Jessica in the press

Our eldest daughter Jessica was featured recently in Business Review Weekly as a young female entrepreneur facing the challenges of the corporate world. Louisa and I are proud of our children - Jess the business woman, Daniel the extreme sports farm manager, and Rachael the mother of our grandchildren. In the BRW story Jess said she looked around at the males who started businesses at the same time as she did and they were further ahead, and she realised it was because they we risk takers and bullshitters. We males talk a big game while the girls don't like telling lies (or bullshitting). Fake it til you make it, as the saiyng goes. People don't want to hear the truth - they want dreams that you can fulfill. Jess's business - the Frank Team (formerly Youth-to-Youth),a youth training company, runs workshops all over Australia, teaching young people how to start and run their own businesses. Jessica started her first business - a home tutoring business - when she was still at university. She grew up in a household where her parents ran several business from home and one in the city. We weren't corporate hot shots, but we made a living. Jessica was a finalist in last year's Telstra Young Businesswoman of the Year Award and was the female leader of the Australian contingent of 12 on the multinational Ship of Peace, an oceanliner sponsored by the Japanese Government to carry several hundred young adults from all over the world as they visit nations on the Asia-Pacific Rim and discuss issues of world peace and environmental solutions. She has applied to lead the Australian delegation on the next cruise.

We lose a member of the family

Tragedy struck yesterday as Louisa and I were heading out to handfeed the lambs. One of the puppies - Jackson - went under the wheels of the Landcruiser and was crushed. We rushed him to the vet in Mudgee, but he didn't make it. He was bleeding from the mouth, had crushed ribs and massive internal bleeding. Louisa was driving and all the dogs were running alongside the truck, when we felt a 'bump' and heard a yowl. Jackson was bred by Daniel, using Patch the Border Collie bitch and Ravi the Kelpie we got from Col Seis. On the phone to Col about Coalition business last night, he said puppies often get killed and having 2 puppies together is dangerous because they distract each other and don't pay attention to what their elders are doing (which is how they learn to avoid falling under the wheels of farm vehicles.) Lucy was due to go to a good home, but I guess we'll be keeping her now though she's not much good with sheep at present. Daniel was devastated and so was Louisa. We had a sad night.
Strangely enough, my Mother ran over my dog Skipper while driving along the road and Louisa's Mother also ran over her dog.
These are the last shots we have of Jackson. On Dan’s lap while we burn off a pile of old tennis court poles and Bathurst Burr and dead trees, on the evening after the Gulgong Cup. Here’s a shot that’s a couple of months old of Lucy and Jackson (on the right). He was a sharp dog, with great instinct for sheep work. He wasn’t destined to reach full doghood. The vet wrapped him for us and we brought him home. Daniel, who was down at the smow whenw e called him yesterday, drove back overnight and buried his favourite dog this morning.
The shock and sorrow in our home is like we lost a member of the family - because we have.

The Gulgong Community Singers and the Ruffled Grouse

I guess it was inevitable. My Mother was a choir mistress when I was at school. I was in her choirs. And now I have a choir of my own. The Gulgong Community Singers is a group of mature age singers who meet every Friday at the Gulgong Sports & Golf Club at 10.30am til 12.00pm to enjoy the fun of singing together. We're not as tight and professional as a slick vocal group, but it is about taking part and including everyone. We sign at nursing homes and retirement villages and appear at community events such as Anzac Day services in the Memorial Park or Xmas in July at the Sports Club. It's a wonderful opportunity to enjoy the company of these interestinjg people. There is an amazing diversity of personalities and the characteristic tolerance country people have for each other. (Gulgong, 30kms from "Uamby", has a population of just 2000 - as many as you'd see in a shopping mall in Sydney.) The better singers have to tolerate graciously the less than naturally talented singers - and, though I see some funny faces pulled at times, they keep the peace. we sing songs from the old traditionals like Amazing Grace, songs of the '30s and '40s like Memories, School Days, and I Don't Want To Play In Your Yard, and songs from the 60's like Morning Town Ride, Idlewiess, and Que Sera Sera. WE do a wonderful version of Harry Belafonte's Yellow Bird. At our rehearsal yesterday I introduced two new songs for them to learn - California Dreaming by the Mama's and the Papas and The Rhythm of Life (with 3 separate parts being sung simultaneously) from Sweet Charity. (This last song will take 6 months to get to performance level.) While performing last Wednesday at the Moran Nursing Home in Mudgee, I asked one of the wonderful carers there to take a few shots of us in action. And here they are. If you want to join the group, we'll see you at 10.30am on Friday at the Club.

