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Plain, But Not Ordinary
Making good decisions for your wardrobe, doesn’t start and end at the cash register. For Victorian woolgrower, Ben Duxson it starts a lot earlier than that – right at the source. Six generations of Ben’s family have grown wool and while they have a proud family history, as the years have passed, their farming practices and merino flock has undoubtedly evolved. Ben has kept his practices and merinos up with the times through careful genetic selection, measurement and keeping on top of what the rest of the world is demanding of wool. ‘We run 6000 Multi Purpose Merinos (MPM) and have always measured for carcass through Australian Sheep Breeding Values…
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THE CULT OF VEGANISM
I have a vegan in my family. For years we have been accommodating her beliefs and lifestyle. We have supported her, gone without and adjusted our diets just to be in her presence. We have catered to her without a thought for our own life choices. The more I advocate for wool, the more I am learning about the cult of veganism. I see vegans from a place of understanding. To be so passionate about animals that you would change your entire lifestyle, invest so much time into researching and changing your diet and risk offending others just to be a part of a cause you believe in, is a…
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Access Granted – Madura Plains
For 29 days I documented the day to day at Madura Plains during their shearing. Nothing about this trip across the Nullabor was going to be ordinary for me. I was putting big fat ticks on my bucket list next to the Nullabor, halfway across Australia and the Great Australian Bight. I was taking my 11 month old babe, Travis, right into the thick of isolation, further than I had ever taken him before. The craziest part about it though, was that if this property wasn’t up to scratch with happy, healthy sheep living there, it would be the end of my career in the wool industry. I would leave…
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ASH FLINTOFT
DUCKS ON THE POND! Back in the day, you would hear this ring through the woolshed, to announce the impending arrival of women. Usually carrying over smoko, the swearing would stop and the men would be on their best behavior. Meet Ash Flintoft. She’s not just a little duck on some pond, she’s a woman of the downtube. Ash wasn’t born into a shearing family. In fact, she didn’t have anything to do with the wool industry until she took up work on a sheep station in her late teens. While the station work was all fine and dandy, it was shearing that she fell in love with at first…
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West Cloven Hills Woolshed
There are many legends of the shearing industry, past and present. Some receive accolades and some just quietly putt along on their course. They come, they go, but there are some that just aren’t going anywhere – the mighty woolshed. They are built tough, to stand the test of time. Some have had a rough life and stand only as shells of their former glory. Then, there are some that still stand proudly, holding Australia’s history within their walls. Just a few kilometres out of Camperdown, Victoria sits the West Cloven Hills woolshed. Nestled among the rolling green hillsides, it houses over a century of local history. It tells…
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Caleb Morgan
The more I dig into the wool industry, the more it feels like it’s just one huge family run business. You will be hard pressed to find someone working in wool that doesn’t have a family tie to it somewhere. Caleb Morgan falls comfortably into that family genre and his ties run for four generations. The story of wool before Caleb is a long one. His Grandad and Great Papa were both shearers and woolgrowers, mum was a woolhandler and dad is a shearing contractor. It is quite fitting that Caleb would be born into the woolsheds, literally. His story starts with breaking his mum’s waters on the shearing board,…
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Crutching Trailers
Crutching trailers are well known across Australia for making a repetitive and laborious job, just that little bit easier. A mobile plant that has been used in the far reaches of rural Australia, it goes wherever sheep need to be crutched. Parked near a set of yards, the sheep are first brought in from their paddocks and wait to be moved up the line for their turn on the trailer. Helped along by a penner-up-er and their trusty sidekicks, it is a full action, non stop job. Front of the line brings them to the trailer, up the ramp and to the catching pens across from the crutchers. From…
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Aaaand We’re Back
Do you remember when I attempted to travel right across Australia on a (largely) self funded road trip for my Truth About Wool campaign? I could never forget. It was some of the most fulfilling, challenging and liberating days of my personal and professional life. I miss it. When I first started out on my cross country campaign I was incredibly ambitious in the thought that I could cover the entire wool industry and tell it’s full story in around six months. Financial strain took it’s toll after three (staggered) moths of being on the road with no income and I hesitantly and sadly pulled the reins on touring to…
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SEVEN
Every now and then a big personality is born on a farm. Seven is one of them. Born in 2016 as part of a set of triplets, Seven was met with the big wet that had hit his home of ‘Aloeburn’, Boree Creek. Very few paddocks remained safe from flood waters for the lambing ewes and his farmers, Jodie and Andrew Green had some tough decisions to make for the wellbeing of their flock. Both Seven and his brother were adopted by Jodie and Andrew, giving their sister a more promising start at life. The two young rams were added to the poddy mob, they became part of the special…
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MERINO COUNTRY
It was the nineties and the Queensland wool industry was struggling through drought and low wool prices. Searching through stores for Australian wool everyday wear, would have you coming home empty handed. It was a quiet time for Queensland wool, but something was stirring inside of Kerrie Richards. These hard times was the fuel that ignited her idea for merino wool clothing line, ‘Merino Country’. With next to zero traceability of an Australian wool clip from farm to fibre and a lack of affordable everyday wear merino clothing available to the public, Kerrie was smacked in the face with a gaping hole in the Australian clothing industry. Her new business…
