WA - Jerramungup - The Culture of Farming

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a wheat farmer? Do you often think about your food? It’s story?

It’s something I can’t help but think about. This is because I grew up the daughter of famers – Blondie and Trevor; the sister of farmers – Wade and Jess; the aunty of fledglings of the land – Mason and Evie; the friend of one who puts his heart into this land – Jeremy. It’s the connection to the land I spent all of my childhood years and the occasional moments grabbed during my adult life.

There is so much to the life of the farmer, it’s a story that is not often heard by people in homes away from sheep dogs, chook pens and long hours on the harvester during crucial times. When the grain is ripe, weather is unpredictable and many dollars remain waiting in their upright golden state – in a dry paddock, roots in the soil, heads filled with grains reaching to the sun. These once flowering heads of wheat whose growth is forever equivalent to the water falling from the sky.

It’s the beginning of the story – way before your loaf of delicious bakery bread, with lamb chops and tomato chutney bought from the markets. That is just the end of the road. There is a great journey before this delicious meal shared with those you love.

What is it to be a farmer? To me it seems it is someone who is so connected to the land they are practically part of it. The farm is a molten state – where everyone present works together to achieve what one person never could. It’s a small community on a patch of land. It is every biscuit that is baked, lunch that is prepared, bale of hay that is lifted and placed with thoughtful intent of the future requirements, every rock picked, fence repaired and piece of wood chopped to ward off the chills of the evening sea breeze from the southern ocean. Every tree planted, and crop sown.

A farm is a microcosm within a wider farming community. A community where each person living within the town or on the land paves the life they choose. This life cannot be separated from the elements – for the life of the farming community and the weather are inextricably linked.

On a farm, all moments are filled with intention. To feed the ones you love. Be it immediate via lunch on the run, or at a longer time scale through the delivery of the grain to the bin, allowing the cycle to continue each and every year. Men and women working to shift the sheep, shear the sheep, go around lambing ewes to pull lambs stuck on their journey, to feed the sheep when lands are dry and grass is nowhere to be seen, to fence out dams when rain has not come and sheep are getting stuck in mud out of a desire to follow their thirst. It’s the relentless harassment of flies and unwelcome snakes in the vegetable garden. It’s the dust that blows in the hot northerly wind, the fires that blaze when the land is crisp. It’s the stormy clouds stood under longingly, gaze upwards – willing the moody grey skies to open up and deliver the deluge needed so dearly. Its a job of gritty and determined people.

Being a farmer is rising before the sun and finishing the day on dark. It’s the blooms attracting bees within the carefully tended garden amongst dry surrounds like an oasis in the desert. It’s the copious zucchini plants in the garden when little else survives the heat of the midday sun. It’s the sign of relief as the grain is delivered to the bin or the shearing cut out after the final fleece has been thrown. It is the dinner you eat that is solely grown on the land you stand. It is the community you are a part of, small in number, big in heart. It is the sunrises and sunsets over the land. It is the silent elation felt as this rain falls steady. It is the joy in seeing your young one’s totter behind a mob of sheep beside the sheep dogs who bound with unwavering enthusiasm.

The farmer – he or she is the person who thrives in open space and breathes the land each and every day. The farm is a community in itself – where every working part: biscuit baker, sand pit digger, tractor driver is integral.

Thinking this way it puts into context the fresh baked bread and lamb chops on the BBQ – what a journey to get to this point. All of a sudden each meal becomes the prized possession it is - luminous and immeasurable in value.