Bogged! (Trying to Feed the Ewes)

So much rain. While Newcastle was being pounded by vicious storms, we were happy to receive 85 precious mls of rain. Filling the dams. Soaking the rootmass of the pastures. In fact, we have a hydrology problem because low lying areas saturate and become waterlogged (which indicates that we need more deep rooted plants 'ploughing' our soils, making them more sponge-like and capable of holding water).
We have got a lot to learn about Uamby's behaviour under water (not had much experience of too much water in 7 years of drought). We now know not to try taking 1 tonne of feed grain on a 1 tonne truck down to feed ewes on the flatland after rain. WE bogged the Red Landcruiser, Dan's Landcruiser, a quad bike and finally the tractor... each one bogged while trying to pull the other out. (We eventually had to dig the Red Landcruiser out.)

The Cudgegong River did not break its banks, welcoming the flushing out as it had become stagnant and fetid. I hope the platypus family were snug in their home in the river bank. Molly's Creek cut the road for a short while. "What's this stuff?" asked Ravi, the Red Kelpie. "Water," I told him. "What's it doing in the creek?" he asked. "Just reliving old times," I said. He gave me a quizical (?) look.

"Uamby" helps the Holistic Management movement raise money

More than 30 million acres are being managed holistically worldwide. ANd holistic management is a climate change solution. So support Holistic Management International, says the flyer. This has been distributed throughout parts of the United States.

And Uamby is featured prominantly on the flyer: as "The green land" which is managed holistically.

We have been managing holistically for 10 years, now.



Peter Holter, the PR wizard with HMI, visted with us several months ago... with HMI's Australian anchor Judy Earl.


We were hosted for part of our visit to New Mexico by Peter, when we were in ALberqurque visiting with the Southwestern Partnership (one of President Bush's groups of universities and scientific institutions working on geosequestration and soil carbon sequestration.)



We were flattered to receive Peter's request to use our photograph - taken from a light aircraft 2 weeks after we received 75mls in 35 minutes. It has browned off considerably since then.

THE BALLAD OF HAROLD THE BOLD

Louisa is afraid my cameos of life in Goolma, captured in song, are inappropriate. And so they are. But people love them. Even those the songs are about. Billy Moore is clever enough to see the comedic exaggeration in my ballad in praise of his bovine bovver boys. Harold certainly enjoyed hearing his special song. It is the story about New Year's celebrations from 2 years ago when Harold starred in a dramatic incident when midnight tolled. A very "Goolma" moment.

THE BALLAD OF HAROLD THE BOLD

There’s a story of old about Harold the Bold
Whose pub is of legendary fame
I’ll tell you a story so ghastly and gory
How Harold the Bold got his name

When it comes to carousal and sexual arousal
Harold’s pub’ not the ideal
But if it’s hard drinking and sin without shrinking
His venue has quite the right feel

So it came to pass in that palace of glasses
That Xmas had come and had gone
The regulars had hardly shifted their arses
Before the New Year had been born.

Inspired by grog and how much he could flog
Bold Harold was flushed with good cheer
He decided he’d shout all the drinkers about
To keep them as patrons all year.

But try as he may with something to say
He just couldn’t make himself heard
So he jumped on the bar and held up his arm
To give his good patrons the word.

No sooner had Bold Harold stood in his place
Than he was struck down by a blow
A treacherous ceiling fan launched him in space
And hurtled him deep down below.

To the floor of the bar where the sharp objects are
Fell the soft head of our host
He bled from a cut on his arm they said, but
It was his soft head that bled most.

Unseen by the mob which was sodden with grog
Poor Harold lay injured and bleeding
Only one person was sober for certain
And saw what poor Harold was needing.

She bandaged his arm and raised the alarm
By making an ambulance call
Ands one to the priest just in case he deceased
If the ambulance made it at all.

It is said that the party was jolly and hearty
With many a thought for Bold Harold
Who was sent to hospital not by his fall
But his stop when he dropped like a barrel.

