“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore�.

Vincent Van Gogh

June 2^nd

Hi All,

Once again here I am stuck in the house catching up on some paperwork due to more rain tumbling down in northwest NSW. I don’t know if this weather is driven by climate change or the stock exchange….but I sure am liking it a lot!

We are up to about 40mm or 160’ in this event, following almost two inches last week and 260’ or 68mm on Easter Monday so the situation is looking extremely positive for the winter and right through till Xmas even. Our rolling 12 month rainfall has jumped up to 450mm for the end of May, and our cattle numbers should be up close to the 1,000 figure by the end of June which is also a personal goal that I’ll be satisfied to break through. Getting the long term carrying capacity up to that level will be the ultimate test of that figure though.

Talking about running more animals in this environment tends to be frowned upon by governments and the scientific community, much to my consternation. When the landscape we manage has improved to the extent that we are capable of having more animals on the same land base, therefore lowering our overheads and increasing profitability then the benefits will also flow through to all of the communities in rural areas. And God knows we need that right now.

I guess it’s the idea that we can in fact greatly improve these landscapes by using domesticated livestock (as a tool) that is the major stumbling block. Interestingly, we are part of a pilot project called “Enterprise Based Conservation� that sees us rewarded for maintaining certain ground cover levels, regardless of season, due to the environmental benefits that are achieved. And yet the same government sees fit to “lock up country� and pay people to completely de-stock in the mistaken belief that doing that gives an automatic “conservation benefit�. We have one such project just started next door to us and although I am totally opposed to the concept, I look forward to measuring the environmental & economic difference between that policy and what we are doing on Bokhara Plains.

Their concept takes away the opportunity of a young family taking up the block, takes money away from the local economy & will have an eventual ecologically detrimental effect anyway. So I wonder…who makes these decisions & what drives their thinking?

After Easter, and the “Bre Rodeo� that was a great success without being washed out this year, we ploughed our way out along a very wet road to head up to Toowoomba on our way to Cairns for my Nuffield report presentation. (By the way…that gravel we had put down is still there waiting for a grader to level it out!) I think we have had just over 6 inches or rain since the gravel was put beside our road so it will be great to finally have it where it can actually do some good for us.

Harriet went with us to Cairns & we had a great few days up in the tropics, and it was also great to catch up with all of my travelling Nuffielder mates. We also went to Tully where the average rainfall is around 4 metres and their record is 8 metres in a year. They have a gumboot there that is eight metres high to represent the height of that amount of rain, & coming from out here it is quite hard to fathom, no pun intended, that amount of precipitation….even if we are having an extraordinarily wet year at home.

The Brewarrina horse races were on last weekend after being postponed from the wet weekend before, and were lucky to get through by one day again this weekend. And it was good to see such a terrific crowd turn out for the action and to have such beautiful weather in between all the rain events lately. April / May can be a great time of year out here in the west of NSW and helps make up for the slightly less wonderful 40 to 45 degree summers that we can rely on getting most years.

A little more rain forecast tomorrow I see….no excuses for not being on top of the bookwork these days!

"When we can
no longer change the situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

Victor Frankl

End of March already….where’s it gone??

“The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't�.

Henry Ward Beecher

Last I wrote Harriet was just off to boarding school for the year, back at the end of January, and now she is due home next Thursday night for the Easter break. Hard to believe the pace this year’s going at times, although when you sit back and think about it, it has tended to have been quite full and busy as per usual.

We pulled up with the fencing….not because Harriet went back to school either!! After getting half the place done we decided to take stock & hold off spending any more money as this economic climate has me worried, and I’m not sharing our prime ministers philosophy of thinking we can spend our way out of a problem that was caused by over spending in the first place.

Those who have followed my blog from the beginning may remember my comments regarding a visit to some politicians in the States last year (before the world economic meltdown) & how I questioned their handling of a burgeoning debt issue which was then around US$10 Trillion. Seems like a while ago now & borrowing off our children and devaluing currencies seem to have become almost fashionable around the world since then, & I worry that the craziness has actually become addictive.

