Farm Tales - 1. FT Chapter 1 - Ben

Farm life has its many ups and downs, and this was probably one of my toughest times of been brought up on a mixed farm.

Having completed a water check, and seeing Mum just returned from shopping in town and taking our farm dog – Ben to the vets, as he was not looking well lately, I headed down to the house for some morning tea, and seeing shopping in the back of the Ute, I picked up the box, not really taking any notice of the hessian bag and headed inside, via the back door.

As I placed the shopping on the kitchen table, Mum broke the news to me that Ben had died, due to Kidney Failure. With Dad in Perth on business, my brothers away at boarding school, it was up to me to bury the farm dog, as Mum had other chores to do.

This is one thing that I had not thought I would be doing, as usually Dad dealt with sick in dead farm animals, but today it was my turn and responsibility.

It took me some time to recover from the loss of our much loved farm dog, before I had enough courage to walk outside, and carefully lift and cary the hessian bag, along with with spade, up past the sheds and into the main laneway, where Ben and I had mustered sheep down to the yards and sheds many times.

Now with tears streaming down my face, I dug a deep hole under a shady tree on a bend in the laneway, stopping a number of times as I struggled with the difficult chore.

With the hole dug, I partly took Ben out of the hessian bag stroking his beautiful black and white coat and giving him a long hug, before placing him back in the bag, and carefully lowering him into the hole, and filling it in.

With the difficult chore done, I wished and hoped that I would not have to do that ever again… Sadly it was not the last time.