I'm so used to seeing people do amazing things with machinery, it’s a bit of a wake-up call when you see less talented people in action.

Last year during our olive harvest the chap driving the tree-shaker drove up to a tree, gripped it with the massive rubber clamp, then instead of shaking the tree, slipped his foot on the clutch and jerked forward…still gripping the tree. There was a massive "Crack!". Nice.

His equipment, more than once, burst hoses and sprayed hydraulic fluid over hundreds of kilos of olives, which they simply dumped in my paddocks.

This year as they were leaving they reversed, twice, into a fifteen year old olive tree, pulling it from the ground, then just drove off, leaving the uprooted tree lying there.

We might save the tree. It was heavily pruned and replanted, mounted inside a steel frame to keep it stable and to discourage the cows from smashing it down while it recovers. We'll see. I'm optimistic at this stage, but still get really angry if I think about it too much.

Compare that to the impressive job Colin did with some logs in the bottom paddock. Two large trees that had been felled and hollowed by fire have blocked off a chunk of the bottom paddock from cutting hay. Colin moved them for me this week using brains and a tractor with front forks. One of the logs was more than five metres long and weighed at least 1500 kilos. Its odd shape made balancing it a expert finessing task.

To get it through the gate Colin had to raise it and carry it over complex, sloping terrain. I found it all thrilling!

The huge hollow logs are great lamb shelters, and they now site waiting for the influx of winter lambs later in the year.

For the last week I have been hand-picking kalamata olives at another orchard near home. We were there two months ago doing a pre-harvest cleanup and prune. It was hot and dusty, and I found myself thinking "Who would take on this place?".

The farm had been ruined by the poor management of the previous owners. The olives were overgrown with blackberries, and every paddock on the place was a wasteland of not-even weeds…just patches of scuffed dirt with almost no cover.

So coming back I was amazed to see the ruined cherry orchard has been cleared, new fencing everywhere, some of the piles of rubbish have been cleared out and the terrible paddocks have been ploughed and seeded. With the rain-sun-rain we've had for the last few weeks, the paddocks are suddenly sprouting. The transformation is stunning. While we were there the work continued, and I watched the precise work that the tractor driver was doing. No wasted movement, all beautiful and even, it was an education to see an expert at work.

As we loaded up our pickings for the day to take back and finish - a wash and hand-sort…Aaron the owner walked past, and I told him what an impressive job he was doing on rehabilitating the place. He was chuffed. He didn't know about farming he said, but was "keen to give it a crack".

Good on him!