The Muster- Ben Dooley: Keeping A Good Mindset During A Busy Tractor Month

Ben Dooley says having a work life balance keeps things in perspective during the busy tractor season.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
This is the muster. Thanks for South and Ural Support
Trust in conjunction with Community Trust South. We're catching up
with a farmer today. We're talking about farming mindset now.
These wins are a few weeks ago now, and yes
it does seem like a long time ago. It does
move on, as does the cycle on the farm. But
Ben Dooley today farming at Wyndham, Sheep, beef and YouTube farmers,

(00:33):
going to tell us all about what he's been doing
lately during a busy season and deals will tell us
about this has just been one of those weeks for
him about looking at the long term picture and what
he does to negate certain circumstances on the farm. Ben,
good afternoon and always good to chat.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Good day Andy.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Here's a going Yeah, not too bad. Firstly, ground conditions
at Wyndham Hell are you looking.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yep, No, we're The sky is very threatening right now.
But we'll currently got a pair of hair going and
one padict a plan to going in another and another
plan to hopefully turning out this evening if not tomorrow,
and that will be all of our win to crop
in the ground. And there's only about two hit days
of young grass left to go too, So yeah, pre
Stoke we've managed to get on top of that. There
was an old saying, you know, burning the candle at

(01:15):
both ends, that wasn't good enough, so we had to
cut the candle in half and get it burning in
four ends. But we're just about there and then we
can stop and take a breath.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
So how long have you got have you got that
candle burning for? At the moment, as you put it, very.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Very short amount of time. What we're putting in a big,
big week to ten days, the track is probably gonna
have done one hundred and twenty years and ten days,
so that that stacks up. There's not just me and
my wife's doing a bit too, But yeah, look the
opportunity has been there to do it, we're gonna exploit it,
and then we're gonna take it easy for a while
after that and just be able to sit back, put
a feed up for a bit, maybe get the boat

(01:50):
out and maybe and yeah, then we'll come back and
make a start on the next big marathon, which is
given through weaning and cheering.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Are you getting on top of the tract to work?
You had a short term goal in mind, and you've
pretty much got there.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, absolutely, man, we're just just absolutely exploring those those
weather windows when they turn up. So yeah, saves things
from dragging on and saves those jobs building up at
the at the Christmas end of things.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
So how much have you had to pivot for want
of a better word or deviat I suppose it is
even better from what you had in store regarding the
farm because of the wind that we had three or
four weeks ago. Deals, what have you done differently?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
We were quite lucky. We had quite a few branches
out of trees. There's a few shelt about trees were
young ones are blown out. We were pretty you know,
not a lot of fence damage. We didn't have to
worry about rushing out doing a whole lot of fencing
or anything like that. So it has an effect a
us majorly in that respect. I guess the only thing
was the clear lot coming off the roof of the yards,

(02:51):
but it's all fixed up now. Because of that, we
sort of missed an opportunity to get the hog. It's sure,
but we'll get there when we do. But no, we
haven't had to change much. But there's putting your people
out there that have and the one thing that's quite
good to notice, is that people do adapt to things,
and when you put in those situations it's not nice,
but it's good to see people just working out what
they've got to do and moving forward, as opposed to

(03:13):
just sitting there and dwelling a lot.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Now it's underesting. A social media post went out last
night on a farming page regarding the story about telling
people to get off farm, and they're taking the different
texts and saying, stop telling farmers to get off farm.
It's not helping. Now. There's two ways to look at this,
and this is the people that enjoy their job wanting
to carry on doing what they're doing and farming their
livelihood and have a staycation. That's all well and good,

(03:38):
but at the same time it's about encouraging a work
life balance. Would be the other way to look at things.
I'll suggest, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
It's a real catch twenty two, Like, it's both. Both
conversations are potentially quite dangerous. If you're telling people that
you know, you have to get off farm and you
have to do this, then people that really don't want to.
You know, some people are just really happy, and that's
the key word. They're happy, just spending all their time
on the farm. You know, I hate going to town
whatever at times on one of them, not all the time.