His generous attempt to shout us prevented
By ceiling fan already mentioned
History would have been made, he intended
But for divine intervention.

Where the strong beer is sold the legend is told
How Harold the Bold was sent reeling
And they gather each night in the hope that he might
Fight round two with that fan on the ceiling.

©Michael Kiely 2007

the sky was blue and high above

This momentous sky...
you can't hide from the skies out here.
They're in your face.
You turn around and ... wow!

I saw this while patching the fence around the hay shed which had been invaded by sheep and given a bit of an upside down haircut...



They look like they need to break in to the food store, don't they...

We meet Con the Fruiterer at a Sustainability Conference

What a surprise to get an email from Mark Mitchell, aka Con The Fruiterer, at the Business Council for Sustainable Energy conference last week. He didn't know we'd be there. We didn't know he'd be there. Mark has been part of our Inspired Circle
of Friends ssince he got in touch with us about Adoptasheep several months ago and we discovered that he is a gifted inventor/engineer in the sustainable energy space.



Con had a lot of very serious points to make about climate change and global warming, hidden in the humour that had the room rocking for an hour. The best line of the night was his exhortation to politicians and public servants to keep producing millions of tonnes of paper reports each year and storing them in filing cabinets as they are sequestering CO2 that way.

My version of that concept is that we should be encouraging people to get fat, obese even, because they store carbon.The world should be pigging out as fast as it can.

Jessica gets some media

This article appeared in the Daily Telegraph this week:

-------
JESSICA Kiely runs the FRANK team, which does career and entrepreneurship training for young people at schools, universities, colleges and councils.

Describe your business?

It involves holding workshops and programs for young people on how to start their careers and how to start their own businesses.

It began about six years ago in 2001. There was nothing like this when we were at school, which is why we're doing it.

How long ago was that?

Well I'm 30 now. This was the second business I've started up. My first business was tutoring.

We've found that not many people who should be in a position to help are very friendly and helpful when you're young. They tend to be patronising and not take you seriously.

But there is a real need to inspire young people, to help them if they want to run their own businesses. We've moved into the career areas as well now, because the schools are demanding it.

There are some key skills that young people need these days. They no longer get a job for life, they need to be in control of their work and they need to build the skills to give them that control. The new rule is that they have to be skilled up and ready for that reality.

We've also ended up in front of parents and teachers. They need to understand what their children are doing too.

How do you make money?

We get paid for our presentations by the schools, universities or corporations.

How long did it take before you made a profit?

We started in 2001 and we were probably making a profit after six months. There weren't a lot of set-up costs as we were running the business from home where we had no overheads. We've now leased an office for the first time.

For the first four years I did all the paperwork, but we've now got a book-keeper and an accountant to take care of that. And we have project managers who managing the bookings.

How many people are involved in the business?

There are five people in the Sydney headquarters, including me and my business partner. Then we have 27 facilitators around Australia.

They are independent contractors and we pay them per booking, so they can run their own businesses as well. The FRANK team has now worked with thousands of people in every state of Australia, as well as some overseas countries.

Did you ever think you would get this big?

The idea in the first place was that it would have an impact on young people. It was always about doing it well and then getting other people to do it.

What sort of qualifications do you need?

I did economics and social science at Sydney University and majored in eduction and psychology. I've trained up on other things too. I love those courses that you can do in one day.

How is your business different from your competitors?

When we first started there wasn't much difference. Now there is, mostly because schools and the Government see that education needs to change and the information kids get access to also needs to change to deal with the reality.

All our facilitators are amazing young people - they are role models, they are all young, under the age of 32.

Also we go to the schools, they don't have to come to us. We offer the complete program, with the facilitator, activities and a comprehensive customer service program.

What has been your biggest challenge along the way?

The biggest challenge is our growth. Previously it's been organic, but now we're expanding quickly so managing that growth and cashflow and staff is the toughest thing at the moment.

We need to put systems in place so we can cope better. At the moment our strategy is writing our systems manual. It's very boring. It's like putting together a franchise manual.

