It’s all part and parcel of our industry to be at the mercy of the weather gods — not even our IT Department is safe. Mother Nature threw out an icy-cold challenge to our Integrated Technology Consultant Brad Jericho last winter, but thankfully, one of our long-standing clients was on the ball.
“I’ve been working for Ramsey Bros for about five years and safe to say, most people would know that I embrace shorts and a t-shirt year-round, regardless of the temperature. That all changed last year when roughly halfway through the seeding season on a Friday afternoon, I ventured out to Booborowie to do some updates to one of our RTK towers.
“Given these towers provide the signal for tractors to use precision farming technology, it’s vital we stay on top of them for our clients, so despite the fact that it was a rainy day with thunderstorms galore, I headed off on the one and half hour drive to tend to it.
“The tower was perched high up on a hill on the property of one of our clients, so as usual, I gave them the heads up that I was there to do some work. I made it up the hill, left the ute ignition running so I could charging the laptop which I needed to connect into the base station, and decided to brave the rain.
“I was in and out — going between the tower and the ute for about an hour — and I was frozen! It was bitterly cold and the rain wasn’t easing up so I was glad to finish the job and jumped back into the driver’s seat, ready to head home and knock off for the weekend. Except… I couldn’t get the ute to start. I was stuck, on top of the hill and the rain was still coming down steadily.
“I put one of the base station batteries onto the ute battery and tried to jump start it but I couldn’t get enough voltage. By this stage, I was wrapped up, head to toe, in a jumper, beanie and a rain jacket and I could still feel the cold in my bones.
“I continued pottering around, finishing off the clean-up while I tried to figure out how I was going to get out of there. Then, in a stroke of luck, my phone started ringing. It was the clients whose property I was on. They’d noticed I hadn’t come back down and they were getting concerned I was out there in the storm. Sheepishly, I explained that I had a flat battery and they kindly offered to come up and help me out.
“It took a little while for them to get up the hill, as the non-stop rain had made it incredibly slippery, but eventually, the husband and wife came to my rescue. All three of us got soaked while we took on the wind and rain to jump start the ute, before I was safely on my way again. “It was definitely not an ideal way to spend a rainy Friday afternoon but it just goes to show how solid our community is around us — without those clients I’d probably still be stuck up there! Although, I have to say, when I eventually made it home later that night, I did jump online and bought myself a portable jumpstart kit,” Brad laughs.
