Bryant's Plain 4

To finish of this series of Fosters Farm Photos a few random shots.

Relative size is important to get perspective, Rex is 6'3" tall, just not
quite as tall as the 8 tyres on this tractor.

I chose a rear view instead of the more normal front view, as it
seemed to show the huge size of the 9250 (model number)

This one shows the house much clearer than the long shot.

Daniel's wife Jana, about to start her shift on the chaser bin, Jana had never
really been close to a tractor 6 months before this, she became an important
team member during the harvest, note the cooler bag with her water bottles
and her "smoko" snack food, the work shifts vary from 6 to 12 hours at this
time, dependant on what job you have and prevailing conditions.

Getting the wool clip away, a good load there to make up for the
frustrations that sheep can cause during the year.

Bryants Plain 3

Farming at Wudinna SA is a full time job for the Foster clan.

Because their farmland is on very sandy soil, complete with
sand dunes, and there is quite a lot of limestone scattered
through it, they use stone rollers to break up the rocks.

These huge ribbed rollers weigh in at 25 tons each and
crush the limestone quite effectively.

Vicki has her arms full with Timmy and Tammy, do other
countries have Tim Tam chocolate biscuits? that's where
these two Maltese Terriers got their names.

They are standing in a crop of Canola, while wheat is by
far their main crop they also grow Canola, Barley, and
Peas, as well as running sheep.

Matthew is the oldest of their kids, he is shown here
indicating the height of a previous Canola crop.

The view from the house is over these paddocks briefly
green, but normally dry, whether in crop or standing
fallow.

Bryants Plain 2.

This photo is almost 30 years old, things have certainly changed around
Bryants Plain in that time.

This was the Massey Header that Fosters Farm used back in the day, this
shot is almost historical now.

Note the FULL air conditioning, if you look closely you will see over Vicki's
shoulder a collapsed sun umbrella, when opened up this offered a small
degree of shade for the operator.

At this time Rex suffered badly from asthma, after a couple of weeks out
amongst the dust and debris he would be a cot case.

This is the modern day equivilant, fully air conditioned header and tractor
transfering grain, "on the move" into a chaser bin.

The "comb" at the front of the header is about 3 times the width of the old
Massey, and the controls inside would rival a 747s cockpit.

This is the air seeder of today about 50 feet wide and capable of precision
delivery of both seed and super through its 100 odd tynes.

Bulk grain storage has become necessary now, as the grain is removed
quicker than it can be delivered into the local silos, so while there are
deliveries at all possible times the residue is stored here until it can be
delivered to the silos.

In earlier times this was the seed and super unit to plant the crop, again less
than one third of the width of the new unit.

Bryants Plain

Some of the action at Bryants Plain, I had hoped that Vicki might have posted
some of the farming action by now, bit I'm thinking she may never get around
to it so I'll put some into peters pictures.

Seeding in 2005, as you can see they use pretty big equipment over there.

Weed spraying is an ever increasing cost in farming now-a-days, it's all
hooked up to GPS to avoid double spraying of areas.

I love the contours in this photo, please enlarge it for full effect.

Sorry this photo is a bit dark, but I couldn't find a better one with the
padock green and the house in the background. (looks better enlarged.)

This is the rear view of the tractor/air-seeder working.