Where will your business be in five years' time?

We've got global aspirations. Singapore, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates, potentially Japan. We can get over the cultural differences by recruiting local people.

What has been your biggest stroke of luck or piece of good planning?

The biggest thing we did really well is our website. We put a lot of work into it. We did a program last year in Bahrain because they found us on the internet.

How did you get your name?

Originally we were called Youth 2 Youth, and we worked with mainly young people aged 15 to 35.

But then a lot of older people wanted to be part of our workshops so we decided we'd get a new name.

In 2003 we'd started a magazine for girls that we called Frank, because the content of the magazine was up front, and also it was different to call a girls' magazine a boy's name. So we decided to re-use that name.

Any advice for budding entrepreneurs?

Give it a go. Don't take too much time planning as that can stop you. The best way to learn is to do it.

What's your web address?

www.frankteam.com.au

SNAKE!

In less than a week we had a black snake (red belly) and a brown snake come to visit. What am I saying - they live with us! The black snake first appeared in the tool room next to the shed. The next time it appeared in amazing circumstances: we were sitting on the front verandah at dusk talking about snakes with a person who was a bit psychic. And I mentioned the local furphy that there were bluebellied blacksnakes down by the river and wondered out loud if they were a totem for the original owners of the land when a black 'shadow' seemed to run along the top of the fence in front of us, and at the same instant I looked down and at my feet (I was sitting on the steps) a black snake was trying to force its way into a small crevice between the stpes and the house. We all jumped up and ran inside, but our visitor's black labrador was attacking the snake, so I ran out and grabbed the dog and pulled it away. But by this time the snake was gone, presumably under the house. Did we see it? What did it mean? Daniel tells me he confronted it coming upthe footpath leading to the house one night. SO the latest sighting is a couple of weeks ago, in the above photo. It made its lesiurely way out fromunder Daniel's cottage, out under his car and into the grass beside the stables.

Then within days we have a visit from the big brown snake that also inhabits where we inhabit. The first time I heard of him/her/it, our manager said he had seen a "king brown" in the shearing shed and he wasn't going in there again. ("Anything to get out of work," I thought. But then I saw the snake's slide marks in the sand leading down towards the stables. On another occasion - during one of our droughts - I came across it crossing the road going towards the river. ANd the last time I saw it, I was reaching down to pick up some star pickets from in the grass and through the fence I saw in a small window between the grass a snake's skin pattern moving slowly along. It was brown. The latest visit came when we were out in the vege garden, digging out the weeds. It was detected by your Connor Grealish who drove over it on a quad bik and raised the alarm. Daniel coaxed it out of the grass and chased it up to the stables. (Ironically Daniel had a statement of the incidence of the high percentage of people who had died from snake bite whwile trying to kill the snake.)
I ran in to get the camera but it was all over. However I found it had shed part of its skin while escaping. It was two and a half meters long. Snake Info: Brown snakes are deadly. Aggressive. Territorial. Black snakes are less aggressive and are said to keep brown snakes away. Ours is a lazy bludger in that regard. Never try to kill a snake. If you find yourslef close to on, stop dead still. They are blind and rely on movement to target their prey. Stand still unless you can levitate at the speed of sound. Like I do. By the way, snakes have a job to do in the natural world. Don't kill them. Just be careful. Real careful.

"Crooks of the worst description"

Kate McCarthy, who edits "Style" magazine, a central west publication, saked me to send her some quotes on off-farm income.

I blathered my way to the core of the story, from our experience:

"Off-farm income is becoming essential for three reasons: 1. Prices of commodities will always trend to the lower levels once buyers are consolidated into a few large players, like the Chinese wool buyers. 2. Climate change is going to affect the productivity on most Australian landholders as we have to cope with hotter, dryer conditions. 3. Most holdings are too small to take advantage of the benefits of scale that big growers enjoy. It's a rare family in our district that doesn't have some off farm income. I admire the ones who don't.

