Farm expansion helps bring sisters home

Jeff and his wife Tracey live on the farm with two of their girls and their families.

There are three Seaby girls, Brooke Sobejko 35, Dale Cronje, 33 and Ellen White, 30, who all live in Mukinbudin.

Brooke is a school teacher and lives in town and the younger two siblings and their families are on the farm.

Two years ago Jeff had a total 6000h but soon realised that he needed to expand when the girls came home for good.

“I’m the third generation in Mukinbudin, my grandfather came here chopping trees down in 1925,” Jeff said.

“We also have 1200 ewes that are a part of the rotation on the farm.

“It will be an educational environment for the grandchildren to grow up in.”

The prospect of having his girls home made him consider making a strong succession plan for the property and the future of their family farm.

“We have a succession plan that both Dale and Ellen’s families will own their own bit of the farm and we planned to set both families up when we chose to expand,’’ he said.

“There is nothing better than working with your kids, not them working for you.”

Jeff asked the girls’ families if they wanted to come back home to the farm and the opportunity was always there.

“My plan is to retire in 2020, and by that I mean taking a step back and letting the girls take control a bit more.

I will still live on the farm and help out, but I won’t be as actively involved in the farm,” he said.

Ellen’s husband Cameron always wanted to give farming a try, so when Jeff offered for them to stay at home they willingly said yes.

“Dale has two girls, so when (grandson) Shepherd came along dad was so excited to have a boy living on the farm with him,” Ellen said.

“There are a lot of guys that get to about 50 and say ‘well, what’s the whole purpose now, I might as well sell the farm, retire and spend my money’,’’ Jeff said.

“A lot of my mates were going through the same thing and I was too.

“I had all daughters and no sons to take over.

Then one day Dale was at uni and she rang me and said, “dad I have quit uni and I’m coming home’.”

All the family is heavily involved with the local community and making the best of being in a small town.

Dale and Ellen and their partners are involved with local sport and either coach or play.

The family members are on multiple committees and Jeff is a Mukinbudin shire councillor.

“I have been on the council for a while, it’s a civic duty and I’m interested in promoting our town,” he said.

They attend the local church every Sunday together as a family.

“Family is a massive thing for us and the girls,’’ Tracey said.

“I’m a bit of a full-time babysitter, although I love having my grandchildren around, the girls grew up with their grandparents around all the time so it’s nice for mine to do the same.”

Brooke went to Perth Ladies College until Year 12, then continued her education and became a school teacher.

After she met Jethro, she decided to start her family in Mukinbudin.

Both Brooke and Jethro work at the school where Brooke is a relief teacher, as she has three children, and Jethro works full-time as the maths and science teacher.

Micah, the youngest of Brooke’s children, goes out to his grandparents’ house when Brooke is working at school.

Dale, like her older sister, went to PLC for high school, then studied commerce at Curtin University.

“I was studying to be an accountant but after dropping out in my second year, I married one instead,” Dale said.

“On the first day of my second year I thought ‘what the hell am I doing here?’

“I went down to a pay phone and rang dad and told him I was coming home,” she said.

Dale moved to Mukinbudin after she left university and it wasn’t until 2009, after five years on the farm, that she married Derick and moved to Narrogin.

“Derrick was working in Moora for RSM Bird Cameron for two years, then he relocated to Narrogin for another three,” she said.

“After we got back from our honeymoon, we were with Jeff and Tracey one day and they offered for us to come and farm with them.

“We were just married and we needed a bit of time to live and become a team before we took them up on their offer,” Derick said.

Tracey said that Dale was always a farm girl.

“She got homesick living away, so really Derick moved home to the farm for Dale,” Tracey said.

Derick stayed with RSM until he had the skills and experience to start a business.

“In October 2011 we moved home to Mukinbudin just in time for harvest so Dale could be home,” he said.

Derick runs an accounting business from the office in their home and has become the local accountant.

He stepped back from taking clients after he realised the importance of balancing his outside work with farm work.

“I learnt a lot about farming business and practice through working as an accountant in rural areas,’’ Derrick said.

“I did rural accounting for five years so I know what’s in the books but actually coming on farm is interesting.

“The systems are completely different from those back home in South Africa.

“There is nothing you can’t learn, but there is knowledge then there is experience.

“Working with Jeff is where we learn from the experience, rather than book knowledge.’’

Tracey said Jeff’s leadership and experience would be missed.

“Once Jeff steps down it will be full-on for both couples on the farm and everyone will have to help,” she said.

Dale is restricted in her work on the farm with two kids, four-year-old Savanna and two-year-old Matilda.

Once both kids are in school full-time she hopes to have a lot more involvement on the farm.

“More women are becoming agronomists or becoming reps and a lot of my friends at playgroup are mums that have a harvest job coming up,” Dale said.

“The stay-at-home mum on the farm is disappearing, if you are on the farm you are involved and that’s a sign of the times,” she said.

Dale and Derick live in the original farmhouse that Jeff’s dad built, while Ellen and Cameron are temporarily in the shearing quarters.

Ellen, like her other sisters, went to PLC although she left at the end of year 10 as she wasn’t sure she wanted to continue schooling.

“When I left school I lived with mum in Perth for the year and completed a business administration certificate,” Ellen said.

She moved back to the farm in 2005 where she started working for local businesses, then moved into customer service at Bendigo Bank at the age of 16.

“In 2006 Dale and I went to Europe for a few months, then when I returned I started working for Bendigo Bank in Fremantle,’’ she said.

“In February 2007 I married Cameron White and later that year we moved to Dongara.’’

Cameron worked as a fisheries and marine officer job in Dongara where the couple stayed for 2.5 years.

His dream job came up in Busselton in 2010 so the pair moved there and built a house.

Ellen worked for the local shire, and after eight years’ working Cameron decided to take six months of long service leave.

“He extended it by adding another 12 months of non-paid leave in February 2015 and he is still here now,” Jeff said.

When Ellen returned to the farm with Cameron she worked there for a little while, then got a job as the school officer at the local school, while Cameron worked on the farm.

“I am on maternity leave after having Shepherd in June, although I am not as heavily involved with the farm as Dale,” Ellen said.

Cameron is involved in the community coaching/playing football and playing bowls, he has adapted well to the community lifestyle and loves living in Mukinbudin.

“It works that the boys have learnt to fit into the lifestyle that we grew up with,’’ Ellen said.

“We have always had a close-knit family relationship, we have always been there for each other and it helps that we are always able to just talk to each other.’’

Cameron said the additions to the family had a steep learning curve.

“I had to learn pretty much everything,’’ Cameron said.

“We would come back to the farm at times but I had a lot to learn.

It was very different from an ocean job, coming to a family farm in the middle of the desert.”

The Seaby family have only 3000ha of cropping to harvest this year due to the dry start, in comparison to last year when the total was close to 5700ha.

Late rains have meant that there are still green heads of wheat and harvest will start later than normal, with the headers still in the shed.

This busy family farm is hoping on another successful year and a successful future as a family thanks to Jeff’s succession plan.