In the 6-7 years I’ve been farming, one important lesson I’ve learnt is that the time spent planning a task is more than repaid – by the task taking less time, with less chance of things going wrong. In the not-so-good old days, Sharon – my sharefarmer, friend and neighbour – and I didn’t plan much. And we paid the penalty, with Sharon frequently frustrated, and me upset by her frustration. But over the years we’ve both become wiser, so nowadays we plan more, with the result that we’re much calmer because chores are quicker and only rarely go awry. But in farming, as in all human endeavour, the outcome’s not always optimal – sometimes for reasons within our control, and other times not. And so it was last Sunday when the Mole Creek and Chudleigh Fire Brigades went to do a hazard reduction burn of about six acres of head-high blackberry near Mersey Hill Road [1]. With two appliances and a dozen well trained and equipped fire-fighters, we planned our burnoff tactics carefully. But try as we did, using all the tricks we knew, we couldn’t get any fires going – the blackberry was too damp and green, and there was no breeze to fan the flames. We gave it our best shot, and we failed. But we didn’t get frustrated or upset. After a nice barbecue lunch, we packed up and left. We didn’t take it personally. Conditions were agin us. As they sometimes are. That’s all.
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