"As newcomers to the farming game - or blow-ins - we didn't know it was uncool to seek off-farm sources of funding in order to survive the drought. So when we put up a website and ran a PR campaign to adopt our flock for 100 days, we were unprepared for the response: we attracted 2500 adopters, mainly from the city, but from all over, and they paid enough to feed the flock for 100 days. We were humbled by the experience. But we were also unprepared for the bitter response of many country people, including neighbours and family. We were characterised as crooks of the worst description by some. We were stunned.

"It was curious. On the one hand we had thousands of messages from adopters saying 'what a brilliant idea' and 'thank you for giving us this opportunity to do something positive about the drought" and on the other we had people saying "how could you take people's money?" We now know who our friends are. And we understand the pride in country people that means they have to be dragged kicking and screaming to apply for drought relief. (We didn't apply for it either. They humilate you and you only qualify when you are on your knees.) But going to the wall for pride isn't brave. It's stupid.

"The lessons we learned were these: There's a lot of talk about bridging the city-country gap. We bridged that gap. It nearly killed us, responding to media 24 hours a day, producing all those personalised adoption certificates. We earned every cent we collected, and every cent went down the throats of our sheep. We don't care what people say, we're proud of what we achieved. Our flock (and our genetics) is intact. We consider ourselves to be part of "The New Bush" - making the necessary changes to adapt to the new conditions. All our adopters are now 'family' and can turn up whenever they like, camp or stay on the property, be shown around, help with jobs, etc. We love having them, although it can disrupt our plans at times. And they hear it straight about why we mules, cull and control roo numbers. I have had industry leaders say we can do more to change city people's minds about farming than they can. And they're right.

"There is a lot of unmet demand in the community for connection with the bush. It is not like taking charity to respond to this demand. We in the country have what they want and are prepared to pay for. If only the Chinese wool buyers felt the same way.

......

Carbon credits.

Ironically we started our voluntary, full-time 18 month campaign to provide landholders with an income stream from the carbon credit market because we were distressed at the breakdown of community infrastructure due to the loss of people because the money wasn't in agriculture. We formed the Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming with the support of a group of leading 'carbon farming' growers and ran a campaign which has brought the issue to the attention of all levels of government and brought us to within a whisker of launching the market. In fact we have made our first trade.

The carbon market is tipped to be worth US$120bn by 2012. It will become the world's largest commodity market in history. A lot of people are going to get very rich from selling carbon. We ask: "Why shouldn't some of that money come to farmers instead of merchant bankers?"

"Carbon farming" is a collection of options that all go to increase soil carbon and fertility and, as a result, productivity. There are 5 basic 'rules': 1. No ploughing or burning because it bares the earth, releases CO2, and runs down carbon stocks. Zero-till or non-till instead. 2. 100% groundcover or as close to it as possible. 3. Native perennial grasses are the most efficient 'carbon makers'. Wherever possible, choose deep-rooted perennials for pasture. 4. Controlled traffic to reduce compaction. Reduce the footprint of heavy machinery to preserve carbon in the soil. 5. Biodiversity: as the microbial life multiplies in the humus zone of the soil, so the food chain increases on top of the soil and new species of plants, birds and animals appear. This strengthens the crops and pastures being grown.

These are small changes to farming practice. Already more than half the farmers in South Australia practice no-till cropping.

The National Party in NSW adopted our mission as part of their platform in the NSW elections just passed.

..............

No one is forcing any grower to take part. It's up to the individual. There's a lot of money sloshing around over the mountains, down in the city. An obscene amount of money... We've got to find a way to pipe some of it over the mountains. Adopting flocks or buying carbon credits... giving city people (who after all have to live in those city conditions) the chance to be part of what we do everyday, if only in their hearts and their imaginations, does them a lot of good. And and us too.

Bret and his tree planting bazooka

We were very fortunate in the horticulturalist engaged to help us to plant 2700 trees in the wildlife corridow. Bret Sanders stayed with us over Easter and turned out to be a fascinating individual. He comes from out near Coonabarabran. We spent many hours discussing carbon farming and the organics industry. We made another friend in the natural farming business. He worked like a trojan.

