Des' love for the farm life
“I love my cattle and it is such a great way of life,” says Des Redmond out on his 200-acre property south of Orange.
“Getting up in the morning, coming out here looking at these blokes,” he says gesturing to the young black steers trotting up to his farm buggy. “I have a yarn to them and nothing can beat it in my book. It might sound silly to some people, but no, I just love it.”
It was cattle that brought Des Orange more than 50 years ago. Born in Laidley, west of Ipswich, Des finished school in Brisbane and went to work for meat and pastoral giant T.A. Field.
“I was in Rockhampton with T.A. Field and they transferred me down here. They owned a meat works here in Orange and I looked after the export meats for them,” said Des, who still clearly remembers the climate shock of moving here just in time for winter.
“We came down on the 5th of May ‘68 and never stopped snowing and sleeting for six weeks! It blew the socks off me! Bloody freezing! It took me a while to acclimatise and now I wouldn't leave it.”
It wasn’t long after arriving here that Des decided to buy a place of his own and give grazing a go.
“That would be 50 years ago and I’ve never looked back. Smartest thing I ever did,” he says. “I was 20-odd years with Tom Field they were very good people to work for, marvellous, but then I bought this place and thought I’d give it a crack.”
Not that there wasn’t a steep learning curve for Des in those early years, who insisted on acknowledging the help that Herb Nunn, Beau Taylor and Len Buttle gave him as he found his way in the farming game.
“They were marvellous to me and taught me a heck of a lot over the years and if I needed any advice, they were there to give it.”
As I talk to Des, his mob of fat, young steers are feeding on oats and the paddocks stretching towards the slopes of mount Canobolas are thick with green pasture — a welcome sight after such a long period of drought.
“This was the worst I’ve seen of course, and we weren’t as badly off as these poor beggars out west,” he says. “Orange has always been a very safe area, and always recognised as such, but of late we just don't get the rain like we used to and I guess a lot of places are the same.
“We used to get storms come across from Canobolas mountain there and they'd come straight across, but these days they split and go left and right, it is amazing the change.”
During the drought, the two creeks on Des’ property had stopped running for over 12 months, the first time that had ever happened in his experience.
“They may just run back to a trickle, that's all, but I've never seen them stop running, it's amazing,” he says. “But they are going alright now. After that last bit of rain we had they are starting to move again, which is great to see.”
These days, Des only runs steers on his place as he finds them easier to handle.
“I'm getting older of course and I can’t do what I use to do. Naturally, at 86 you steady up a bit!” he says as one of the steer curiously nudges it’s head inside the buggy door.
“Who's this coming over? A3, he's a pest,” Des laughs, referring to the steer’s eartag. “But they are lovely and quiet and that's how I love cattle. I can’t have those wild buggers about. I'm getting too old to chase them.
“And Dougal's not much help to me anymore, are you mate?” he says to the small terrier on his lap.
“It is a big enough job looking after the place, but as I say I still love my cattle and it is a great way of life. I just love all this sort of thing and getting to saleyards and talking to people, finding out what's going on in the area, it is great and I think I am very lucky, very lucky indeed.”