The second year at Yarrie
Host: Yarrie Station
Written by Ebony Hill – Stationhand, Yarrie Station
Once again I’m lucky enough to call Yarrie my home, for the second year in a row. 2017 has been a great year for me at Yarrie, I have learnt lots and many laughs have been shared.
2017 started off for me down at our farm, Tamangunyah, in Badgingarra, WA. I spent the summer there with one of my best mates Tara, who’s also working in the team. During my time at the farm, Annabelle sent Tara and me to a two-day welding course in Perth. Having never touched a welder it was a big learning curve for me. During the course, I learnt to weld on mig and stick welders, how to use an oxy cutter and I even tried my hand at sand blasting!
In April, Heath Stewart from Saltriver Horsemanship came out for a four-day horsemanship school at Yarrie. Pardoo Station also joined us, which was great – it gave us all an opportunity to meet our neighbours. I really enjoyed this clinic and found it awesome that Heath really focused on the ground work before starting the ridden work. This was also the time we got to start working with our young horses. Annabelle gave each of us a young horse to work with for the year, which was super exciting. I got a bay gelding named Dundajinda. Having Heath show us what he does with his young horses on the ground before he gets on was very valuable, it helped me so much with Dunda throughout the year. He taught us how to get them to step their forequarter and hindquarter off pressure, as well as their whole body.
We were lucky enough to get farrier John to come up from down south to teach us to shoe – something I’ve always wanted to learn how to do. John spent two days teaching and showing us the basics of shoeing. It was great to see how much everyone progressed in the two days. I found the whole shoeing process very interesting. One of the hardest things for me was to keep my hoof flat and not dish it out or make it all twisted. The first horse I ever shod took me two days to get shoes on, I can now shoe a horse in three to four hours, which I’m sure the horses are a lot more thankful for.
Amongst all that, we were also lucky enough to have Boyd Holden come up twice this year to do stockmanship schools with us. It’s amazing to see how quiet the weaners get after you tail them in a low stress manner. It makes processing them a lot quicker which is better for them, and better for us!
We also, once again, hosted the Pilbara Livestock Handing Cup. What an event! A full on two days of cattle fun. With 14 teams entered it sure kept us busy all day keeping the cattle up and getting cattle out of the yards. There were a lot of laughs shared and everyone was so encouraging of each other. (Ed. Note – there’s a blog on the Livestock Handling Cup coming up tomorrow!).
This year the Yarrie team also did something a little different. We made a calendar, but not just any calendar, the “2018 Yarrie Station Nudie calendar”. What started out as pants off Friday for two crew members, turned into the whole crew getting on board. All money raised from the calendars goes to the Trent McDonald fund. The calendars can be bought in the Iron Clad hotel, or by contacting me at ebbyhill21@gmail.com.
Thank you Yarrie and the crew for a fantastic year!!
Feeding out hay for our cattle down in Badgingarra.
I’ve been lucky to learn how to shoe this year, something I’ve always wanted to know how to do. Here’s Alana, Lauren, and I having a shoeing session while out at camp.
We all got a young horse at the start of the year. I got the bay gelding Dundajinda that has turned into a great horse.
Early in the year, Annabelle sent Tara and me to a welding course in Perth. Always handy learning new things, and I’ve been able to do a little bit of welding through the season.
Before mustering kicked off, we enjoyed days off by the river with the horses.
Out mustering on one of my main horses, Oman.