THE PEOPLE WHO PUT THEIR HAND UP

The couple from a thousand kilometres

Someone threw them a jumper at footy training, and they pulled it on and went out with the others for the first drill of the night.

They had been at that training every week since they arrived, and they had come a thousand kilometres to sharefarm a farm in this district.

This is an illustration of how it could unfold when it goes right. The district and the people in it aren't any one place or person.

They aren't the couple who farm the first place, and that couple are two farm workers who took the step and who are still there milking.

This couple came later, to sharefarm the farm a group of next generation farmers had bought together, and they don't own it.

The next generation farmers own this farm, and this couple sharefarm it. They do the milking, and they don't own it.

Each of them is an aspiring farmer, here to do the work, and the dairy was what they had come for.

On the first morning the owners walked them through the dairy, showed the order of the cups and the vat, and then left that work with them.

The next generation farmer who had gathered the others came past when he was asked, and he left the cups with the people doing the milking.

The first weeks were the dairy before dawn and sleep straight after, and the club was where the district started to know their faces.

By the end of the first week this couple could run the cups without the owners in the pit.

After the last cow they washed the vat and turned the shed lights off, and that was the morning done.

Before training they had already done a milking, and the boots they wore at the ground were the boots from that shed.

People at training asked which farm they were on, and after that the talk was the cows, the track, and who was playing where.

A neighbour at the dairy knew their names from the club, and the talk with him was the weather, the track and the morning's milk.

A player from that same dairy asked if they would be there every week, and the next week that player looked for them at the gate.

One night a cow calved late and they reached training after the start, and the group had held their places and passed them the cones.

Mud from the shed was still on their boots at the edge of the track, and the drill went on with them in it.

A parent on the boundary asked one of them to help with the juniors, and the yes was given before the bags were in the car.

The juniors learned one drill and then ran it, and the parent who had asked stayed on the boundary to watch them finish.

By the middle of the season the juniors knew which voice to listen for, and one of them could start a drill without being asked.

By the end of the season one of them was coaching the juniors, and the drills were theirs to run while the juniors listened.

The other one packed up with the parents along the fence, and then the two of them drove for the night check on the cows.

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