(04:06):
And if you make those people leave the farm, then then,
you know, because you've been told to to try and
improve their mental health, then that can be quite a
dangerous message. But I think those are the key there is.
Those people are pretty happy and most of them will
be smart enough to realize that they don't need it.
I guess the flip side of it is if we
start getting rid of that message. You know, you know

(04:28):
my saying by the damn boat, just just buy the
damn boat doesn't have to be a boat. For me,
it was a boat and go and bloody use it.
And that for me has just been just massive. I
got myself in a bit of a stake quite a
few years ago, just various things happening, and in the
end my wife just said to me, you need to
go and see you mate, take the boat, and we did.

(04:48):
And all of a sudden now she regrets that because
we do so much boating. But for me, I'm quite
happy being on farm until i'm not, and then I
know I've just got to go do something. A couple
of days so I kind of I appreciate the message,
but I guess you got two messages there that are
catering to two completely different types of people, and I

(05:09):
think we just have to be very careful of how
we push either one of them, but particularly the one
where you know, you're telling people you don't have to
get off farm because the people that need to are
the ones that are probably at higher risk.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
So your wife Sarah actually encouraging you to get off
and go and do something different. How did you take
that for a start?

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, well, it was interesting because at the time, I mean,
I knew, I knew I wasn't well. I didn't know
I wasn't good. I just thought everything else wasn't good.
A whole lot of things that were outside of my
control going wrong at once, snowstorm, landing, hogates, all sorts
of things happening. Yeah, and I just was getting really
frustrated with everything, and so I had I had no
clue what was going on. She did, thankfully, and yeah

(05:54):
it was yeah. Probably it wasn't touch and goar or
anything like that, but I was getting pretty down about things.
I was just lucky that she was there. But no,
it'd be nice if we could go away together over spring,
but as most people know, spring is a challenging time
to leave the farm unattended. But yeah, she just just
pushed me out the door, basically said, go up. Seem

(06:15):
went saw the for it for a night or two,
a couple of drinks and yeah, but a boating and yeah,
come back feeling refreshed, recharged and ready to go.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Now. Your YouTube channel, Deep South Sheep and Beef. Do
you ever talk about this on there? About mental health?

Speaker 2 (06:30):
I haven't, and it's possibly something. It's not something I've
ever thought of, but I possibly should. So maybe in
the next couple of weeks I might make a dedicated
video about it and see what I can do. It's
a really awkward thing to talk about, but it needs
to be talked about. So yeah, something I could possibly
do there any.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
It can be. And that's the big thing. When you're
talking to your mates or your neighbors or someone like that,
you're yearning away and you're not sure how the situation's
going with them, it's just two words. It's like, yeah, okay,
that's that's all it is. It's a conversation starter. Gone
of the days where they're going to sit there and
say oh I don't talk. I really like that. That's
not the way it is now.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, absolutely, there's still a fair degree that old Keeley
humbility out there that wasn't there.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Of course there is, but times have moved on as well.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, and that's not a bad thing. But that's not
a bad thing in managing expectations that there's a point
where you've got to draw the line there. And I think, yeah,
guys are a lot better at talking about things than
they used to be. And yeah, it's just finding those
people you can trust and yeah, having those conversations. But yeah,
we're still pretty good at down playing our emotions at times,

(07:36):
aren't we. But we are getting better.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Ben Dooley, always appreciate your time on the muster. All
the best in the paddics getting all those crops sont No.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Thanks very much, Andy you, Ben Dooley.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Thanks for South and rural support trust and association with
community trusts South just talking about well being. We're a
way to Canada. Next, we are catching up with Greg Erickson,
formerly avoid Mormouver, now farming or working on farms near Mulletts,
and before the end of the hour, Elliott Smith have
a newstalk ZBB once again. Overseas, we're going to Cardiff