Ruth gets to try her hand at farming in Tasmania

Editorial Department • Published 26 May 2011 13:00 0 Comments

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Farming Tasmanian style is now commonplace for Ruth Blackburn from Clogher, who has just begun a three-month YFCU exchange to the island off the south coast of Australia.

In her first report, Ruth, a member of Seskinore YFC describes some of her tasks after she arrived in Tasmania.

"I started my three month exchange with the Tasmania Rural Youth on 30th April. I flew into Launceston Airport and was greeted by Rural Youth member Alisha Dougan who brought me to AgFest where I spent my first week on exchange in the northern part of Tasmania.

AgFest is organised and operated voluntarily by the Tasmania Rural Youth. It is one of Tasmania's largest agricultural events, run over three days on a 200 acre site attracting over 60, 000 patrons and 650 exhibitors annually.

Apart from meeting many of the members of Tasmania Rural Youth and attending the club of Hagley's meeting, my time at AgFest was spent helping set up. This ranged from measuring out and marking exhibitor sites in the craft sections to putting out the rubbish bins -over 400 on site. On event days I helped with car parking, ticket box and Rural Youth tent.

My favourite experience of Agfest, apart from looking at a vast variety of stands, I was very lucky to enjoy a helicopter tour around the site and surrounding beautiful country side full of gum trees and The Western Tiers mountain ranges.

My second week and first host family, the Bayles, live on a farm in the centre of Tasmania near the township of Cressy. They keep over 5000 Merino sheep for wool, Angus cattle for beef and a variety of crops including peas, potatoes, poppies, Lucrene, wheat, barley, hemp and grass seed. I also spent three mornings with my host Amanda, who works on the neighbour's dairy unit where they have a 50 bay rotary parlour and over 750 cows to milk every morning. Unlike the majority of dairy units in Northern Ireland they are milked only once daily. Whilst at AgFest I watched a performance by an expert cracking bull whips and when staying with the Bayles they attempted to teach me how to do it. I can only say it is a lot harder than it looks and an art not to accidentally hit yourself with a back lash.

The second host family I stayed with, the Mitchelsons, also live in the North Midland region of Tasmania. They too crop and produce lamb for slaughter. During my time here the mobs, around 100 sheep in each, were being brought in from the paddocks for the ewes to be drenched and the lambs - around four weeks old - to be ear tattooed, given injections, de-tailed and castration for the ram lambs. We were shown how to, and gave a go at all the jobs seeing trough over an estimated 360 lambs in three days.

During my time here both families have been very good to me and we have gone sightseeing to the local and not-so-local sights, including through the Western Tiers to the Great Lake and Derwent Bridge. This is where I also had my first sighting of a live wallaby; previous to this I unfortunately had only spotted road kill versions. I have also been fortunate enough to visit Beauty Point which has fantastic views of the Bass Strait and to the Platypus House where we met several of the strange looking mammals.

As it is May, Tasmania is heading into late Autumn /early Winter. The weather has been similar to that of a mild Autumn at home and I am told wet and windy is a normal Winter here and snow an extreme rarity.

As the summers can be very hot in Tasmania many home have their own water butts to collect and store rainwater for home use. Many families also grow most of their own vegetables; big green pumpkins diced and roasted are now a firm favourite of mine. Many families also keep 'chooks' or chickens with scraps and left over's being fed to them instead of the dog. It is an appealing form of a more self-sustainable lifestyle.

I am now three weeks into my exchange and am looking forward to visiting the East Coast this weekend and to my upcoming weeks in the south and north western regions of Tasmania where the annual State Ball will be held in a month's time.

I would like to thank all those who made this trip possible and especially the efforts of Kerry Megrath at YFCU HQ, my family and friends, Fintona Farm Machinary Show, Richard Beattie Livestock Sales, Cappers, Corick House Hotel, YFA, Ulster Bank Clogher and the Rural Youth of Tasmania."

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 26 May 11

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