We spend Easter planting the wildlife corridor

I found this little fella (does anyone recognise it?) in the rip line we used to plant the eucalypts and acacias and currajongs in a 50 metre wide, 1.5km long wooded corridor that we hope will give the birds and small native mammals protection as they pass from remnant vegetation to remnant vegetation. This little lizard is our own DeGroot (the New Guard officer who slashed the ribbon when Jack Lang was to open the Harbour Bridge).
We are planting 3000 trees of various sizes to provide an understory as well as tall trees. We have our reasons: 1. Biodiversity is a charcteristic of a high soil carbon environment. This corridor will encourage biodiversity above and below the ground. 2. Trees in buffers and scattered across grassland are also good for carbon.Scientific papers have said soil carbon is higher in the vicinity of trees. 3. Soil carbon increases soil producivity.
These rocks dug up by the ripper as it prepared the planting line shows you what we are farming on in some paddocks.
Dan's friends Simon and Bethany came to help, watering thousands of seedlings.
(More to come)

24 hours after a soaking in sugar water

This looks like one sick Bathurst Burr we've got in our experimental plot just outside the back door. This photo was taken exactly (give or take) 24 hours after a solution of 4kgs sugar and 10lt water was applied.

On the other hand, our lambs are to be drenched with Kelp and minerals, Cod liver oil, and Apple cider vinegar and garlic. Sounds like a recipe for something...

No culls this year?

Normally we cull the worst 10% of our flock as a way of improving the genetics, ie. preventing the poorer animals breeding and adding to the gene pool. But this year we can't find even 100 sheep we can sell. Even the "Purple Taggers" (each generation of ewes has a coloured ear tag), who are 5+ years old, will be staying on. They have terrific wool and they are still physically sound (no broken mouths or distended udders, etc).

White sugar is poison to plants

We don't like spraying heavy duty chemicals on the soil or the vegetation because they kill the living things in on which we rely for productivity: microbes, insects, etc.


So we are always open to non-toxic alternatives. The chemicals for spraying on Bathurst burr (my greatest hate) are very toxic and dangerous for humans as well as bugs. So when we heard about sugar as a herbicide, we decided to attack the burr with it.


The amounts specified in the article we read are extreme: 1/2 kilo of sugar per square metre. Buying sugar at the supermarket could be prohibitive. We did it that way for our trial. Mixed up 4 kgs and sprayed a plot of burr 8 sq.m. in a spot that traditionally is our worst infestation. I also sprayed some individual plants in our back 'lawn' to have something I could watch daily. So far so good. The victims near the back door have started to get a droop which usually follows when chemical is applied.


The food nazis told us white sugar was poison back in the 1980s and campaigned against it like all good lifestyle nazis should. Little did we suspect that they were right on the money.

Pasture still thin on the ground

The green flush is all around, and it is so joyful to see the grasses return. Unfortunately it's a bit 'thin on the ground'. We need rain-and guess what!! The ants are back!!!! In their thousands - crawling all through the cupboards, testing every lid and package. They predicted the last rain, but they weren't very accurate about when.







Let's go and have a look at Middle Paddock. It looks good from the air and from outside the gate. But on closer inspection, it is a different story.






Windmill grass and couch grass indicate salination. There are patches of native perennials valiantly trying to re-establish.





But there are also many bare patches which will need more time to recover, and some special treatment. We had pasture cropped this paddock in 2004, which gave us an explosion of perennial grasses.






(Pasture cropping is the direct drilling on something like oats into a dormant pasture instead of ploughing and sowing conventionally.) Heaven knows what the paddock would look like had we not done that.




The sheep don't have a problem with the grass - they're just so happy to see it. They run from paddock to paddock when we are moving them. No need to push them. Just show them the gate.





