Page 106 of Stockman's Sandstorm

‘I know I’ve said this before, but I’ve never explained it properly …’ Ash paused for a beat, to gulp on his coffee. ‘I want to build an automated system for watering our livestock, ensuring a more efficient use of our water resources in a way that those mining pricks can’t point at us for any environmental issues.’

‘How do we do that?’ Cap asked.

Ash dragged out a map of the station, along with the diagrams he’d been working on all night. ‘We’d use sensors for not only the water levels, but also water quality, all remotely controlled. Without wasting a single drop, we can repurpose the water I normally flush from those troughs into our new paddock to become crop feed or—’

‘Wildlife corridor.’ Cap held up his arm.

‘Anything is possible. With my tech background, and Cap’s knowledge of renewable energy, and Dex’s mechanical skills, we could create our own solar farm, to provide plenty of sustainable power for this station. It would slash our operational costs—’

‘Giving us higher profits.’ Dex nodded. After all, Dex and Ryder were the money men.

‘As for the security cameras, I’d like to create an intranet.’ His heart squeezed at the thought of Harper, who’d been there as his sounding board listening to his ideas. ‘We can use them to monitor our watering points, the stock, so if there are any health issues, we can send out the drone for a closer look.’

‘Or just get in the ute and drive out there,’ said Dex.

‘Or use my dogs to move them,’ said Cap.

‘All of it, or we can create self-mustering gates to do it all for us,’ said Ash. ‘There are only four of us. We each have certain specialised skills and experience, we just don’t have the manpower or enough hours in the day to do everything. But with these things,’ Ash said, tapping on the board, ‘we can make it manageable by using technology to our advantage. And that,’ he said, dragging out the letter from the government, ‘answers points three, four, and five, regarding the environmental impact we’d have on our water on this station.’

That made all his brothers sit back to think long and hard over what he’d said. Ash waited impatiently, hoping he had shown them he was determined to save his home for his family.

‘I may only have one drone, but I know how to use those sensors, and I’ve built solar plants for other stations. I can do that here.’

‘I know you can,’ said Ryder. ‘I’ve just been waiting on—’

‘My list.’ Ash held out his shopping list. ‘This is what I estimate we’ll need as our first investment in the troughs, as a test to show you guys how it’s done. And I’m sure once you see how it works, you’ll want to expand this to our next paddock.’

‘So one paddock at a time, is that what you’re saying?’ asked Cap.

‘Yeah, we’ll start small. Isn’t that what you said, Ryder?’

Ryder nodded as he read over the wish list. ‘Do you want to test out all of your ideas in the one paddock?’

‘That’s a great idea.’ Cap sat on the edge of his seat, leaning his forearms on the table. ‘We should all pick our own paddock to run our own experiments. I’m sure we all have our own ideas, and now we can test our own theories. That way we can see what works and what doesn’t, to then expand across the station as our herd grows.’

‘I’d second that.’ Ash nodded as he tapped on the top edge of the shopping list. ‘I can scrounge a lot of stuff from what’s in the sheds to make a start today. But this is a list of items we can’t cut back on to make it effective.’ He then dropped into his seat and picked up his coffee. ‘Questions?’

‘BREE! Bree-Bree.’ Mason pounded on the screen door.

When did the boy wake up?

In her leather apron and gloves, her skullcap barely containing her red curls, Bree waved from the yard as she carried over a shopping bag.

‘Here, go say hi to Bree.’ Ash lifted his son over the child safety gate.

Mason’s little legs ran fast to Bree, who scooped him up in her arms for a hug. ‘Morning, little man.’ Bree carried him towards the house. ‘Morning, boys. I’m dropping off these cooking utensils I borrowed for the muster. Is Harper around? I’m doing a trip into town later and I want to see if she’d like to come.’ She placed the bag on the edge of the porch.

‘Arper?’ The little boy wriggled as Bree put him on the ground and he climbed up the porch steps. ‘Arper …’

‘She’s gone.’ Ash scooped up the boy. ‘I’m sorry, mate, but Harper isn’t coming back.’

‘Oh.’ Bree took a step back. ‘Well, I’d better get to it then.’

‘Did you know?’ Ryder stood from the table and glared at Bree.

‘I know a lot of things, cupcake, but as I haven’t polished my psychic’s crystal ball in a while, how about you tell me what we’re all talking about?’

‘That Harper was Mason’s aunt.’

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