just outside the house. Two toots from the horn and then the rumbling faded into the distance. Not wanting the dogs to stay outside at night, un-supervised, and especially when the young one, Bee, discovered it could get under the front gate I took the dogs outside for their break before bedtime. There wasn’t much happening outside; the town was mute with only a light here and there. I was gazing up the glorious sight of heavens, marveling at the bright blinking stars when the dogs and mosquitoes reminded me it was time to go back in. A little while later we finished our cup of tea and went to bed. New house, new bed, new noises caused us to toss and turn. Not helped by the constant shifting of the dogs who were trying to find a comfortable resting spots, except for the old girl Lenny, she was snoring happily in the lounge room. Then around 1 am another train could be heard, not rumbling; sounded lighter and faster, passenger train. Not slowing down but pelting into town, tooting their horn twice, and then the click clack click clack was soon lost in the distance. This was not the last train during the night. I must have fallen asleep as something outside disturbed the dogs so they let me know that they wanted to go out. It was around 3 am, standing on the front deck all I could hear was some muttering of a party somewhere in town. A drunken yell of triumph broke the silence and was soon swallowed up by the heaviness of the night. Most likely a crew of young lads from the pub not finished for the night. The dogs scratched around a bit but were happy nothing was amiss. Back to bed and no need to count sheep as I did fall asleep when my head hit the pillow. Next was the break of day, the light filling the house letting the dogs know it was time to get the master out of bed. Shortly after I was sitting on the front deck, cup of tea in hand, watching the dogs thinking to myself ‘life couldn’t get any better than this’

I’m neither here or there on this topic, but I know that something is changing, for better or worse we will just have to wait and see, but. The consensus with meteorologists and scientists that based upon historic records the average annual temperature is increasing and the prediction is that Australia will get hotter and dryer. But what if the weather pattern itself is undergoing a dramatic change that has not been recorded. Liken this to when you are bending a branch; you bend it a little and it springs back to what it was, bend it a little more and it will spring back but not exactly to how it was, a little deformed, but bend it too much and it will break. Maybe this is what is happening with the weather pattern, NSW has had 10+ years of drought, in which the branch has been bending. Which incidentally coincides with China’s manufacturing boom, or should I say the massive increase in pollution in the northern hemisphere. Read this article: http://motherjones.com/environment/2007/12/last-empire-chinas-pollution-problem-goes-global
Maybe the branch has broken and the weather patterns are moving into a cycle that has not been seen before. If this has happened the meteorologists will not be able to predict long term weather patterns, all they can do is blame it on climate change. What if the annual temperature does increase but a new weather pattern increases the rain in central Australia like what is happening now? Imagine that, twice or three times the rainfall in western NSW, rivers returning back to what they were and more, cropping regions expanded, and more green than reds and ochre’s. If the weather is changing let’s hope that there will be more rain for Australia and not the doom and gloom of post-apocalypse landscape prediction that the media portrays. Anyway it’s a great time for weather watching, more and more data is available on the web for free, radar and satellite images, sea temperature charts, storm tracking system, all wonderful stuff.

A bonus is that this rain is making the grass grow on the farm and I will have to get some four legged lawn mowers sooner rather than later.

I have strong roots for the land. My mother was born on a property named Hadley in NSW and I used to spend a lot of my school holidays at my uncles and aunt property at Limerick near Crookwell. My father was born in Coonabarabran and I spent some time there as well. On my mother side our Australian lineage goes back to the 1850s, farmers around the Crookwell region. On my father’s side they were ring-barkers around northern NSW in the late 1800s. Always had an affinity with the land but never walked that path until now. Guess you can blame it on my two border collies, Bowie and Bee.

I started sheep herding lesson with a guy named Charlie at Yass around a year ago and we caught the sheep herding bug. A couple of hours every week weren’t enough so I needed some land and sheep. Search around the region just looking at parcels of land, then started looking properties with houses and ended up choosing a 6 acre 2 bedroom farm in a small town. I really wanted a more land but my wife liked the house and it was at a good price. We have only had the place for a month now and the weather hasn’t been kind, up in the 40c so we haven’t done much yet but stay tuned.