was signalled by a hillock of soil building up in front of the machine and a deep channel laid in the earth behind. The required
response was to whack the tractor into neutral, raise the discs and hop out to kick the rock out with your boots. Sometimes it
was necessary to scrabble around in the dirt with your hands.
Every few hours the bins in the culti-trash needed refilling and Bill drove the truck where the two tractors could be serviced.
Two tin-clad conveyer belts run by an old motor worked to carry the seed and the fertiliser from the side of the truck into the
culti bins via an auger with a detachable, flexible trunk. The engine attached to the field bin was pull-started and grain and/
or fertiliser was sprayed into the culti bins amid lots of shouting over the noise of the truck, tractor and petrol engine, with
clambering up and down off the back of the culti and plenty of spillages. It was not unusual to be showered with fertiliser and
grain or to cop lungfuls of dust.
By the end of a day, both tractors needed a drink of diesel, which was administered out of a 44-gallon drum from the back of a
trailer that sat out in the field with the truck while the tractors worked.
Many farmers were seeding round the clock to take advantage of the perfect confluence of conditions created by rain and sun,
but at Yanget the paddocks were too tricky to go for broke, so the work kept mostly to daylight hours.
SEEDING THE SPELT
One day in late May Bill told me to clean the last of the wheat grain out of the bin on the culti-trash, so the following morning
we could load up with spelt and seed the seven-odd hectares I had ploughed the day before. I was delighted. Before the
tractors and truck were driven to the other side of the property to put in the last few hundred acres of oats and wheat, I was
to have my day in the paddock. I drove the rig to the nearest piece of flat land and spent an hour bucketing and sweeping the
culti-trash free of grain in preparation for spelt.
Next morning I was back early, determined to sow some spelt. The day’s work began with Bill backing the tractor I was to use
up to the loading pad of the grain shed and Rod firing up the bobcat, using the bucket to convey loads of spelt grain from the
haul bag to the culti bin.
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