The impression that we are drowning in feed that the aerial photo might give is wrong. More than half the property is still in drought. Only those areas we were able to take the sheep off, thanks to our supporters. We fed the sheep in 'sacrifice paddocks' which you can see here.One of the sacrifice paddocks was called The Lease.






It is still struggling to come back. ALthough those sections where we spread Nitrohumus a few years ago (treated human biosolids) reveal better results.This treatment aimed to increase biological activity in the soil and kick start the restoration program.







We took advantage of the rest House Paddock was given over the last 3 months to allow some river red gums establish themselves in a paddock in need of trees. There has been one brave little gum tree growing well. So we protected four more seedlings to sede if they would flourish.



(I believe it is best the let Mother Nature decide what to plant and where. The tree is morem likely to survive that way. And we have planted many trees unsuccessfully over the years.) Here is our little master. He'll soon no longer need the protector.





And here is one of the babies - see how he grows in a few months.

Ah! Democracy... Election Day, NSW 2007

This is Erin Brockovich. She came all the way from America to help Patrice Newell attract media attention to the CLIMATE CHANGE COALITION - which is agroup of independents standing for the House of Lords... er, the Legislative Council, which is a direct descendent from the house of lords as it was originally made up of grandees and squatters and bunyip aristocrats - privilege and position and inbreeding don't make for a very good political system.

My contribution for the advertising was the following:

"FFFFFFFFFF" (CO2 ESCAPING)

VOTE 1 GROUP F TO STOP IT

You won't see it tomorrow or anytime.

Here is the official blurb:

CCC is not a political party. It is a group of 21 independents ensuring climate change is a primary consideration in all government business. CCC will work with any political group, community organization or individual taking positive action against climate change. Once elected CCC members will be free to vote on other issues according to their own conscience, but will take a combined stand on any issue impacting on climate change. The Coalition is united on all climate change policies and will assess all government proposals, including those for education, health etc for their impact on climate change. We will ask key questions about each piece of legislation that comes into the New South Wales Parliament. Does the proposed law address climate change? How can it be amended to make it better? See our policies at www.climatechangecoalition.com.au By scrutinising every piece of government legislation for impact on climate change, CCC will be able to lobby for changes to address the climate change problem. We will actively promote zero energy growth by 2010, ensure best practice standards are incorporated in all NSW standards for buildings and equipment, push for a moratorium on new coal-fired power stations and for a government commitment to a 25% renewal energy target by 2020. See our policies.

And this is my inspiration. When the future of the planet is in the hands of such an individual, everyone must answer the call. Mother Nature needs a hand.

Do you support the Carbon Coalition?

The work of the Carbon Coalition has been entirely voluntary for the past year. (SEE http://carboncoalitionoz.blogspot.com for out 12 month activity report.)

The Convenors have funded:

• lobbying,
• outreach,
• speaking engagements,
• website activity,
• blogging,
• research,
• overseas study tour,
• attending conferences to make contacts,
• appearing before official enquiries…

Please see the attached activity sheet. The time involved has grown to consume time previously devoted to income-producing activity. We can't go on this way. We need to professionalise the operation. Get serious or get out.

We believe the mission of the Coalition is too important to wind down at this important point.

We are on the point of creating the soil carbon market in Australia, We are enrolling landholders for trading. But the challenges we have coming up include:

1. Being fobbed off with Federal Government Stewardship Payments instead of carbon credits. These are a poor substitute for three reasons: i. it puts you in the hands of the public servants; ii. They could never be as lucrative; iii. They represent handouts, not payments for produce. We believe the Howard Government is implacably opposed to soil carbon credits. (Leopards don’t change their spots.)
2. Missing out on offsets when on-farm emissions are measured/estimated and landholders are required to buy credits to offset CO2, methane, nitrous oxide etc.
3. Put an end to the myth about Australian soils and carbon.
4. Force the hand of the regulators (IPART) by forming markets.
5. Promote the notion of Carbon Farming among business as usual growers.
6. Maintain pressure for Australia to join Kyoto.
7. Protect landholders from exploitation by unsympathetic middlemen and opportunists.
8. Teaching landholders about the carbon trading markets.

