The dusty, endless horizons of western New South Wales are far from the busy regional television and radio newsroom Bessie Thomas was working in just a few years ago.
But the trained journalist and keen blogger has loved the role of sheep grazier so much she’s now a proud rural advocate and Art4Agriculture Young Farming Champion.
In the state’s outback, about an hour’s drive from Wilcannia, Bessie and Shannan Thomas run Merino sheep and Angus cattle on a slice of bush paradise called Burragan Station.
When the couple first arrived at the remote and rundown property in early 2011, purchased by Shannan’s family a year earlier, the homestead hadn’t been lived in for several years. The previous owner was an elderly widow who had struggled to maintain the 70,000 acres of grazing land.
“It was in the middle of a mouse plague, there was no garden or yard around the house, the weatherboards were rotting, and ceilings were caving in,” recalls 26-year-old Bessie, who had been working in television news production in Townsville, Queensland, before the move.
“Nearly every fence on the property needed mending or replacing, the cattle yards were collapsing, sheep yards were usable but not great, the wool shed and shearers quarters were in disrepair,” she says.
“The bore had been abandoned 30 years before and was so overgrown with woody-weeds you could only find it by motorbike… Actually, there were hardly any roads at all; that was one of our first jobs, contracting a grader driver to make us some roads.”
But 2011 was a great season. The dams were full and the feed was thick. And together with Shannan’s parents, who live half an hour down the road on the family property where Shannan grew up, and with a few kind seasons from Mother Nature, the four of them have revived Burragan.
For the first 12 months Bessie continued working as a full-time journalist online. “Now I wonder how I ever fitted 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, into a farming life that runs sunup to sundown, 365 days a year,” she says.
“I still do plenty of freelance media writing but my main priority has become helping Shannan and his parents in all aspects of managing Burragan, my in-law’s place, and another property about an hour away that we also run merinos on,” Bessie says.
Used to wearing heels to work and socialising with colleagues over cocktails on a Friday night, Bessie says some aspects of country living have taken some acclimatisation. But she has never felt more satisfied after completing a hard day’s work.
The fulfilment felt after successfully mustering sheep, marking lambs, or finishing a new fence line is incredible. “And the best part is you get to wake up every day surrounded by your achievements,” she says.
“Writing is my first love and while I still love the buzz of completing a great story, for me that feeling is fleeting; I have to write another story to gain that satisfaction again. With agriculture, every day we are constantly building on top of that satisfaction. I feel like I’m working towards something bigger and better for myself, and for the world, every day.”
Encouraged by her family back in Queensland, Bessie began publishing her favourite farm tales on a blog, aptly named ‘Bessie at Burragan.’ The stories – comical yarns about failed mustering attempts, accidental injuries, and run-ins with deadly wildlife – spread quickly across social media, with several picked up and republished in mainstream media.
This sparked a desire to share rural stories with a wider audience.
In 2013 Bessie was accepted into the Art4Agriculture Young Farming Champions program. Sponsored by Australian Wool Innovation (AWI), she completed workshops alongside other young farmers, learning how to best tell agriculture’s story using multimedia and engaging with live audiences, especially young consumers from urban environments.
Through last year’s Art4Agriculutre Archibull Prize, Bessie travelled 1,000 kilometres east to visit Hamilton North Public School, in Newcastle, speaking with the entire school about life on a sheep station and growing wool.
“The students were enthralled,” Bessie says. “They asked so many questions, I could have stayed all week to answer, and I left feeling like a rockstar farmer. It was absolutely one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.”
“A week after my visit AWI organised for a shearer to take some rams into the school and do a shearing demonstration. The kids absolutely loved it and the teachers have told me the entire school community now has a new appreciation for sheep, wool and farming, which I think makes it truly worthwhile.”
While she hopes to continue her involvement with Art4Agriculture and the Archibull Prize, Bessie has also expanded her blog into a Facebook page which she updates regularly with the everyday happenings at Burragan, from building new water infrastructure, to removing weeds, and going behind the scenes at shearing time.
“What we do is nothing special, it’s no different to what any other farmer is doing every day,” Bessie says.
“We have a want and a responsibility for the property to work to the best of its ability – like any business – and that means having the best management practices in place, doing what we can to have land that’s at optimum health, making the best decisions for our animals for the health of their whole lives, reducing pests and weeds, improving and replacing failing infrastructure, and working towards drought resilience with water, feed and stock management,” she says.
“These are the exact things that farmers across the country do every day of the year – and that’s the story I want Australians to understand.
“The average Australian farmer is an ordinary person, using the best ideas and resources available at the time to produce safe, quality and affordable food and fibre, and their commitment to their animals and land has never been stronger.”
Northlakes High School Archibull 2015 