“
Every family needs a farmer and every farmer needs a townie”
these are the words that were spoken by Jimmy Smith to me when I recently took
a drive to meet him and his wife Sandra. They own and run Cotswold Hills a 60 000
acre property about an hour southwest of Winton.
However I wasn’t fortunate enough to visit
their lovely home on this day as they haven’t been living at home for the last
12 months or so. They haven’t had rain at Cotswold Hills for about 2 years so
their dams are bone dead dry and they have no feed for 1000 or so head of
cattle. I had met Jimmy and Sandra in passing but didn’t learn the true strength
of character and resilience until this visit. The word stoic was generated by
an ancient Greek school of philosophy that asserted that happiness can only be
achieved by accepting life's ups and downs as the products of unalterable
destiny. Stoic is the perfect description for this couple grasping at the few
grass picks around them. They were kind, generous, affable and some of the most
optimistic and positive people I’ve met in my life.
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| Jimmy & Sandra Smith |
Anyway I digress, back to the story of where I went today. I
took a drive, well actually Mr Bumpkin drove and I happily gazed out the passenger
window while Miss Bumpkin and Master Bumpkin watched a bit of Playschool and
had a doze in the back.
We drove about
45 minutes west of Winton to a place called Collingwood Reserve and no there
wasn’t a magpie or pies supporter in sight, but then again I didn’t see
anyone else besides Jimmy, Sandra and a few hundred head of cattle.
They’re adgisting
their cattle on this stock route, to simplify things, they’re renting land that
has some grass (not a lot, but more than their dirt ridden paddocks at home) so
that they can feed their cattle. Jimmy tells me that the Reserve is quite
literally a block of about 8000 acres, he has had to put up fences to keep his
cattle off the road and provide his own watering points (troughs with big tanks
near them to keep their cattle hydrated). So just because he’s renting the land
doesn’t mean it comes with any facilities. The Smith’s have had cattle (about ¼
what they normally run) here for almost a month and are required to vacate and
find somewhere else to adgist their cattle just days before Christmas. They can’t
go home as there’s no water or feed and they technically aren’t entitled to request
another permit from the local council until the new year. For the townies
amongst us, out here you can have 2 x 28 day permits to run stock on stock
routes per calendar year. This is the second permit the Smith’s have held in
2014 so they can’t apply again until the near year but the problem is the
drought is so far reaching out here that adgistment options are very few. When
I asked where to from here, they responded “we don’t know”,
they’re
waiting patiently for Huey or god or whoever to graciously send some rain. But
just like money doesn’t grow on trees, grass doesn’t grow overnight and due to
the extremely dry period from 2011-2014 the Smith’s and everyone out here needs
rain events, or follow up rain as it’s so dry the grass needs a number of rain
events for it to rejuvenate. To put it into perspective, usually by the end of November
the Winton area would on average receive 345mm of rain, so far this year it’s
been 156mm and by this time last year it was 141mm (source
http://www.eldersweather.com.au). These
recordings are taken from the Winton Airport just outside of town, Cotswold Hills
which is about 100km from Winton has been lucky to receive a passing shower at
best over the last two years. We live about 15km from town and had one rain
event last year providing us 23mm, we’ve had two rain events this year (nine
months apart) sending down about 120mm so you can understand how differing the
figures can be.
Jimmy and Sandra tend to their cattle every day, there’s no
such thing as a public holiday or weekend. Cattle have to eat and drink
everyday so there’s no rest for them. They truck five loads of water in the morning
and two in the afternoon to three watering points across the Reserve, although
not “hard” work it’s time consuming and there is no way to multi task as one
needs to supervise the pumping process. The cattle’s main feed is the grass and
a supplement of lick block, which provides stock with energy, protein and minerals
to keep them in good condition. There’s no one tending to Cotswold Hill’s so
they’re going back and forth every few days to check on things back home. They’re
living in a converted horse float under a lonely tree and are completely self
sufficient. Most would call this camping, however I’m not sure there would be
many opting for camping in 40+ degree heat, the horse float has air
conditioning but struggles with the concept of blowing cool air in such treacherous
conditions.