We need your help…

We need your help to achieve the goals of the Coalition:

• Making the family farm more economically viable
• Strengthening rural communities
• Restoring the ecological health of farmland
• Reducing the extremes of Climate Change

What we need resources for…

• Website development
• Membership database system
• Publicity
• Management
• Lobbying
• Research
• Conferences
• Subscriptions
• Travel/Acc

There is so much more we can do… getting Members involved in our activities is FIRST AND FOREMOST… but it takes time and time is always short when you’re short of money.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

There are many ways you can help:

• You can send a cheque to the Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming C/- MB & AL Kiely, “Uamby”, Uamby Road, GOOLMA NSW 2852

• You will find a “Donate” button on the website (www.carboncoalition.com.au) and on the blogsites.

• You can buy Australian Farm Soil Credits from http://carbonfarmers.blogspot.com

• You can engage CarbonCreditedBrands by visiting http://carboncreditedhowto.blogspot.com

Your contribution is an investment in the greatest opportunity to solve the problems of declining land health, declining economic health, and declining personal health in agriculture.

Thank you for being part of this historic moment.


Michael, Louisa & Daniel Kiely
Convenors

PS. Please pass this email letter on to others you may know who would be interested.

NB. YOUR TAX DEDUCTION: While we cannot offer tax deductibility as a CHARITY, we can arrange a deduction for you by the following means: 1. You make your contribution. 2. The Coalition invoices you for CARBON ADVISORY SERVICES (which is a legitimate part of our activities) and your receipt can be used for deduction.

"Stands out like a beacon!"

When Holistic Resource Management International's Peter Holter and Judy Earl visited "Uamby" a month ago, Judy said it 'stood out like a beacon' because of the way we had conserved the vegetation and protected the soil. Now we know why she said it.

Daniel flew the light aircraft while the pilot took these photographs. This shows what our soil has done with the rain compared to the neighbours' (and compared to the 'sacrifice paddocks we used to hand feed our flock).

Amazing!

Look at the difference on the river banks - the erosion and damage on the bare side versus the vegetation on the green side. Stunning! Thank God for all our Adopting "parents" who enabled us to take the flock off most of the paddocks.

Obviously we were able to make full use of the rain. (Their animals keep breaking through our fences.)

Holistic Resource Management is the system of decision making we use to manage our farming enterprise. It was developed by Allan Savory and is practiced around the world by conservation-minded landholders because it gets results like these.

78MLS IN 30 MINUTES!

This is Daniel paddling in our sheep yards during a massive dump of water that almost washed us away! Luckily the lambs and the two new rams had been moved to the shearing shed the day before or we would have lost large numbers drowned in the flood. This was the rain we have been waiting for for 12 months. Now we will see the benefit of retaining grass groundcover in the way the grass will regrow. Also we have not lost the tonnes of topsoil that would have been washed into the river had we eaten out the pastures. Now we need a 10ml-20ml follow up fall in a week or so and in a few months the pasture will be reestablished. It's too early to put the stock onto the grass. (We have 3 weeks' hay and grain left in our reserves.) To all of you who have renewed your adoption for another 100 days, THANK YOU. Thank you, everyone. We are truly blessed.

Speaking to Carbon Farmers in South Aussie

Last week Louisa and I travelled to Tanunda SA to speak at the South Australian No Till Farmers Association. No till farming is a conservation approach to cropping which avoids the damage ploughing can dol to soils tructure and soil carbon (it releases large amounts of CO2). South Australia has many no till farmers because they generally have very low rainfall and no till retains mositure in the soil. I can confidently predict that the future belongs to no till.

A hard day with the conservation farmers

One year ago to the day we launched the Carbon Coalition at the Central West Conservation Farmers Association Conference. We've battled to get any attention from the media. Pictured interviewing me is ABC Rural Radio's Bruce Reynolds, who still thinks we're crooks. You can see it in his body language. Getting the indea of climate change across has been a very difficult task.