But the young couple were faced with an all-too-familiar tale, with Sally at home at their Georgetown property alone with their young son, while Jake was working mustering.

They soon decided to move to Balootha, where Sally grew up and her family still lives, while continuing their breeding operation at Mount Little, Georgetown. 

Mount Little is a breeder block of 25,900 hectares, where they have both their own cattle and agistment cattle totaling about 1700 head. 

Sally, 27, and Jake, 26, purchased Mount Little three years ago just after they got married. 

While Jake was excited at the prospect, Sally said she had more reservations.

“I’m cautious, Jake’s more of the risk taker,” Sally said. 

About 16 months ago their small family grew, with baby Clancy joining the crew. 

“When we were at Mount Little I hardly saw Jake because he was always down here,” Sally said.

“Since we’ve been here since April, Clancy and I have seen Jake way more, so that’s nice.

“They still go away a lot, but my Aunty and Uncle are only just down the road.”

She said living at Balootha, she and Clancy see Jake a lot more often, but also have her parents around for company when he’s out working for extended periods of time.

Jake said it was pretty challenging being young in the industry, but he said there were plenty of other young people around in the Julia Creek region. 

“We’re lucky we have a good family with my brother-in-law, he’s great,” Jake said. 

“We’re lucky in this district because there’s plenty of young people around.”

Sally said like most young producers, she turns to her parents for help when they need it. Jake said they had the same goal as most of the other young people in the industry.

“We just want to build our breeder numbers up to a point where it will sustain us and keep growing our cattle business sticking with the Brahmans,” he said.