Bigger ‘n’ BEEF

Once upon a time, there were two Aussie farmers who decided to go to the biggest Beef Expo in the southern hemisphere…

Look at them… don’t they look fresh and optimistic and energetic?

They had, of course, possibly gotten a little carried away with their plans and ambitions for said event… Beef Australia 2018.

For a start, this couple decided to take with them 15 bovines, requiring not ONLY the use of masses of portable panels (which they carted the 300km from home themselves), but ALSO to BUILD two ironbark mini-yards from scratch.

And when I say ‘we’… I mean HIM (of course)…

That is home-grown timber from our place, milled by our yard-builder, carted and then dug a metre into the ground (and yes, exhaustive checks were done to ensure no electrical/water/sewerage/telephone services were risked).  Those posts weigh like lead – lugged into place single-handedly by my hubs.  These pens were slaved over for two full days (with maximum sweat, endless measuring and not TOO many swear words invested).  My invaluable contribution was sanding the timber to prevent splinters in visiting hands…

After digging three holes by HAND, Mr Incredible decided to hire a dingo (little multipurpose machine) to assist.  Best decision ever.  Because not only did it have to dig the five remaining holes…

It also had to shift 24 cubic metres of sawdust!! Praise the Lord for dingos and for teenage boys (Dash and mates, helping to spread a mini-mountain of sawdust!)

By Day 3 we were ready for the arrival of our bulls and heifers… the calm before the storm, you might say.

Well, less of a storm and more of a steady, beautiful avalanche of black bovines…

‘Memphis’ arrived … as you might be able to tell from his ‘gaze into the distance’ and ‘owning the joint’ pose, he pretty much thinks he’s Elvis. He seemed reasonably happy with his reception and paparazzi headshots…

Before heading into his own private den, complete with fresh sawdust, and endless supplies of fresh water and tucker.

It’s a tough life really…

Memphis has his own little rituals… one is ‘killing’ his food.

He’s more ‘hunter’ than ‘gatherer’… and very, very messy.

Violet’s favourite bull is ‘Moonshine’…

He’s HUGE (around 950 kg) and the gentlest beast ever…

For instance, in this photo Moonshine is actually snuggling up to Violet.  He doesn’t understand that almost a tonne of snuggle is sometimes a bit intimidating, especially to mothers of little humans…

It’s fair to say that Moonshine was THE most photographed animal on our site at ‘Beef Australia 2018’.

(As you will see as we progress through this hola-enormous wrap-up post!)

One of the first events of this week-long festival of all things bovine, is the Inter-Breed Tug-of-War.

It shows my complete lack of faith in the championship potential of our breed reps (Brangus) that I only had my mobile phone with me as we cheered on our guys… I did take video of the various ’rounds’ in this very serious* event for which months of training had been undertaken …

*italics = sarcasm font for remainder of this super-short post.

Everyone had to remove their shoes (imagine dozens and dozens of largish, lily-white feet, used to being in boots and likely quite ticklish) and don their freshly-printed breed t-shirts (thanks Limestone Clothing!).

Our guys shocked some much-fancied rivals: the Droughtmaster team had some VERY sturdy lads and were reigning champs, the formidable Angus crew went down and then… we faced off with the BRAHMAN team in the FINAL…

Please excuse the ‘narrator’ screaming ‘GO BRANGUS’ in this clip. And the poor camerawork.  I may have had my attention elsewhere… in my defence, there was some major trash-talking going on from our Brahman counterparts in the crowd.  Something about ‘You’d be nothing without us!’ – an extremely clever jibe at the genetic roots of our breed.

You can see how I might have become a little invested in seeing them enjoying the same fate as the Angus team? Boom-boom! 

Heh.

The GRINNING WINNERS and new reigning Interbreed Tug-of-War champs…

Some tall boys (even Mr I looks short – third from left with a couple of 6’4″ blokes) and one fierce little female.  Enjoying a VERY good start to the week!

Next morning it was GATES OPEN…

And a deluge of school kids ALL wanting to ‘pat a bull’.  We herded them Moonshine’s way wherever possible…

Violet was VERY happy to play hostess with her giant black ‘pet’.

He made friends with the littlest of visitors… what a gorgeous bomb-proof character!

We also played host to a couple of Aussie cricket legends – Jimmy Maher (left in white shirt) and Andrew Symonds (right in green shirt) which was super-cool.

One of Dash’s mates who was helping us is a mad cricketer and fan (Hazza, in brown shirt) so this was undoubtedly the highlight for him! Dash is – as you know – a mad fisherman.  And as Andrew Symonds has had his own TV fishing show, he provided a double-whammy at our site.  (Extra points for those who recognised Andrew as ‘starter’ in the tug-of-war video).

But back to the BEEF.

Of course, the showing of hundreds of pampered bovines is a highlight of any Beef Australia event, so on Wednesday, we coaxed our crew into centre ring…

Some went more willingly than others…

I actually ended up with a microphone in my hand, instead of my Nikon. You can seem me doing my thing, behind Violet (above).  There was a mind-numbing lot to cover (each entry – with correct name and pronunciation – then winners and champions while remembering to introduce the judge for his comments on each class!). Frankly it was a bit nerve-wracking but I got through it without major incident.

I did miss my Nikon though and have had to scrounge these images from others…

Probably my favourite pic: Violet parading her charge, Bimbadeen Newcastle, for Judge David Greenup. Just so! (Thanks Kent Ward and Beef Australia for the shot)

And with a ribbon for her efforts, heading back to Dad!

Then back out again with her boy, Moonshine.

They looked quite the team!

And not forgetting our jillaroo and bull-prep specialist, Tesh.  Another ribbon to the haul…

But it was our ring-in Lachy … our ex-jackaroo, now bronc-rider about to head to Canada, who brought home a trophy for the team.

Bimbadeen Nashville taking out Reserve Champion Senior Bull.

Lachy mixing his look – show-ring game-face, Brangus show shirt, rodeo buckle and cowboy hat.

Adding some VERY cool hardware to our site…

And while I spent 95% of our week at our site talking to gazillions of people…

I did sneak out a couple of times for social events, eating …

… you guessed it…

…beautifully presented BEEF!

Nom-nom!

I also stumbled across these chicks, as we headed to watch the final of the Interbreed judging (like the grand final of the footy!)…

It’s Deb Frecklington, Leader of the Opposition here in Queensland.  She was interviewing my mate Georgie and then wrangled ME into an interview too!

Here is the result..

Well, its rare I am on the other side of a camera, but this was a case of right question, right place, right time… who knows if anyone is really listening? Time will tell.

All-in-all it was a HUGE week.

We talked beef, bulls and bovines generally for approximately eleventy thousand hours.  We did several zillion interviews with various media – Violet starred on 96FM, Mr I was on ABC Capricornia radio, and I ended up on ABC Drive Qld.

We stood while talking for around ninety-eight thousand hours (my feet are STILL recovering). The boys shovelled fifteen hundred and seven tonnes of sawdust, and nineteen hundred and three tonnes of poop.  Our team fed, watered, washed, brushed and buffed fifteen very pampered animals each day, every day.  I washed twenty-six thousand and nine shirts and one million pairs of jeans. OK. Half a million.

It was a MAMMOTH effort by all…

And we all felt like this for a WEEK afterwards.

The next Beef Australia event is scheduled for 2021.  My head hurts just thinking about it.

There is a saying about ‘Beef’: a year to plan, a year to prepare, a year to recover.  (Personally, I think it’s: a year to recover, a year to forget, ten months to plan, two months to panic!)

So will we line-up to be part of it again?

Damned straight.

And I will be ready to talk about it in 24 months time…

🙂