Farmers breathe a sigh of relief

BY JOHN MCLAURIN

 

BARMEDMAN farmers Geoff and Michelle Bush breathed a sigh of relief last month when half an inch of rain fell on their property. It followed a very long dry spell.

“Before that bit of rain came I was pretty worried that’s for sure,” Mr Bush said.

Alarm bells started to ring for he and his family during Winter this year. It came complete with the largest frost ever recorded on August 28 and was magnified because of a drier than usual Autumn period. With virtually no downpour to speak of in the early part of Spring and the warmest September recorded, the problem was only further compounded.

One of the things that gets them through in times like this, is working as a family unit. They diversify their income by combining crops, livestock, and driving stock transport. Keeping them busy, they also have a fertiliser, lime and gypsum spreading business.

The family are committed Christians and say they often lean on their Catholic faith during rocky times. “It is a very important part of our lives,” Mr Bush an acolyte of 32 years at St Joseph’s Barmedman said. He and his three siblings all went to St Anne’s Central School at Temora, about 45 kilometres from the farm. The couple’s five children were also educated there. And next year they will have five of their eight grandchildren at St Anne’s, thus making it three generations to attend the same school.
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Farmers Prayer to Saint Joseph

O glorious St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, you did provide for the Holy Family.
We commit to your protection all our crops and farm industries.
We beseech you, to intercede in our behalf with Almighty God,
Who rules the seasons, so that our fields being safe from pests and favoured by the weather
may yield abundant crops that will allow us to supply the wants of life.
Freed from earthly worries may we after your example apply all our thoughts to eternal life.
We beseech you to instill a love of the land into the hearts of our youth
for their own salvation and that of Christian unity
so that we may all share hereafter in the same blissful life you enjoy in heaven.
Amen.