Chapter 10 - Fences, Fur and Freedom

Now we have goats, chickens and dogs, it’s time to look into the next keystone of farming work. Fence building. Surely, this one can’t be too difficult. There are already a number of fences around the property. And almost all of them are falling down…

Maybe the prior owner of this property wasn’t the best at building fences. Considering I can walk over most of them and my tractor keeps finding the fence ties all throughout the farm (three flat tyres for anyone counting), surely I can make it a bit sturdier and cleaner looking, right?

So far my dogs have escaped multiple times, the goats as well. They just walk over the fence, so I understand the importance of tightening it now. The chickens are not too bright and don’t wander far from the chicken tractor so they don’t count as runaways. As a matter of fact, if they keep ripping up my gardens, I will make sure they stay on the outside of our fences. I hope.

John & Deere: The World’s Fussiest Goats

Leave it to me to get the fussiest goats in the world. I was warned prior that they will eat everything in their path and are great escape artists. One of these two things is true. Guess which one. Here is a hint. I still have a tonne of grass and weeds everywhere.

Looks like my run of bad lawn mower luck is not improving at all. Their first job was to eat the weeds in their enclosure. Then move onto the chicken enclosure and smash all the pumpkin and weeds from there. So far, they don’t eat weeds in their enclosure and turn their nose up at pumpkin plants, pumpkin seeds and pumpkin itself.

But they can find a hole in the fence without an issue. One night I heard some rustling in the leaves outside. Shining my torch at what I thought were wallabies, here is John & Deere just casually chilling under the mango tree in the moonlight. They were still scared of me so I could not get near them.

My wife Audrey came out to help. She grabbed one by the horn. He kicked and carried on. They charged at her, scaring her. I’m swearing, carrying on, losing my mind. It was a great half an hour trying to wrangle these assholes back to their pen. Audrey gave them their marching orders though. She walked them straight back to the pen and they listened.

Not only are they fussy, they are sexist too it seems.

Using torchlight and giving the mozzies in the area an all you can eat buffet, we managed to fix the broken part of the fence that I was in charge of fixing days before. The fence had huge chunks taken out of it. My friend Chucky and I went around and sealed the entire enclosure using old fences, tyres, wood and anything else we could use to keep the new arrivals in.

John & Deere had different ideas though. But after we patched it up again, they have not escaped. It is only a matter of time. At least they are starting to get a little friendlier. I can supervise them most of the day now and they have started following me everywhere.

I do need to build another fenced enclosure for them. They are in a temporary house until I have the confidence to build a goat-proof fence.

A Right Pig of a Problem

There was an area in front of our house that supposedly used to contain pigs. It is hard to picture because the place is overgrown with weeds, star pickets and metal sticking out of the ground. It looks more like the Amazon than an actual pen.

Running the tractor or slasher through here is a bad idea. It is too thick to mow with my lawn mower and because it is this messy, I can’t see anything underneath it at all. It does have something I want though. Star pickets. They are everywhere, sticking out of the ground and I want these for my next fencing project.

So we need the tractor, but before that we need to clear some area, but before that we need to comb for metal and debris, but before that we need to remove all the electrical wiring that’s strewn throughout this area. Just in this little process, we found shoes, pots and pans, animal stakes to put in the ground and tie to, so many metal clips and wiring, wooden posts, logs and a host of other things.

If it could be removed by hand, it was. Everything else would wait for the tractor to be able to come in. By this stage, I have had three flat tractor tyres and one flat on my ute. I’m trying to be as careful as possible. I figured it was too thick for the slasher, so we used the grader to go through it and rip it to bits.

But of course, this leads to a new problem, a grey water tank is under all the overgrowth. It’s leaking, of course it is. We removed all the greenery around it and now nothing is soaking it up. There was a pump for it, but Audrey accidentally ran over the power cord a few weeks prior. It was only now that I understood what it is used for.

So the tractor is sinking in this area now. My nephew Jack was learning how to drive the tractor at the time and to his credit he managed to pull out of every bog he slipped into. Must be the dirt bike he is used to driving. Jack managed to pull out all the star pickets though and remove all the large wooden logs which we burnt. One of which took three solid days of smouldering to disappear.

I have the star pickets for the fence, but now I have a water leaking problem. One step forward and two steps backwards. Lucky for me, my friend came up as a qualified electrician. He fixed the grey water issue and the pump is now working while moving the water away from the house.

The Serpents & The Bichons

Who would have thought living in the bush would mean snakes are around. In the last few weeks I have seen water snakes, a couple of red-bellied black snakes and Audrey came across a brown snake next to our house by the water tanks.

