A new work horse!

No....not the four legged type.....the four wheel type.  When I first moved west to our Julia Creek property we only ever mustered with horses.  Life seemed to move slower back then.  To bring in a mob of cattle to the cattle yards took most of the day.  Morning tea and lunch was packed into the smoko vehicle with a thermos of tea for smoko and when my father-in-law mustered with us, a stubby of beer with lunch! Ahh....those were the days.
Things started to speed up almost without us knowing it.  Mustering became expensive.  We went from paying $50/day for a contract musterer to $300/day.  Consequently the muster started speeding up. No-one wanted to pay extra dollars mustering cattle that were barely covering their cost of carry.  Motorbikes (and later quad bikes) became more prevalent.  The motorbike rider could cover a lot of country in just a quarter of the time that a horseman could.  These days we almost exclusively muster with bikes.
On our little property here are Julatten the quad bike is used constantly for mustering, weed spraying, gardening, fencing....you name it.  Philip got himself well and truly bogged last week and in the effort to extradite himself from the bog hole he "blew up" the diff on the quad.  We debated whether to pay the $$$'s to fix it or just buy a new one.  The quad is almost eight years old so it was a no brainer.
So, we are now the proud owners of this beauty.

It is an ATV (All Terrain Vehicle) that can carry an extra passenger and it also has a small tipper tray that the gardener will love!  We probably should have had one of these years ago but they have been somewhat pricey.  However, thanks to the Federal Government immediate write off of up to $20,000 for business use assets purchase, it has become affordable.

My camera and I went mustering with Philip this morning.  It was great.  We chatted about various farm matters as we drove along and then identified all the new mothers and calves.  All our stud cows are numbered and we jot down the cows number and whether the calf she has given birth to is male or female.  This makes it a lot easier when the time comes to tag the calves.  

We have three mobs of cattle at present, cows and calves, males (bulls and steers) and the young female mob.  We had to move all three mobs today.

Cow and calf Mob

Cows and calves

Some nice steers here for the butcher market

The boys

The girls

Lily came along for the ride but really she doesn't enjoy it much anymore.  Arthritis is really taking hold of our poor old girl.  All those years of faithful service have taken their toll.  

We stopped in Swamp Paddock so that I could get some photos of the birdlife but not a bird to be seen! Ah well......maybe next time.