Will you still Need Me, will you still feed me, When I'm 64?

My very good friend Mike Connor is 64 today. He is symbolic of all of us for lots of reasons. He's living his dream, sailing the northern waters with his wife Michelle, who he is damn lucky to have beside of him, as is anyone of his age and education and upbringing. Michelle and Mike are both beautiful people who don't hide their humanity and human frailty. Mike and I and all the men like us should get down on our knees and thank whoever runs the Universe for sending us the women we married. Because we are clots. We don't tell these amazing people how much we love them. We don't let them stay in bed while we bring them breakfast often enough. We don't listen to them. We don't. We hear them, but not because we are listening. Not that Mike doesn't listen to Michelle - I am sure he does. But he's a male, so there's every chance he doesn't "hear" what she's saying. So my wish for Mike on reaching 64 with the woman of his dreams (and all of us men who are married to wonderful but weary women ... "She may be weary, women do get weary...") is that we find the secret to letting them know how important they are to us. (Men have blissful lives when they discover this skill.)

Happy 64th Mike.

AMAZING FACTS ABOUT MIKE CONNOR:

He once played drums in the backing band for The Big Bopper (who died in the plane crash with Buddy Holly)
He drinks Gin neat.
He is a sailor from Boston Harbour (where the world's first giant tea bag set off the AMerican Revolution.)
His wife is part psychic, part energy healer, part sailor... and full of brilliance.

Wedding bells in Bowral for our Jessica

These are the rosellas frolicking in the fountain outside our window at Milton Park, the Southern Highlands Stately Country House where daughter Jessica married Fred Schebesta on Easter Monday. All the official photos will be posted eventually.
Here we see Rachael and Brodie (baby grandson) with brother Stephen and sister-in-law Roxanne observing the ceremony. l
Jess and Fred really stretched their budget to pay for an amazing wedding.

Louisa said to Fred's father (Fred) "She looks like an Austrian princess!" Alfred said: "No, much more than that!"This pic shows Louisa and Fred's mother Kerrie (in stunning blue) greeting Jess and Fred after the ceremony. The boys wore tails and top hats. Very theatrical

Lighting a fire in WA

SALT PANS SCATTERED ACROSS THE LANDSCAPE IN WA

Louisa and I flew to Western Australia to speak at the Western Australia No Till Farming Association conference at Perth (outside Perth at the Vines Resort). We flew over a drought ravaged land with thin ground cover or none. We landed to meet some of the most courageous people we have ever met. More than half the farmers in the West are facing the last throw of the dice in the coming season. Dr Tim Wiley of the Department of Agriculture said we lit a fire in WA about soil carbon. It is now top of the agenda for WANTFA. (Shades of NZ. BTW, we didn't light a fire with the Ministry of Ag in NZ re the tender. We missed out. Sadly, it appears the Kiwis have delivered the project to the scientists, which is the kiss of death for a market mechanism to emerge.)

With the mulesing issue burning hot after the latest blunder by the wool industry, we spent a day working on marketing strategies with the Multi Purpose Merino breeders group. These innovators have developed a wrinkle-free sheep that needs no mulesing. (We have bought 9 MPM rams to breed mulesing out of our flock.) One of those breeders is Bob McFarlane, the man behind CharleyCarp, the fertiliser made from the caro that are destroying our waterways. He is a man of ideas.

We were also honoured to address a gathering of progressive farmers at the Department of Agriculture in Geraldton, thanks to Jane Bradly. While there we saw a presentation by Bob Wilson of Evergreen Consulting on his experiments with perennial grasses and tagasaste.
The perennials scored 23 tonnes CO2e/Ha more than the annual pasture and the Tagasaste 67 tonnes CO2e. (Samples were taken from deep sands under an old annual pasture, a 3 ½ year old Rhodes grass stand and an 18 year old tagasaste stand in adjoining paddocks.) The hand emerging from the gloom is Bob's.

...a scene from the movie...

This is a shot from "Healing the Land", the TV Documentary which is studying the alternative agriculture movement around the world. In this shot Louisa is mustering the ewes from Creek Paddock.

Media madness

There's always a camera stuck in your face.
Here is Louisa being interviewed for Regional Television outside Hamilton NZ. Mandy, the journalist, is a shoestring budget operator who will one day control the Universe.

This film crew from New Mexico is making a documentary called "Healing the Earth" and they spent 2 days with usfilming. Here they are interviewing Ian Chapman down by the river. Ian is a TAFE Co-ordinator of courses such as woolclassing, shearing, etc. He shares many of our beliefs about weeds and pesticides, etc.

Christopher Schueler, who is making the documentary, is from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and he has had a long career in television and film. He brought Randy the cameraman with him and picked up david the soundman here in Australia.

The sheep will be complaining to their agents if we have too many more film crews arrive.

Tim Sheridan makes a visit, then flies...

We got a surprise one morning a week or so ago when this tall,d ark and handsome man came to the back door. "SHerro!" It was Tim SHeridan, who we knew when at Bathurst (Mitchell College) in the early 1980s and who played drums in the Channel 9 Band (I played bass). He and I studied journalism at about the same time and he became a famous face on Channel 9 Sports. Tim' grew up on a farm that joined our first property in the district.
After he left I found this huge blow fly on the back step. They say there's no flies on SHerro, and now we know why. He leaves them behind.

No need for Mulesing at "Uamby"

We have always hated mulesing but did it because 'they' said we should. But now we hope we don't have to do it ever again. We are replacing our rams gradually with Multi Purpose Merinos, the first 8 arrived a few weeks ago.
These noble beasts have few wrinkles and flaps and so they and their progeny don't need mulesing. Simple. Australian-grown solution. Louisa and I are meeting with the company whose growers produce the new bloodline to see if we can help them develop a 'carboncredited™' offering. The meeting will be a full day working with their growers in WA.


We only just got back from NZ (see carboncoalitionboz.blogspot.com) where we spent a week campaigning for climate change agriculture. We will be a week in WA, speaking to WANTFA (no till farmers), farmers from the Northern Catchment, and the MPM breeders.