We love our little Bichon Frise a lot. All three of them. They are not really farm dogs though, and they don’t have too much sense when it comes to danger. Bless them. So they are most likely going to chase snakes when they see them. One of them already goes after goannas which is a bit rich as I think a goanna could eat our dogs if it chose.

So we agreed to build a fence around the house. At least this way if they chase snakes, the snakes can get away quickly and the boys are fenced in without being able to chase them any further than the fence line. It will also keep them away from the dams and water tanks which is where the snakes like to rest.

Who Let the Dogs Out

Enlisting the help of my nephew, who has come over for the Easter holidays, we built about 120m of fencing. My nephew Jack has been studying agriculture at school so he had some fence wiring skills. Luckily, because I certainly did not.

It took us a couple of full days but the fence went up. Of course, I ran out of the fence tightening wire. Once I got that I ran out of the clips to tie it to the fence. And once I started doing that again I ran out of the actual fence…

Lucky town is only an hour away. You really do need to buy in bulk up here for everything. I am definitely understanding how everything has a use up here. One way or another.

My wife found a new roll of dog fencing that was $100 cheaper than the original 100m we bought. You beauty, I thought. We grabbed that straight away and did the final 20m or so of fencing that needed to be done. I also built gates into the fence along the way, my gate building skills leave a lot to be desired. I can tell you that.

We found out why this fencing was cheaper though. Turns out it has bigger holes in the bottom than the last lot of fencing. So after laughing at my chickens, explaining to them they can’t come into this area anymore and destroy the gardens and plants. They just looked up, and walked straight through the new fence without touching the sides. Great work, Joel.

To add insult to injury, our latest dog is much smaller than the other two. He can also just walk between the gaps of the fence.

So a cheaper fence that fails to serve its purpose. My god, I am good at this farming gig.

Now I need chicken wire around the bottom of it to stop the chickens getting in, and the dogs getting out.

John & Deere vs The Bichon Mob

John & Deere are funny animals, they are slowly coming around to being patted. They absolutely love their food and go home when asked now. I let them free roam a lot at the moment as we don’t have anything valuable they can get to just yet. The Moringa is fenced in, however they just walk straight OVER it and come in when I am working there.

Very curious creatures indeed. If I walk around carrying anything, be it a chainsaw, other tools or a bit of wire, they will come over and investigate straight away. They are heavy animals and have nice big horns on their head. So I am confused why they are so scared of the dogs that are quite literally a fraction of the size of them. They look like mini sheep, but John & Deere are terrified.

Our youngest and smallest dog decided to get out of the fence and chase down the goats. This was like a madhouse. The goats charged towards the house, jumped a fence and now they are in the front yard being chased by the other two Bichons. My wife is screaming as one of the goats ran right at her in an effort to escape the little white terrorists.

The goats gave my fences a workout, straight under one with brute force as a small white cloud is chasing it down. But then the stupid goats run to the other side and jump back over the fence and the cycle starts over. The chickens are also running around like, well, like a headless chook.

It’s a bloody madhouse at the moment.

Time Flies When You’re Having Fun

Having Jack over was a huge help over Easter. I taught him to use a tractor and he went to town clearing land for me. Each day he was keen to get into farm work and it motivated me as well. Two weeks went bloody quick though and before I knew it, it was just back to me having a million half jobs to complete and no helper to boss around.

It’s times like this I will remember forever though, as chaotic as this place has been the past few weeks and the terrible news of Moringa being banned in Australia taking me by surprise. It was nice to have some help with the big jobs.

I am still unsure where this Moringa industry is heading, but we are taking it head on at the moment. My wife, Audrey, has been making products since January and a new Moringa Moonlight topical oil is about to be released. This is a great product, as biased as I am. I use it quite regularly and it feels great on the skin, moisturising and smells unreal. I think it will be a good seller.

My newfound social media fame has not gone to my head yet, but it is an amazing tool to spread awareness and talk to people directly about the industry. I am very thankful for that.

So not all is bad news. We will adapt and overcome the FSANZ ruling on Moringa and continue our farming life. Change can breed innovation and I have a few ideas up my sleeve. As chaotic as it currently is, I would not have it any other way.

About the Author

Joel Molloy is the founder of Moringa Products Australia and the writer behind The Moringa Farm Chronicles, documenting the wins, mistakes, setbacks and lessons of building a farm and business from scratch in rural Queensland.

From fencing disasters and animal escapes to machinery mishaps, water problems and growing Australian Moringa, Joel shares a first-hand account of learning farm life the hard way.