Blazaide - rebuilding fences one star picket at a time

[weeds]

Just spend our first day volunteering with Blazaide.

We’re are at the Nymboida Camp for four days.....

Driving in last night opened our eyes....

Driving my to the property open our eyes even more, eyes weld up a bit

Talking to the farmer, blew us away, he stayed to defend and I dunno how he survived, him and his mates saved the house but lost four shed and nearly all equipment. Sadly underinsured, more so didn’t understand ‘rural package’ insurance. He now wishes he let the house burn and saved the shed and stock yard. He took us through how quickly the fire got into them......had to believe unless you were there.

Anyways,
- I know know how they get fences so straight
- we knocked over 520m today, 130 star pickets over five sections, 7km of fencing still to go on this property.
- Honda driven star picket driver are a god send
- barb wire catches onto everything
- 7:30am to 2:30 pm and we were rooted
- our team leader is retired, he has been doing it for two months and we struggled to keep up, it was supposed to be only him and one other lady, he was so glad we turned up.
- Blazaid buy every thing local, wire, food, ice, don’t listen to the report Blazaid are doing contractor out of work, Farmers need fences, their ain’t enough contractors.

We have committed to four full days, we move into the hills tomorrow which will slow us up.

The farmer and his daughter don’t smile or interact much, they are busting their arses getting the strainer posts in for us. They were at it before we arrived and we still st it when we left.

So glad I brought the family, didn’t expect to spend a a week of our annual leave l, sweating our arses off building fences, it was hot and we’ve been blowing black Shit out of our noses for the last two hour. The three of us went through 12L of water today.

We’ll be sore tomorrow but will back up without complaint

The bride may get a couple  of piece of ironbark for home.......



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[Champin]

Good on ya Weeds. That's true Aussie spirit right there. I've done a bit of rural fencing and know what a back breaking job it is. Makes you feel good when you do something like that for a total stranger for no other reason than to help someone in need. Again....good work Weeds

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[Hairs]

That's awesome Weeds.

[xcvator]

 

[Marcus73]

Awesome effort


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[Paddler Ed]

I've got a suspicion on Saturday I'll be finding out when I need to help find the external boundaries again... THEN we can re-do the fences (internally isn't not as big drama, but the external needs to be accurate. Looks like at least 8.5km for the perimeter fences, but I think the surveyors pegs have gone, so I've got re-find those... got the MapInfo file and converted it to KMZ for the boundary, so we're getting somewhere...

Well done Weeds!

[alnjan]

Well done Weeds. 

Paddler always hard to find the boundary.  Seems anytime a neighbour gets surveyors in the is a new corner peg.   We have a copy or maybe original surveyors plan from when my Grandfather got the property.  All the major corners were described from the closest tree.   Not very handy now. 

[ivan]

I have done it before and will go again at Braidwood or if they start up down south coast in next couple of weeks.Its even more fun when you talk mates into coming but don't tell them they have to work.

[Foo]

 

Foo

[Rowlie]

Good on you Weeds. It is life changing stuff isn't it? I did a month or so last year and although I had experience in rural fencing I learned a lot. Hope you appreciate that you are doing as much for the farmer's mental health as you are for his fences. I also noticed they weren't saying much early on but they opened up after a while and even wanted a yarn. Its hard yakka but I can't ever remember a beer tasting so good at the end of a day.

Rowlie

[Bird]

Like others we've done it few times in the past... the appreciation from the families and land owners is worth everything.
Our club will be involved again...

Easy to get involved too
https://blazeaid.com.au/volunteering-information/being-a-blazeaid-volunteer/

[Traveller]

Like others we've done it few times in the past... the appreciation from the families and land owners is worth everything.
Our club will be involved again...

We are with you Bird, the missus and I have volunteered both with our club and by ourselves for a few years now. Can't believe the satisfaction you get out of helping put these great people back one their feet. The one thing that I always find touching is that the people you are helping cannot believe that total strangers are on their property helping them out, for some reason it seems to takes them a while to get used to it. I suppose that people on the land are usually fairly independent, but we have seen some that are about to throw it all in because the scale is just too much for them, but then quickly come around when they see the fences coming along.

Good on you Weeds, hang in there and enjoy the experience.

[simmo_33]

Weeds thanks for posting about your experience. Apart from money, me and the missus have been trying to find a meaningful way to contribute in some way.
You have just found it for us, we will be on our way down to South Australia in a week or so.  We will try and spend an extra week on our way down to help where we can.

Rod

[Beachman]

Fantastic effort and thanks for sharing your good deeds 

[KeithB]

Denise and I have been wanting to make a donation to support the fire recovery in rural areas. I did a search on what charities were at work and got the various rural fire services plus the usual major charities. But no mention of Blazaide anywhere.

