Thumbnail scketch of the 2009 harvest

This photo taken early in September shows the crop still growing and showing all the signs of a bumper harvest

Time to start some serious planning for this years harvest.

Preparations started in earnest about then, here two new field bins are being unloaded.

The header, minus the 40 foot front, was still in the shed but had undergone the pre-season checks.

Not that it needed much attention... as you can see by the interior its brand new.

The work all starts out in the paddocks of course, here the header is busy reaping the wheat, a lot slower than last year because the crop is so much heavier, we should all have that as a problem.

Emptying the headers box into the chaser bin which is pulled by the "small John Deere tractor"

A view from the header as the chaser bin pulls alongside

This diminutive 5 foot nothing who is my grand-daughter and Vicki and Rex's niece has spent the harvest (about 6 weeks) driving the tractor chaser bin combination, not bad for a "City Girl" who lives in Perth WA.

Here Jenna is filling the back trailer of the road train while Uncle Rex looks on.

Jenna was also allowed a couple of laps in the header, an honor indeed.

From the paddock to market... because of the very good season they have built two new "Grain Bunkers" at Wudinna, these enormous bunkers each hold 100,000 tons of grain and are covered by a heavy duty plastic tarpaulin which is welded on site into one continuous cover as the grain is added.

Here Rex is emptying the front trailer into a mobile pit, from there a conveyor takes it to the top of the pile where gravity shapes the pile as it fills

Here the rear trailer has been pulled onto the frame and is in the process of emptying its load too.

The system is slightly different when the grain is going into the permanent Silo's, it is dumped into a pit from where the conveyors take it to the chosen Silo, it is railed from there to the shipping terminal at Port Lincoln where grain ships take it to its final destination... either in Australia or Overseas.

Grain is not normally received at the Silo's on Sunday so the trucks line up for an early start on Monday morning, there was 4 rows and about 10 trucks per row so they kick off with anything up to 1000 tons when work begins.

While all this has been going on "The Big JD" has been sleeping away the hot weather in the shed, but be assured it will earn its keep hauling the huge machinery that will plant next years crop so it all averages out.

That's a very brief and maybe not 100% accurate (Rex is out working hard so I couldn't double check the figures) but I'll claim poetic license for any that aren't quite true.

Traveling Still, Always Will.

We went for a trip within a trip over the last few days, took Merle with us this time, first stop was to visit friends of mine of some 45 years standing, Allan had not been well over the last few months but we found him much improved and had a great, if very short, visit with he and his wife Lorna in Victoria's 2nd city, Geelong.

As usual click on photos to enbiggen.

Lorna, myself, and Allan all lookin' pretty chipper.

We traveled along "The Great Ocean Road" for about 150 kms, this is a very scenic road that for much of the time skirts along the Southern Ocean, it's winds around a lot of bends and gets a bit hilly at times, not Merles favourite things but she survived it OK.

A typical scene on the GOR, the day was a bit overcast so not as much colour in the photos as there could have been.

We were impressed by a number of wood carving in a park at the small township of Apollo Bay, this one had a pair of seals carved from driftwood... I hate talented people!!

There are a lot of overseas visitors travel this road, we were amused by the fairly constant reminder signs suggesting it would be nice if they drove on "our" side of the road, we hadn't seen these anywhere else, even on the Queensland Gold Coast which has more O/S visitors than most places they aren't used.

The purpose of this trip was partly so that we could visit Merles youngest daughter Kathy,she and hubby Ard have a dairy farm where they milk 250 cows twice a day, 7 days a week... you know the deal.
The photo is of three generations Kate (Kathy's daughter) Merle and Kathy, a good lookin' bunch I reckon.

The farm is on a very lush green section of the state... most of which is in drought, this photo shows a paddock of freshly mown hay which will be rolled into round hay bales for cattle fodder.

The coastal scenery along this section of the GOR is very good, this photo is of Lockard Gorge where a sailing ship "The Lock Ard" sank during a violent storm at the turn of last century with 52 of the 54 people on board drowning.

These sandstone outcrops are known as the Twelve Apostles which is a bit of a stretch now as the sea has reclaimed 4 of them and is working hard on several of the remaining 8.


A kindly American tourist took this photo of Warren and I, we usually don't have many together as one of us is the photographer normaly.
I' try to get a more informative post up sometime soon!!!!

Vicki's progress.

Time for an up-date on Vicki's progress for all who are interested and especially for those
who have been kind enough to inquire;
While we are by no means out of the woods yet, there has been a very encouraging improvement
over the last week or so, more regular and longer periods of reduced pain which has of course
led to a brightening of her outlook.
There has been a new member added to her medical support system, this comes in the form of a
new Doctor based in Wuddina (the town has been without a resident Doctor for 6/8 months)
as a bonus this GP has a special area of interest... Pain Management.... there must be a God!!!
To date Vicki has only seen him once but has another appointment to assess the results of
his medication and to do some blood tests as a follow up.
Meanwhile life goes on at its normal pace here (read HECTIC) but the end to seeding is in sight,
in fact tomorrow night or Friday morning should see the finish of it, then we can add some
follow up rain to our list of prayers and settle back into a quieter mode.

The last paddock to be seeded had 1000 sheep and about 800 lambs grazing it down,
yesterday was D for departure day for them, so we all gathered and shifted them
across 3 paddocks to their new home for the time being.
This was complicated by the fact that they were in an 800 acre paddock which has
about 8 areas of "scrub" in it, (one is visible on the left of this photo) and the
sheep would make regular attempts to get into the shelter of the scrub, (these are
1 to 7/8 acre areas and sheep can magically disappear from sight in seconds).
The estimate is that we left 4 ewes and 5 lambs behind that will have to be
rounded up today but considering the terrain that is a very good result.


