Doing It Easy

Darel Sommer has deep roots in his family property in Witta, Qld situated close to the Glass House Mountains. The 183 acre property has been in the family since 1887 and he is the third generation on the farm. It was originally run as a dairy farm and Darel has fond memories of growing up there as a kid. He also remembers well, working very hard as everything was done by hand.

Darel worked on the farm from the age of 16 but eventually left to raise his family in Brisbane. In that time he spent many years driving garbage trucks for the local council. Since retiring Darel has spent more time on the farm and it has become more of a lifestyle property these days. Darel explains "It is beautiful country and a great place to get away. The grandkids love to get up here and experience a bit of country life too."

A couple of years ago, at the age of 73 Darel decided it was finally time for some mechanical help. "We only run about 30 head of beef cattle these days and things had got a bit overrun. I am not as young as I used to be and I have replacement hips so getting around in our hilly country is a bit of a challenge. We needed a machine to keep the Lantana, Groundsel and Mist weed under control and just do general jobs around the property.

My son-in-law Barry helped me in the search for the right machine. He is in the army and is responsible for sourcing heavy equipment so he had a good idea of what we should be looking for. Originally we had in mind an ordinary wheeled tractor. Then we came across the YCT dozer. The guys at East Wind explained that it would be far more stable and have better traction on our steep terrain. But the great thing is we can still use it like a tractor as it has a PTO and 3 point linkage on the back." explained Darel.

"We certainly haven't been disappointed. I had never driven a dozer, in fact we had never even had a tractor on the property. I quickly got the hang of using it and I can operate it comfortably for hours at a time even with crook hips. Once I get on that machine I can use all that power to clean up the scrub - the blade just pushes through it all no problem. Then I just follow up with a bit of spraying. We have had the machine for two years now and I have clocked up over 250 hours. We got a slasher as well to hook up to the dozer and it is very handy for keeping re-growth down too.

For around $33,000 there is simply nothing else like it. It does the job reliably and I have been able to get through so much work which I simply would not have been able to otherwise. I think back to how we used to do it before and we really are doing it easy now."