(How did I get involved? I heard the choir singing at the rededication of the Gulgong Memorial Hall and spoke to Marlene O'Brien who I know from Church at Goolma. SHe told me the group was going to fold because the choir leader was leaving town, her husband having just retired from the local mill. I could see how important such a voluntary group was to the social infrastructure of the community. The silencing of the choir would be the same as the disappearance of a song bird from the local environment. As explained in Aldo Leopold's A Sand County ALmanac*, such a loss impoverishes us all. I thought "It can't be that hard to run a choir. You just wave your arms about..." I said I would only be temporary while they found another leader. I told them I couln't always be in Gulgong for rehearsal, having clients in Sydney who need me (thank God). ANd I told them i would be devolving responsibility onto them. And they have responded magnificently. Marlene has taken over the administration. Merlene Laing, the vicar's wife, plays piano and takes them through their vocal exercises. Effie Plummer introduced theatrical props for our "School Days" performance at the Gulgong Primary School in Seniors Week.

**”The physics of beauty is one department of natural science still in the Dark Ages. Not even the manipulators of bent space have tried to solve its equations. Everyone knows, for example, that the autumn landscape in the north woods is the land, plus a red maple, plus a ruffled grouse. In terms of conventional physics, the grouse represents only a millionth of either the mass or the energy of an acre. Yet subtract the grouse and the whole thing is dead. An enormous amount of some kind of motive power has been lost.
"It is easy to say that the loss is all in our mind's eye, but is there any sober ecologist who will agree? He knows full well that there has been an ecological death, the significance of which is inexpressible in terms of contemporary science. A philosopher has called this imponderable essence the numenon of material things. It stands in contradisiinction to phenomenon, which is ponderable and predictable, even to the tossings and turnings of the remotest star." (A Sand County ALmanac, Aldo Leopold, 1949) (RUFFLED GROUSE. PIC: Saskatchewan Environment)

At the Gulgong Cup Festival of the Hoof

THE SPIRIT OF COUNTRY RACING It threatened the rain all day, and we had no umbrella. It was cold as a crypt. The queues for food were as long as the distance between the horses I backed and the first horse home (that long). But we had a ball at the Gulgong Cup Racing Carnival at the Gulgong Turf Club last weekend. Grandson Xavier arrived for the weekend with daughter Jessica (recently featured in BRW magazine) and son and Uamby Manager Daniel took the day off to check out the talent on the course and enjoy the weather.
COUSIN TERRY'S STAND The track is used only once a year for racing and it looked a treat despite the rain (25mls) the day before. Despite the track being heavy, we managed to back a few winners and placegetters, putting bets on with Terry Kiely, bookmaker from Cowra (my father's cousin).
WE RUGGED UP FOR THE DAY The lovely Louisa who stole my heart 34 years ago and Xavier who stole it 3 years ago.













THE LOSER. I even managed to pick first and second, having $5 each way on both. Still I didn't get much back, which tells me picking favourites to win is a loser's game.




















DAN LOOKED DASHING






A FAMILY PHOTO: JESSICA, TERRY, XAVIER AND DANIEL






MY UNCLE PAUL WAS A BOOKMAKER ON COUNTRY TRACKS. MY DAD USED TO PENCIL FOR A BOOKIE AT HAROLD PARK. TERRY IS CARRYING ON A FAMILY TRADE.














