This past week I've had the pleasure of staying and working at Apis Creek in Malbrough, Qld. Apis Creek is the home of Tim and Lynette Olive along with their two daughters Courtney and Alexandra. This 50,000 acre property is located about 50 miles outside of the town of Malbrough where the Olive's run a Grey Brahman Stud and raise Charbray's and Brangus for their commercial herd. Unfortunately Courtney, the eldest daughter, was away at boarding school this week and could not be there.
I first met up with the Olive family at the Paradise Lagoons Campdraft in Rocky, after a long fun weekend it was straight to work on Monday morning. Every day started at 6 am with breakfast and did not end until after dark with dinner...the week flew by! I worked alongside three really great men this week; Mr. Tim and contract musters' Ian and Jamie. These guys are absolutely great to work with, keeping the atmosphere fun and upbeat. On Monday, we mustered a few steer paddocks with the helicopter, bikes and the Ute...not something you see everyday in Louisiana... Needless to say I was in awe of the whole experience and snapped about a million and one photos of the chopper. After the steers were in the laneway, Tony (the helicopter pilot) pulled up to re-fuel; we were hanging around the Ute talking about none other than Swamp People when Mr. Tim says "Brooke you ready to go up?" yep I got to go up in the chopper...best/most nerve-wracking experience ever! If anyone is wondering what it feels like; I felt like I was strapped in an aluminum can whizzing, ducking, and diving above trees, creeks, and cattle! It wasn't until after I got out of the chopper and on the ground that I realized the guys on the bike down below (laughing) could hear me freaking out from the two way on my headpiece...whoops. Long story short, I had a great day and can't wait to go up again!
The rest of the week we processed 1200 weaner heifers, bulls, and steers; dehorning, vaccinating, branding, etc. We also weighed and processed over 400 older steers who were being used in an HGP trial; the steers were broken up into three groups: (1) steers implanted with Compudose 400 (2) steers implanted with Revlorflex (3) no treatment control group, I recorded the initial and final weights of the steers as well as the ADG (average daily gain)%, I'm anxious to see the resutls of the trial in the future. All together, after the mustering, we ran and processed over 3,000 head of cattle through the yards in one week. It was a long week but it flew by, they say time flies when you're having fun!
I was pretty lucky to see both sides of Apis Creek during the week, the commercial and Stud. During a "break" I was able to go for a drive around the paddocks with Mr. Tim, Mrs. Lynette, and Alexandra to look at the cattle and see what was beyond the yards. It was great to see what was behind the weaners and steers we were processing all week. Technically it was not a break because we had to fix a fence along the way!
On Wednesday night, I really felt like part of the family because I watched Alexandra loose her first tooth and be amazed that it did not hurt! She ran around so excited that the tooth fairy would come that night and that she still looked like "Alexandra" and could whistle! One of the cool things I got to experience was distance education; home-school via telephone. Everyday Alexandra has a 45 minute "telly lesson" with her class which is based out of Rockhampton. There are 5 kids in her Prep class and they have a main teacher who communicates with them though the telephone, each child has a headset and says their name when they would like to be called on or have finished an assignment. The teacher will send out course work to be completed over two weeeks so that after the lesson the parents will work with the children to complete the work like a regular school day. Pretty neat, she even had her own little school room!
I became very close with the Olive family working alongside them day in and day out and I'm happy to say that Apis Creek felt like home, thanks again to the Olives for everything, can't wait to go back!
No comments:
Post a Comment