The Milo Tin

There are farm utes that serve their purpose. They may have been picked up at a clearing sale or second hand, no longer suitable for the long lonely bitumen stretches, but ideal for carting wire and hay or loads of firewood.

Then there are the farm utes that accidentally become part of the family. Kind of like those poddies that end up with a name and never really make the truck despite the better part of common sense telling you that’s where they need to be.

I know of one such farm ute. And such is the sentiment caught up in this little ute, several family conferences around the dinner table have always come to the same conclusion…. we can fix that and get another year out of him.

He’s even got a name – Milo - thanks to his Milo tin green duco. In fact, the farm kids don’t even refer to him as a vehicle, to them he’s simply Milo.

Milo has evolved with the family. Traditionally the house dogs got to ride up front and the working dogs in the back where they could quickly escape to bounce into a trough or head off after sheep. However even the house dogs had to make way for booster seats and a growing third generation. All of them looking forward to rides in Milo to check the cows, or whatever else needed doing.

Just like any family stalwart, Milo features heavily in the background of photos taken on the farm. He’s propped up umbrellas over troughs on balmy summer afternoons, been the “safe place” to store the little ones when calf marking, carried those little legs that are too small to ride on a muster, and even served as an usher in a family wedding.

Farms can be places filled with ever changing circumstances, some positive, some not so much. For every farming family there is something different that makes the place their home. For this family it’s as simple as a little green ute that’s distance from home can be astutely calculated by listening for chugs as each gate gets opened and closed- something like timing thunder to lightning.

The Milo Tin

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