I PICKED FIRST AND SECOND IN THIS RACE, EACH WAY, AND MADE BUGGER ALL

















THE MADDING CROWD, GOOD FOR A THREATENING DAY










WE MIGHT OWN ONE OF THESE MIGHTY ANIMALS SOON I have always said I wanted to own a racehorse and have it trained by Percy Thompson and race it at Gilgandra and Bathurst, country tracks where the real spirit of racing survives. Where a battler can buy a nag, train it himself by leading it from the window of a car, scrape together the starter's fee, and sit with his horse in its box before the race, talking tactics.













WINNING CONNECTIONS HOLD THE GULGONG CUP, THE CUTE ONE IN THE MIDDLE IS IRISH JOCKESS KATHY O'HARA. COULDN'T YOU JUST PUT HER IN YOUR POCKET? It is so much fun living out here in this community. Life is a joy. The Gulgong Cup, part of the Henry Lawson Festival. Beat that!










PERCE AUCTIONING OFF A SERVICE FROM A FAMOUS STALLION Well, they were auctioning off a service to a terrific stallion (I didn't get the details), so I sidled up to Perce who was running the auction (when the price was $250) and asked him if he had a mare we could use the service on and he said "Yes", so I bid $275 and the others bid $285 and I got it for another $10. I thought it was a shame such a valuable service was going so cheap. And it's all for the Turf Club. So now we think we're the proud owners of a yet-to-be-conceived race horse. Cool, eh? Michael Lahey, the pioneer Irish political rabblerouser and 'terrorist' who was the first squire of "Uamby" owned and bred racehorses and trained them on a track here at the farm. maybe I was channelling him on Sunday when I bid for that sperm. Who knows? We could put up the prize money for the Uamby Cup next year and win it when our horse is a 3yr old.

Halo around the Moon means Rain Rain RRAiiiiNNN!!!

There was a halo around the moon last night - sure sign of rain. And guess what? I woke to the sound of rain falling, lay in bed listening to God's great gift from the skies being delivered in gentle drops. Bruce Ward alerted me to a website that does a 10 day prediction on precipitation all around the world. Check it out - http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/prec7.html


The halo around the moon is formed by water crystals from forming cirrus clouds which portend rain, according to a site i visited. It is the result of ice crystals refracting the light of the moon when high, thin cirrus clouds made up of millions of these crystals lurk up in the troposphere. The light enters into the hexagonal-shaped ice crystals and is bent before passing out another side of the crystals, causing a ring of light to appear around the moon.
According to folklore, a moon halo indicates that wet weather is due within 24 to 48 hours because the halo is usually caused by high-altitude cirrus clouds that precede a warm front and a storm.
Magic!

Winners are grinners...

And losers make their own arrangements. Well, we weren't all in the winners' circle when the money hit the table last Thursday at the end of the local Catchment Management Authority's Farming Systems Program. But, as they say, 'the game was the winner on the day'.
CWCMA CHAIR TOM GAVEL ANNOUNCES THE WINNERS (NICKO CAN'T WATCH)
We were all lucky to have been living in a catchment with such a progressive management authority. Col Seis's decision to turn all his cropping zones into grassy woodlands and his discovery that a relative of the happy wanderer made a good edible understory shrub struck me. But Col's always been a genius with invention. No one can match him. Tim Wood had a char trial and old man salt bush planted at a funny angle to trap the cold air. Tim is a lovely guy and he's a deserving winner.

INNOVATIVE FARMERS IN AN INNOVATIVE CATCHMENT: COL SEIS, STEVE KISS AND TIM WOOD
Steve Kiss had a bush tucker garden called Possum's corner, and biodynamic preparation spread from the air. Steiner would be impressed were he still alive. Steve is a lovely guy and his place looks terrific.
WINNERS AND LOSERS
Despite feeling disappointed after such a long and gruelling effort, we all managed to be jolly jolly. There are no losers in this class. A good plan will attract the money to make it happen. And there are two more rounds of funding this year. Our dream of a carbon farm will come true.
STEVE KISS CELEBRATES This is how winners celebrate.The post announcement episode was a civilised affair. Jane Wilson of Lowe Family Wines - a fellow classmate - invited us all back to the vineyard she and husband David own in Mudgee, for a wine tasting. Then on to Augustine's (near the airport) for a special meal. (I had beetroot risotto and beef cheeks.) And we had a 'wine options' game, run gracefully by David, a very funny man with loads of personality and endurance.

