[woofa.express]

Rick could SNORE. Continued.

Yes I will come to Rick’s snoring, maybe tomorrow. In the interim I’ll tell you plenty about farmers and farming. I know Katy (contributor on this forum) is a farmer and maybe other readers of this forum too. For those of you who aren’t let me usefully inform you about those who grow our food.
In Australia 80% of our population live within 50 miles of our coast line, mostly in state capital cities and another 15% live in regional’s and again mostly fairly close to the coast. Few live inland but there are about12 fairly large regional’s here, the likes of Dubbo or Toowoomba for example. That leaves only a few who farm or graze or live in small country towns who mostly service these industries on the land. Even the mining industry employees fly in for a short period and fly home to be rotated by another crew.
The rift between the urban people and country people is widening. This is a shame. Few urban people know country people and have no connection to the land but have expectations of continuous food supply. Food producers are price takers in what is often a competitive market. Our governments like these people because they provide cheap food. They need not give them any icecream for they never vote Labor and can’t be bought but vote Liberal (silly but that is our conservative party) so icecream is not necessary.
Rick has two dogs. Ruff, a Blue Healer and Poly, a Boarder Collie crossed with a Kelpie. I had two hired pilots for our rice season. Both very experienced high time fellows by the names of David and Duane. To work for Rick was almost a converted job because these two dogs were so entertaining. Ruff would try to catch the aeroplane. He’d run and launch himself off a check bank and reach quite a considerable height. It was necessary to fly a bit higher to avoid hitting him. One day I wasn’t able to see him but then I caught a glimpse of his snout and eyes. He was under water and then he launched himself. I remember the water streaming off him like pictures I’ve seen of a missile being launched from an underwater submarine.
Now Polly would run around in tight circles simular to a dog endeavouring to catch it’s tail. Round and around, even in a small confined area such as the tray on a ute that could be littered with farm gear such as fencing tools and equipment. Round and around. Rick thought she did it because the noise hurt it’s ears but I did see Rick encouraging it to do so anyway.
If any of us had worked for Rick that day, the first conversation when we returned home would be about the behaviour of Ruff and Poly.
Photo of Rick, of my Blue healer and her pups and from the internet a picture of a Kelpie dog.