The drive and capacity to learn stuff........not everybody has it. Grew up in non mechanical household. Poor college kid with beater car...........I learned rather quickly.
Then came the Jeeps, lift kits, engine and transmission changes etc. Good times. Learned a lot, had fun too.
Too old to do that stuff anymore. Even lesser jobs.........'bout killed me just getting dang power steering pulley on new pump yesterday.
I don't think it's a city/rural thing either. I grew up in a city, and that didn't hold me back. OTOH, I can think of several individuals that I know were raised rural, by rural raised parents, who can't deal with simple mechanical or electrical tasks. Heck - farmers around here are famous for parking things instead of fixing them anyway.
Actually FM, it is a rare cocky that will fix anything, especially gates.
Cocky = white bird that sits in middle of paddock and squarks.
Originally Posted by JSTUART
Originally Posted by FreeMe
I don't think it's a city/rural thing either. I grew up in a city, and that didn't hold me back. OTOH, I can think of several individuals that I know were raised rural, by rural raised parents, who can't deal with simple mechanical or electrical tasks. Heck - farmers around here are famous for parking things instead of fixing them anyway.
Actually FM, it is a rare cocky that will fix anything, especially gates.
Cocky = white bird that sits in middle of paddock and squarks.
You need to hang around a better class of cockeys.
Kids with hot cars, lifted 4x4............playing on iphones. Can't run machines at work, or fix their rides. Posers. Chicks like a fake dude (evidently). Politically, moderates or democrats............they are. Fuggin morons.
Bad thing, even some guys middle aged, worked in plant forever..............still clueless on their cars/trucks. One guy asked to come over, his truck acting funny. Driveshaft about to fall off, wheel bearing totally shot on one side, bad on other. Drove it like that for a couple weeks.............lucky bastid it didn't fail or tear up other.
Bet his radio and outlet for phone charger worked.....or he'd have parked it.
My brother's step son is one of these. The kid is real smart. Flew through college and popped out getting a job at a large financial firm. I think he started off making about $70K. I'd be surprised if he even knows how to put gas in the car. I know for a fact that he doesn't even know how to check his oil. My brother said so.
His parents got divorced when the kids were little and the father is a pansy too. So the kids were basically raised by the mother (my brother's wife). He can't check his own oil, but he can tell you what the newest fashion of men's clothing is.
"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." Ronald Reagan
I don't think it's a city/rural thing either. I grew up in a city, and that didn't hold me back. OTOH, I can think of several individuals that I know were raised rural, by rural raised parents, who can't deal with simple mechanical or electrical tasks. Heck - farmers around here are famous for parking things instead of fixing them anyway.
Actually FM, it is a rare cocky that will fix anything, especially gates.
Cocky = white bird that sits in middle of paddock and squarks.
Originally Posted by JSTUART
Originally Posted by FreeMe
I don't think it's a city/rural thing either. I grew up in a city, and that didn't hold me back. OTOH, I can think of several individuals that I know were raised rural, by rural raised parents, who can't deal with simple mechanical or electrical tasks. Heck - farmers around here are famous for parking things instead of fixing them anyway.
Actually FM, it is a rare cocky that will fix anything, especially gates.
Cocky = white bird that sits in middle of paddock and squarks.
You need to hang around a better class of cockeys.
The acceptance of men driving Subarus, needing a shave 3 days ago, tattoos and piercings, and baby changing tables in men's rooms is not a good sign of what has happened to the American male.
Originally Posted by RJY66
I was thinking the other day how much I used to hate Bill Clinton. He was freaking George Washington compared to what they are now.
Ha! I thought you were trying to make a joke.....anyway I suppose its in the neighborhood of 8500 acres.
Fair enough...a small block here is around 30 000 acres, a large one is 70-100 000, a big one is 200 000, and a big one north/west of here is around 500 000, bloody really big ones up north are well over that.
A lot of fencing and gates to keep up, especially since most are dry-land farming with some small irrigation...mostly on dry arid country that is for most seasons barely tenable.
South of here the farms are much better land and much smaller, and more intensive.
Generally speaking.
The small block where I will be cutting firewood on Saturday is just over 30 000 acres and the farmer's son runs that by himself. when I shot 'roos for a living I had the run of over 30 properties, most of which were run by just the farmer with no permanent staff.
I would bet London to a brick that your country is far nicer and more productive than most small blocks here...the local cotton blocks deal in serious coin, as do the feedlots, but most others are one man shows.
Not big. You could walk across it in three or four days.
It is your property so if you wish to be cute about it then it is your right.
Caught me off guard. Might be a cultural thing, we dont ask each other that question.
I noticed from my time spent in New Zealand that the topic of "how big is your station" came up quite often.
No insult intended, my immediate family has had three properties, one in Victoria, one in NSW, and one in Queensland...none in this generation (including myself) have any desire to own or work land.
A couple years ago we were reading about the largest cattle ranch in Australia. It was for sale at the time so of course we all looked at it.
It was a lot cheaper than we had expected, so we looked a little closer. Turns out that the big ranch in Florida ran more stock units than the behemoth in Australia.
The acres required to summer one pair was astounding.
My father in law spent a lot of time in his youth mining up in the Territories and farming over in the West. I like to hear him talk about the sheer scale of everything, and the remoteness.
He has 1000 acres in New Zealand and it is a pretty sizable operation for his area. At one time he ran 5000 sheep and put up his own feed on those 1000 acres. Just himself and a helper.
My area is not as productive as that, but much more productive than some areas in Australia it sounds like.
A couple years ago we were reading about the largest cattle ranch in Australia. It was for sale at the time so of course we all looked at it.
It was a lot cheaper than we had expected, so we looked a little closer. Turns out that the big ranch in Florida ran more stock units than the behemoth in Australia.
The acres required to summer one pair was astounding.
My father in law spent a lot of time in his youth mining up in the Territories and farming over in the West. I like to hear him talk about the sheer scale of everything, and the remoteness.
He has 1000 acres in New Zealand and it is a pretty sizable operation for his area. At one time he ran 5000 sheep and put up his own feed on those 1000 acres. Just himself and a helper.
My area is not as productive as that, but much more productive than some areas in Australia it sounds like.
My outfit would be considered mid sized up here.
A thousand acres in NZ is like winning lotto...here it is barely a holding paddock for the shearing shed.
To put it in perspective Uardry (local) when it was owned by the Black family holdings and run by Chris Bowman was somewhere around 70 000 acres and ran over 20 000 sheep and some cattle and irrigation (rice etc).
Chris is a very good operator and a heck of a fellow to deal with, and more to the point his word is absolute gold which brings a lot of business to any enterprise.