JOLLY JOLLY AT LOWES FAMILY WINE TASTINGThe night ended after we agreed as a group to form an "Alma Mater" to have dinner and a special speaker every quarter. Nicko stressed after the results were announced that there would be another two rounds of funding this year, one for groups of farmers, which the four of us clustered around Goolma (plus Col if he wants to get involved) could go for. We might get our plans realised anyway.

I hope to publish some or all of the plans because everyone's was brilliant in some way.

Well done everyone!

A brilliant young man

A young man called Andrew Russell has produced a remarkable paper on marketing wool that everyone with an interest in the fibre should read. Not because everything he says in it is right. But because it is a perfect example of the type of thinking and analysis that should have been applied to the wool industry 30 years ago. Why is it so useful? First it points to the Emperor’s new clothes: the credibility of the leadership of the industry in the marketing function. After spending $5billion in woolgrowers’ levy funds, the industry has a brand that was recently valued at $28million. The current incumbents and their ‘research and innovation’ strategy should be judged by outcomes in terms of higher prices and higher demand. Only then will their strategy of finding ways to make a better buggy whip be seen for what it is: futile. Mr Russell's advice that the word “Merino” be used instead of "Wool" in the same way that Toyota used the name Lexus for its high end product is a near-perfect solution. I have been a marketing strategist for Toyota for 20 years. I was on the marketing team that launched the Lexus brand into the Australian market and the separation of the two brands was essential for Lexus to command its high price. It is a perfect analogy. Much can be learned from premium brands about how to manage wool as a high end product. (And don't let anyone tell you the luxury market is too small. It is the fastest growing market in the world as millions of middle class Chinese and Indians aspire to own western luxury brands.) Mr Russell’s paper is very useful because he has a grasp of the fundamental tools of strategy and uses trustworthy models. He asks the right questions and comes up with some of the right answers. He has made a valuable contribution to the industry. It remains to be seen if he gets a fair return for his labours, if only to see his ideas executed (in the marketplace, not at dawn).

The Big Pitch... now we wait

PIC: "The footsteps of the farmer are the best fertiliser." Louisa and Dan go walking with our sheep after a testing time.
At 8.30am this morning we (Daniel, Louisa and myself) faced a judging panel of 15 Catchment Management Authority people in the final act of the Farming Systems Program. We are competing with 10 other farming families to come up with an innovative solution to the problem of dryland salination. Up to three of us will receive up to $100,000 to execute our plans. Our solution- "Uamby: A Carbon Farm" - we costed at $200,000+ for stage one. (The outline appears in a blog below).
We were given 5 minutes to present the outline of our solution, then we were subjected to questioning by the panel for 30 minutes. It was nerve-wracking stuff. Especially as we have been completing a 70-page report for submission yesterday, containing the details of our plan...
The others in our class - all progressive farmers - kept their cards close to their chests. But we do know Jane Wilson of Lowe Family Wines has an innovative composting tea solution, Rick and Angus Maurice were looking into edible shrubs which can act as understory in a grassy woodland, Col Seis is doing something with native grass seeds, Bruce and Jenny from Bathurst have a wetlands project, Tom Green is also looking at edible acacias... We get to see everyone's entry next week when we get together and present to the class. Then the winner(s) are announced, then we go otu to dinner to celebrate/comiserate/whatever.
The Central West CMA took a big risk with this program and all eyes are on the outcome. A few careers hang in the balance. I think their political masters will be pleased.
I guess they could find it hard to award a prize to our submission because it flies in the face of the Federal Government's stand on climate change. But there has been no trace of that during the 20 days training we have undergone in the past 6 months. So we remain optimistic.
We wll know the result in a week. Fingers crossed.