IN THE Mallee, many years of poor growing conditions have given rise to a new kind of girl talk.
It's all stubble-rashed legs and cabin cappuccinos as women take to driving headers and trucks, mostly in a bid to get their family farms through tough times.
Once upon a time a woman at the wheel of big machinery might have suggested a bloke was so hard up on the farm, he had to resort to getting his wife on the job.
Being hard up was a failing and her presence signalled that failing.
But after years of widespread financial hardship that shackle looks well and truly gone, mainly because everyone, not just the lousy farmer, is hard up.
The irony is that for women, the long dry years might have opened the gate to a fresh acknowledgment of their physical labours on the farm, not seen since the world wars stole their blokes.
In a crisis it's all hands to the wheel.
Robyn Sheridan hauls her family's grain crop to the silos at Donald in a Ford 9000 truck. She also works off farm and has four kids aged 13 to 19.
She started driving at her husband Peter's request about five years ago. "You're there helping to get the crop in and save on wages basically," she says.
Farm-raised Jenny Webb, from Boolite, trucks the grain into nearby Donald in the family's double bogeyed, non-air conditioned Mercedes Benz truck. She takes holidays from her piggery job to drive during harvest.
"I just love it. I love being outdoors and the hotter and dirtier I get the happier I am," she says.
A couple of years ago in the queue at the silos, a farmer Jenny knew suggested it was no place for a woman and that she should be home in the kitchen. "I got very angry and said 'I'll do what I want'. He was having a bad day and so was I."
Most women happily concede they're doing more physical work on farms to make ends meet.
But some, like Jenny Baker - a header driver on her family farm for 20 years - have been doing it through good seasons and bad.
She finished harvesting at midnight and went into labour the following 5am when her first child, Callum, was born 17 years ago.
The family's 20-year-old Gleaner harvester is like an old friend. It has an air-conditioner and radio.
And she's more careful then her husband, Dennis, is when driving the header, so it breaks down less.
"Dennis sets the speed and all I have to do is drive it and watch the height of the comb," she says.
"I make sure I make myself comfortable. I've even got the kids trained to bring me a traveller cup of cappuccino.
"I do quite a bit of cooking by remote control. I call the kids and say the steak's in the fridge and there's things for salad."
Once derided by other farm women for making them look bad, Jenny Baker is now one of many, around Donald at least, at the wheel of farm machinery.
"Mind you," she says, "the house is a disaster area.
"My mother-in-law drove the header until she couldn't climb the ladder to get into it any more. She's very good to me. She does a lot of cooking for me now.
"Because farmers have had such dry years they can't afford to get contractors in or pay wages.
"Women are now more accepted as part of the outside workforce.
"Tell those big machinery-making companies us girls would like an espresso machine in our headers."