Like most stories there is good news and bad news, Rex came across these twin
lambs and their dead mother while the roundup was on, so the orphans are now at
home being bottle fed every 4/5 hours, there is a boy and a girl so Rex has named
them Minnie and Skinny as the boy is a bit skinnier than the girl.

Meanwhile Vicki's dog Tim is not at all sure what to made of these new-comers,
specially as they are getting so much attention, they do appear to have come to
a satisfactory living arrangement despite Tim's jealousy, time will tell now
whether they survive or not, some do and some don't.

More about farm life at Wudinna

Follow up on Fosters Farm.

This is Rex and Vicki much as they are today (perhaps Vicki isn't quite as well?).

This is what they looked like 30 years ago, a few changes to the farming plant too !!!
the old Massey Ferguson Combine Harvester was fully air conditioned (by virtue of the
fact that you sat outside with a beach umbrella for shade and a dust mask to allow you
to breathe through the dust), I think the old Ford truck was a 50s vintage.

Certainly a huge step forward to today's air-conditioned soundproofed cabin on
both Header and Tractor.
Filling the chaser bin on the move saves the header from even having to stop so
production is kept to its maximum, there is a bit over 10 tons of grain per transfer.

This was the boss truck until recently, it now bears the slightly insulting title
of "the little truck" BTW its load of wheat is still about 13 tons.

This is Big Brother who in his current form can carry about 22 tons and in his
final form will become a "Road Train" with another similar trailer on behind
the existing one, load then about 45 tons.

The reason for the bigger truck is to cut back on "on farm grain storage" during
harvest, as this leads to much more handling of grain when the busy times demand
that it be got out of the paddock but cartage to grain terminals is not practical
in small loads.
The storage shed has about 450 tons of grain in it in this photo and can sometimes
have more than that, total capacity 1000+ tons.

This is the little wheat seed heads that start the whole process off.

Click photo to enbiggen
Another interesting fact about Rex Foster; at age 51 he still plays Australian Rules Football
for Wudinna United Football Club, and he is a long way from being their worst player too.
Rex is Number 23 right in the centre of the this photo.

Farming & Resting dont mix too well

Here at Fosters Farm the pace has picked up quite a bit as the boys have deemed enough rain has fallen to allow full steam ahead with the crop seeding, this is done with minimum tillage after an application of weed killing chemicals are sprayed onto the paddocks.

The spray unit has folding wings that open out to 120 feet wide and the tractor has GPS
guidance so there is no overlap of chemicals when spraying.

This minimum tillage farming has become the way of life for most grain farmers in Australia now, one of the benefits is that it limits the dust that inundated half the continent just a few weeks ago when we had severe wind storms, the paddock near the house had been worked up to kill of weeds, this was the normal practice until a few years ago when chemical spraying became common.

The same 60 foot tillage bar is used for “working up” and for “seeding” this is only a matter of changing the “digging points” from wide to narrow and using the “air seeder” seed box when seeding.

Here the air seeder is force feeding a measured amount of seed and super phosphate
through hoses to each digging "point", the tractor in this instance has "auto-steer"
which means that after an initial lap of the paddock (sometimes 700/800 acres) during
which time it "maps" the paddock it will then take over the steering to once again
avoid the double seeding which would occur with overlapping.

There is now a 24 hour shift going nearly every day to get the crop in before the soil dries out and/or the weather gets too cold for seed germination, so the pattern at the moment is for 1 tractor and operator to spray a paddock in front of the tractor and operator that is seeding it, the 3^rd team member does relief driving for whoever needs a break and organizes the seed and super filling of the seeding unit and refueling of tractors, as of next week there will be a 4^th member to allow the shifts to become a little more organized.

Out here in the “bush” they also need to be able to carry out their own maintenance and repairs too, improvisation is an essential part of farm life as was illustrated by the arrival of a new addition to their plant, a fork-lift to handle the ever increasing chemical packs.

By the way, if you are planning to repair heavy machinery its good to have a
suitable work bench, building one using old railway line is one way to get the
required strength.

This fork-lift was delivered to the farm by a truck without unloading facilities so was off loaded onto an old farm truck to be got onto the ground later, to facilitate this a trench about 3 feet deep was dug behind the back of the truck which was then eased into the hole to bring the tray to ground level, without laboring the point, this led to its own set of complications when the tower of the fork-lift got snagged on the rear of the truck tray….

There is a minor "oops" coming up when the fork lifts tower gets snagged on the rail
of the truck tray!!

Suffice to say, after a couple of hours of unplanned work the new toy was able to go about the tasks it had been purchased for and another back-breaking job has been made much simpler by having the right equipment for the job.

But here we are with the assistance of the front end loader (at the other end of that chain!!)
all unloaded and ready to go.

That gives a very quick idea of what is happening here in the paddocks, meanwhile Vicki becomes not only the cook but also the meals-on-wheels lady with meals at least twice per day being delivered to the paddocks for consumption on the run… so to speak.

Her normal duties also include being the go-for who chases up spare parts as required and relays messages from place to place when the normal lines of communication break down, this means that my duties are extended to deputy go-for and dogs-body in charge of trying to slow Vicki down to a gallop as she tries to do her normal almost impossible tasks.