Three Springs Shire farmers, the Bones, about being a young farming family.

"The crops are looking good," he said, matter of fact, as he followed his mum Deborah Bone around the farm.

"It's good we have been getting some rain."

Ms Bone described her son as a "parrot" of his father, Ashley Bone - he absolutely loves going to work with his dad and takes every opportunity to sit in machinery.

His two siblings, Zoe, 2 and Hannah, 6, would rather draw than sit in the header, but there was still time for them to develop their agricultural interests.

The Bones, who are farming about 5700 hectares this year in the Three Springs area, are one of the few local young farming families.

The young children deliver a vibrancy as they play with toy trucks and run around the newly-emerging crops.

Ms Bone loves raising the children on the farm as it gives the entire family space to breathe.

"Living out of town offers a bit of peace, you can escape from town stuff," Ms Bone.

She grew up in Carnamah and met her husband for the first time at Three Springs Primary School.

Ms Bone studied to become a teacher at university and after about five years in Perth, she returned to the country which was "always" the plan.

While growing up in the country is great when the children are young, the family isn't too keen to send to the children away to boarding school when they reach 12 years of age.

"It's great at the moment and we have a primary school just in town, but I have a feeling we might change our mind once year seven rolls around," Mr Bone said.

"It's just so young to go away in year seven, but there are limited options," Ms Bone said.

The dream is for the children to eventually take over the farm and keep it in the family for generations to come.

With Liam's passion for farming at such a young age, it is likely this dream will come true.

After a long day, Mr Bone said the children were a great distraction from farming life - as living at your workplace could sometimes make it difficult to stop thinking about harvest after hours.

"These kids don't know much about rain, for all they know if it's rained at harvest time they are happy about it," he said.

Finding a work-life balance is something Mr Bone continues to struggle with, but said it was important with a young family.

"Coming out of seeding it's pretty full on - I'm always working - and your work is right there," he said.

"It's something I'm pretty conscious of."

To help improve efficiency, the Bones have purchased a second boomsprayer and airseeder.

Mr Bone's dad, Paul, is still working on the farm but is nearing retirement age (not that he plans on retiring) and doesn't want to be working as hard as he has done.

"It's about trying to reduce the workload and get that work-life balance again instead of working so hard all the time," he said.

Mr Bone counted himself fortunate with the staff he has had as they reduce the workload.

Michael Trant, a Western Australian author, spends his time thinking about story lines when he is driving the tractor or harvester.

He released a book in May, in the middle of seeding, and has written his last two books while onfarm.

Ms Bone said she enjoyed the books, and joked it was her claim to fame.

Given Mr Trant's other interests, he wasn't too concerned about having some time off during the quiet months and working hard during harvest and seeding, which suited the Bones well.

"We've been very fortunate to not have to go down the backpacker line, we've always had employees we've known and know the farm," Mr Bone said.

His parents moved to the Three Springs property in 1992.

Mr Bone's mum's family had been farming for a while between Mingenew and Mullewa, and were given the opportunity to buy the property as a succession plan.

Prior to becoming a farmer, Mr Bone's father was a mechanic and then a shearer - and was also from a farming background but his family gave up farming after the 1970s drought.

Mr Bone said there were a few young families in Mingenew, but they became less, the further south-east you travelled.

The area is slowly being taken over by corporate farmers, including land to the west of their farm.

The downside is less people living in the area.

"It's a shame because they are all farms that could have become young family farms," Ms Bone said.

"It's just the way it's going, people want to sell and corporates want to buy."

Mr Bone said it was good news for land values for farmers wanting to sell, but not so good for those looking to expand.

He is keen to expand in the future, but with "crazy" land prices they were probably going to hold off for a while.

They currently lease a lot of country and ideally would love to own it.

"It might be the same hectares, but if we own it, we don't have to pay people for it," Mr Bone said.

"There have been plenty of places that have come up for sale, but it seems pretty expensive.

"It's what you've got to pay if you want it, otherwise you miss out."

At the start of June the farm had only received 45 millimetres of rain for the year, but welcomed some late June falls.

The family said they felt the weight lift off their shoulders as a result.

"I farm with my old man, and sometimes it gets a bit tense, but the rain helps the mood of everyone," Mr Bone said.

The crops came out of the ground a bit late, especially when compared to the previous two years, which were very early starts.

Some canola and wheat germinated early after Mr Bone chased the moisture, however the rest of the crop was dry seeded - and was about two weeks behind where he would have ideally liked to be.

"The lack of summer rain wasn't great, but it meant I didn't have to do summer spraying," Mr Bone said.

Seeding was slow, as they weren't sure if extra paddocks had to be left out for sheep.

"We were waiting to see if we did get rain, otherwise we would have to leave out extra paddocks for sheep," he said.

"But we stuck to the original program - wheat, canola and lupin - a bit over 5000 hectares this year."

They weren't doing anything "too out of the box" this year, with 3000ha of wheat sown to Scepter, Vixen and Zen, and a small amount of Chief.

The farm has always grown a portion of Noodle wheat, especially after Mr Bone's dad was told to grow Noodle wheat and it jumped to $400 a tonne.

"Now, we just stick to our plan, unless there is a really early start like last year and the prices are really good," he said.

They cut back on lupins to about 400ha and planted 1500ha of canola.

The farm has a very mixed soil type - from "good" yellow loamy sand to "pretty horrible" white sand, as well as good gravel country, red loam and red clay.

"Each one has their own challenges I guess, some easier than others but you can't pick and choose," Mr Bone said.

With sheep in the mix, about 1500 ewes, it's also a challenge to make sure there is always enough feed and space.

Mr Bone said it was a challenge to offload them last year and the prices were nowhere near what they used to be, predicting they are about 50 per cent less.

"There's a bit of uncertainty with where we are going to go with the sheep - they are definitely not what they used to be," he said.

"It's crazy, but we are going to stick with them for the short-term for the next two years or so until they come back (on price).

"It's a bit of a worry."

The farm runs Merino ewes and puts a Prime SAMM ram over the top, and usually sells all of the lambs for meat.

To maintain the cropping hectares they can't always hold onto stock and are forced to take a price that wasn't as good.

They are also hopeful of more rain to keep the season going and that it will be a soft finish.

"Sometimes it can get pretty hot up here when canola is flowering, especially with a late start, you can almost watch it sometimes just losing flowers because it's got to that temperature and it's too hot for it," Mr Bone said.

"If it can just stay mild and keep raining that'll be the go."

Outside of farming, the Bones are both heavily involved in regional sport, and volunteer for a range of different community causes.

Ms Bone plays netball and hockey, and is currently the president of the netball association, while Mr Bone plays footy and is the captain of the local fire brigade.