I reckon there will be rivers of money going to the others. So we sent our donation to Blazaide who are currently running ten camps for drought relief and are already organising recovery activity in Kangaroo Island. Any Swaggers who want to donate could do a lot worse.

Keith

[Bird]

Denise and I have been wanting to make a donation to support the fire recovery in rural areas. I did a search on what charities were at work and got the various rural fire services plus the usual major charities. But no mention of Blazaide anywhere.

I was going to start a thread on this with a list of charities and what they were asking for...
When you google, many hits have a different list of charities..

[weeds]

Weeds thanks for posting about your experience. Apart from money, me and the missus have been trying to find a meaningful way to contribute in some way.
You have just found it for us, we will be on our way down to South Australia in a week or so.  We will try and spend an extra week on our way down to help where we can.

Rod

We donate regularly to causes as they arise, this time we figured to be hands on with the knowing that 100% of our effort, time,money is going into a fence.


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[Fizzie]

& from another forum, watch out, as the scammers collecting for this town or that are already apparently appearing

[weeds]

Good on you Weeds. It is life changing stuff isn't it? I did a month or so last year and although I had experience in rural fencing I learned a lot. Hope you appreciate that you are doing as much for the farmer's mental health as you are for his fences. I also noticed they weren't saying much early on but they opened up after a while and even wanted a yarn. Its hard yakka but I can't ever remember a beer tasting so good at the end of a day.

Rowlie

Agree, yesterday the daughter of the property late teens didn’t utter a work...today she opened up a bit more.


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[weeds]

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[wetduck]

nice job, well done.

The thing I like about fencing is that you can look down the fenceline when it's done with a sense of pride and achievement.

[weeds]

nice job, well done.

The thing I like about fencing is that you can look down the fenceline when it's done with a sense of pride and achievement.

Yep.....and the farmer got 100% of what I donated.


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[weeds]

Well I committed to four days and finished up today, the bride and youngest son did three days

We were allocated the same property for the four days

Day 1 was awesome, the team leader took time to explain/show and give your the reins and we punched out plenty of meters

Day 2 and 3 different team leader with a different approach, we went with the flow but didn’t think we were overly effective or utilized. I did observe and learn some new tricks from a local that popped in to give a hand. Stripping wire didn’t sound like the best job when allocated but worked out quite well.

Day 4 ran out of posts at allocated property by 9:30, the rest of the team knocked off so I went to another property and continued for another four hours and learnt another skill or two..

Overall a great experience, coming from a fast paced days to day job it takes a little to adjust, actually I probably didn’t this well as I was a bit cranky on day 3.

6:30am Hot cooked breakfast provided
7:00am muster/safety briefing and team allocation, oh they supply lunch which you make and they have an esky, we opted to take our own lunch in the car fridge
7:30 ish at the property
2:30pm ish knock off
6:30pm dinner supplied.

Catering was spot on, plenty of food.

Retirees are quick to tell you of the benefits over and above helping a farmer out....three meals a day and free powered site and at some camps dogs are allowed, these guys are the backbone of Blazeaid and they hook in each day.

Each camp needs a number of volunteers before it can be established and take on fences volunteers, Co-ordinator, cook, admin.

It must be tough at times dealing with requests from property owners and deciding who gets support, hats off to the camp co-ordinators

Sadly >90% of properties are under insured i.e. no fence insurance. In most cases the farmer need to supply posts and wire.....a lot are not in a position to do this.

I used annual leave as I wanted the experience and it was in place if a cash donation. While I don’t think I take annual leave again I will donate money to Blazeaid in the future and if the timing is right relocate trailers for them.

I learnt some new skills
Assist with around 1km of fencing
Donated gloves, cutters and vests


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[Foo]

Good on you. 

Foo

[Rowlie]

Well done Weeds and to your wife and son also. I empathise with some of the frustrations ie running out of materials. I was a team leader (didn't step back quick enough) and it was sometimes hard to keep morale up when farmers didn't arrive on site when we did or had expectations that were different to our offerings. It was a matter of management on the run sometimes but in my experience thats just how it is in volunteer organisations.
Historically farmers have considered insurance on fencing as a low priority. Their approach in my experience was along the lines of "I'll never lose it all". I can absolutely assure them that insurers aren't making much - if anything - out of farm insurance and certainly not out of fencing premiums. The whole principle of insurance is the many paying for the few. If the "many" don't pay enough to cover the "few" the cover will ultimately disappear. There is much talk about premiums going up after these events but I am more concerned that some insurers might cease to offer protection in some cases. This has already happened in northern Australia because of cyclones / floods etc.

Rowlie