Jason from Hong Kong, having completed a degree in Global Shipping and Supply Chain Logistics, and halfway through his gap year, arrives during late July 2018 to help on the farm.

Today we are looking to buy cattle at a large stock sale in the midlands.

 Jason helps to re-align and adjust the wallaby exclusion wire outside the pasture fencing, and these Angus steers look on with interest.

 Here a group of young Semmental Cross heifers calves watch as Jason un-wraps the silage.

  Away from work, we try our luck fishing on the river. 

 Early in his stay here we had a very long and difficult job to do. It was to find and fix the cause of a blocked pipe, it took nine days to complete but he stayed to see it through, thanks Jason.

One of a backpacker's daily jobs is to feed the chickens and collect any eggs, and most days, even in winter he gets an egg or two. I don't know how he does it., I can't get any :)

 Jason feeds a young colt at Ray and Kerry's home at Westbury.

January 2018, after working and traveling around Australia and New Zealand, Jere returns for a second farm stay with us.
It's great to see him again and have him help us around the farm.

 

Waiting to load the Taarup disc mower we just bought at a farm clearing sale.

Jere checks the silage in the ring feeder.

Doing fencing and removing old barbed wire.

Jere helping with some modifications to the unit deck, and then putting his name to it 🙂.

Today we removed the fence and begin to take down these big gum trees near the house. 

The trusty Hi Lux is getting a new clutch, and Jere begins by removing the exhaust manifold.  

It's raining today so we are working in the shed, and Jere is trying get the old farm bike going, it hasn't ran for more than 2 years.

" But it still won't go, what is happening"?

No luck with Honda so we service the Polaris and change the lower suspension shaft and bushes. Good work Jere thanks.

 

Hay and silage baling begins in November this year.

My 6 disc mower is out of action so I borrow my contractors' 8 disc mower to carry on working and it rips through the hay in no time.

Raking the hay into windrows for baling and wrapping.

In late October 2017 Alan, a train traffic controller from Brittany in France arrives for a 4 week stay.

Pruning the pine trees Alan is mindful of the hay fever at this time of the year and sensibly wears a mask.

A little cooler this morning so a jacket is required before we begin work.

Alan agrees the work is much easier now we have a new hydraulic log splitter.

Changing an insulator on the electric fence under the careful scrutiny of the stock.

 

 In Mid September 2017, Ethan (Zhibo) an Engineer in 3D Laser Scanning Technology from Shandong in China, came to help us on the farm.

  

Here he helps to remove barbed wire and replace with new stock friendly plain wire.

Weeding around the garlic.

Clearing weeds and rushes from outside the boundary fence.

After clearing along a fence line, Ethan loads the Hi- Lux with the lucerne branches.  

Checking out the waterfall.

In early September 2017 we had 8 days in Bali, and it was fantastic, the weather was perfect every day, the foot paths are much improved now with brick paving and the streets are a lot cleaner now.

This is the cliffs and temples of Uluwatu.

This is the beach at Padang Padang, which you can only get to by climbing through a cave in the cliff face, it is a special favourite of ours.

Part of the beach in front of our hotel.

Two girls in traditional dress at the monkey forest at Ubud.

One of many water temples in Bali, this one is on the way to the Volcano.

Most afternoons people come to the beach to fly kites of all sizes.

The pool and bar at our hotel early in the morning before breakfast.