- Taking Stock is a weekly opinion piece written by The Land journalists. The thoughts expressed are their own.
Three years ago the Blues won their first State of Origin series since 2014.
That same year needles were found in strawberries and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle completed a tour of Australia.
Yearling steers were making $750 at a Tamworth store sale and a good bull was averaging $5000 or $6000.
It's been 1052 days since I began my tenure with The Land newspaper and life was certainly different back then.
I'm going to brush over the fact that the Blues are still winning (it's not a good time to be a Queenslander at the moment!) and Prince Harry is still making headlines.
But in three years, agriculture has endured one of the most emotional and rewarding rollercoasters of its history.
They say the grass is always greener on the other side but when I crossed over the border to Tamworth in August 2018, there wasn't any grass to be seen.
Drought wasn't foreign to me. I'd spoken to producers in Eulo who'd lost count after dry conditions had stretched into 15 of the last 17 years.
But at the time I didn't truly understand what it meant for people in NSW. I knew they were in a difficult situation but the unexpected nature of this drought was what really hurt the most.
They'd thought of future challenges and set themselves up in a once stable area, only to be left hanging on to the fraying safety net around them.
I also arrived with a northern Queensland attitude that estimated breeding values were a foreign language. A raw eye muscle scan and a morphology semen test were the only data sets needed to make a critical decision on a bull.
Find a sire who phenotypically displayed growth-for-age and you could be certain he'd draw the biggest dollars in the beef capital where you rarely heard somebody talk about indexes or calving ease direct.
When it came to sheep the last time I'd been face-to-face with a ram was when he pinned me to the ground and broke my elbow in two places. McLeods Daughters was the only experience I'd had in a shearing shed.
But a lot can change in three years.
Nobody expected bare paddocks to bounce back within weeks of rainfall and nobody thought weaners would be worth close to the price of a bullock.
That's the beauty of agriculture - nobody knows what's next.
I've learnt a lot during my time in the blue state, lessons I didn't even realise I needed to be taught.
Drought is still drought. Whether you've gone without rain for just a few months or years, it still has an impact.
EBVs aren't for everyone, and that's okay.
Rams really can be gentle giants.
I've asked producers if it was worthwhile feeding their cows through drought or if they regret selling off their flock, and the answer is different every time.
We're not meant to run things the same; that's what makes this industry sustainable.
It doesn't matter where you live, what breed of cattle you own or if you believe in EBVs or not; we all have a place in this industry.
Thankfully the grass has finally gotten greener on this side of the border, strawberries have never tasted sweeter and a good bull will set you back $12,000 to $14,000 now.
And even though my time with The Land comes to an end on July 19 when I head back to the Queensland Country Life, this Broncos fan will return so much wiser for her time in this state.
Win, lose, or draw I'll still back the Maroons, but it turns out NSW isn't all that bad after all.
I never thought I'd say that, but just as agriculture has taught me; nobody knows what's next.