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| Jimmy and Sandra's makeshift home |
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| Five Star Kitchen |
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| Dining, meeting and whatever else required room |
Jimmy has lived in the Winton area most his life and cattle
is in his blood, Sandra grew up down the road in Boulia which is 370km from
Winton, (yes that’s considered down the road out here). They have two children
Gavin and Justin, Gavin is in on the family business too and also helps with
his wife’s family property in the Winton area. When I ask when do you think you’ll
be able to go home – when it rains and by that they mean a number of rain
events, a heavy shower isn’t going to save their livelihood this time.
Joy and happiness was brought to the Smith family earlier
this year when Gavin’s wife Jodie gave birth to their first grandchild Aaron. Unfortunately
if the extreme weather conditions continue and there’s no rain Jimmy may not be
able to leave the Reserve to enjoy his grandson’s first Christmas there’s even
a chance that Gavin may have to help out on the day. The Smith’s story is
unfortunately one of many; on 30 October 2014
ABC reported 46 properties in the Longreach area were in the process of being repossessed
due to unpaid loans.
So you ask, what can you do to help? Buy local, support
local and keep a farmer in business. Every meal or snack we eat can be grown,
bought and produced in Australia, if we don’t support our local businesses then
there will soon be none left. As Jimmy said every family needs a farmer and every
farmer needs a townie to produce, manufacture and sell the product. You can help
farming families by supporting organisations such as
Buy a Bale of Hay and
Aussie Helpers, these organisations are travelling the country providing relief, hope
and assistance to those who need it most.
As I was wrapping up my talk with Jimmy and Sandra over my shoulder were some dark and promising looking clouds, unfortunately on this day no rain eventuated, however please keep farmers in your thoughts and hope and pray clouds like these lead to rain today, tomorrow, next week and for many weeks over the Christmas / New Year period and beyond.
When celebrating the festive season this year buy fresh, buy local and spare a
thought for those who are doing it tough right around the country.
I did two versions of the
bark - white chocolate with raspberry flavoured candy canes and dark chocolate
with peppermint flavoured candy canes. Both are so yummy, it's a little
dangerous!
Hands up who else isn’t a fan of eating off plastic and
certainly not paper plates? They flip everywhere; once you start using them
they are wet and soggy and trying to cut anything on them is a nightmare! So I decided to buy some plates from Kmart for my table. They are called
‘Beaded Charger Plate’ and are $2.00, made of melamine and come in gold, red
and silver, I decided on red. The best thing
about them being made of melamine, is that the kids can have the same plates so they
match (yes OCD, i know!!) and they won't break. They are quite a large plate, so
there is lots of room to fill your plate with all those Christmas goodies! The
picture is actually quite deceiving; they have a sparkly fleck through them
which is lovely. 
For Master Slicker (2.5yo) and his cousin (8 months) I
purchased two of these Santa tumblers, they are so cute and I just couldn’t
resist!! These will be on the table at their place setting and are really a bit
of fun! They are also from Kmart and
were $3.00, yep only $3.00!
What will the adults be using you say? Mason jars of course.
On our honeymoon to the USA back in 2011 we drank at my (now)
favourite bar in Las Vegas, out of Mason jars, it was one of the best nights ever
and ever since I have been obsessed with Mason jars. Kmart doesn’t disappoint, the glass Mason jars were also
purchased from there at only $2.00 a pop!!!
Each guest, excluding the littlies will have one to sip their beverages
out of, trust me everything tastes better out of a mason jar! These could also be used for a sneaky Christmas beverage later in the day too. 
I also decided to stick with red for the placemats as well as I
couldn’t really find any green ones and quite frankly green ones may have been
a little bit too much to look at! I purchased $2.00 placemats from good ol’
Kmart (yes there's a theme here, I LOVE Kmart!) They are a cotton type material so they are washable and will last for quite
some time. They have a silver fleck through them which fit in well with the plates and also my
centrepieces. 
To finish the table off and to make it even more merry I will add these cute bonbon's from Woolworths to our table. They were only $15 for a pack of eight, I love a bon bon, the cute party hat and the corny jokes make it really feel like Christmas. 
Onto the free ticket activity, Miss Bumpkin and Master Slicker both went for a car ride - similar to dodgem cars but much safer. There were only four on the track at the one time and there wasn't much bumping and crashing. I wouldn't suggest kids under 2 go on the car ride as you need to steer and push a pedal to go.
They also had a glow in the dark mini put put room, our kids were a bit young but a great idea for primary school aged children.