At least we have been spending (without Ruddy) on infrastructure such as fencing, water & the accommodation enterprise which add to our asset value & improve our ability to generate cashflow, rather than Gerry Harvey’s plasma TV’s, I-pod’s and other crap that Ruddy was pleading for recipients of his ‘generosity’ to splurge on ‘to help the economy’, and loses value 5 minutes after the purchase.

Pity our short sighted politicians, ably aided & abetted of course by voters wanting something for nothing, could not think of a few infrastructure projects to spend ‘our’ Billions on that would drive real productivity for generations rather than waste it absolute rubbish.

Remember… “A government that is big enough to give you all you want, is big enough to take all you have�

You can take money of those that are productive & give it to those that are not for only so long before you run out of money, as those that earn lose incentive to work & those that take continue to want more.

After that good Feb rain we did take more cattle on, and there is now just under 700 in the mob & I’m really pleased with the effect on the landscape as well as the amount of grazing ‘days’ we are now generating out of the paddocks. Cows are going really well & with the grass drying off they are even improving and are completely at ease in the system and the ‘one hot wire’ scenario is proving to be very effective. The increased herd impact being achieved by the smaller paddocks & bigger mob has been phenomenal, and I’m excited by the prospect of what is going to happen after the next rain event. We have another eleven paddocks to go before we move back into the country we have not done the extra fencing in yet, but I’m still hoping we will get a chance to do some of it by about June / July. With the possibility of getting some decent April / May rain I’d be very inclined to lift our numbers again and have my eye on one day breaking that 1,000 head barrier. An improvement in the pasture capacity will be needed yet and also a lift in the flow rate of water to the troughs, which I think is still less than ideal, but I don’t believe we will be too far away over the next twelve months.

Given adequate rain of course…

Though our ability to utilise what we get is far more important I believe. At the end of March (assuming no rain in the next few days) our twelve month “rolling rainfall� total will be 325mm or 13 inches. That is over 20% less than our long term average yearly total, so although we have had some good rain since Xmas, it was on the back of another quite long dry spell. But our carrying capacity is sitting at about 50% above the long term average over the same period of time & we can also see ahead possibly ten months in our current grazing plan. It’s great to be finally getting some measurable improvements in the lands capacity to go with the visual evidence that has been my focus for a while now.

We had a terrific group of lads staying here for a few weeks working for Telstra, & after being caught out with rain & boggy roads they managed to get the company to purchase some gravel for our road which the local council here at Brewarrina has matched. Not enough to do all the way in of course (we have 4.5klms of dirt access road), but enough to fix up quite a lot of the worst areas & we are extremely grateful for the generosity. Had about 500 cubic metres dropped here during last week & now we are just waiting on the grader etc to level it all out for us……then some big rain to test it out!!

Cathy has quite a lot of advance bookings for groups over the next few months which we don’t normally have with the Bokhara Hutz, including a coach load coming from the Central West CMA this Friday that are checking out what we are up to on Bokhara Plains. We went down to Menindee in the south west of NSW last week for an Outback Beds ( www.outbackbeds.com.au ) annual get together & its always inspiring to see what our fellow tourism operators are up to and pick up a few more tips. We also caught the opening of a NSW Tourism initiative for western NSW called the “Darling River Run� which is promoting tourism from the top of the system in Walget right down the river to its junction with the Murray.

And of course….Brewarrina just happens to be the best water hole along the entire length of the iconic waterway.

I’ll try to keep on top of this ‘blogging’ set up for the remaining couple of months, if not longer now that I’ve got on top of some other pressing issues. One of which has been my report for the Nuffield association following my study trip last year, as a requirement is to have it completed and also a presentation to the ‘Autumn Tour� in Cairns next month. Was difficult to get into it, and then even more difficult in deciding what I should leave out & I think I blew the 10,000 word limit by about three thousand. Still have a little editing to do there & some photo’s etc to slice into it, and hope to resend it this weekend.

Enough for now on this update….cheers till next time!

“The difference between

genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.�

Boy, doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun! It’s hard to believe that Harriet’s school holidays are almost over once again, with Christmas flying by & we’re almost through the first month of 2009.

We have had a busy & productive time here at Bokhara Plains with most of the family having Xmas day out here with us, followed by ‘boxing day’ up with Heather & Angus at Wodalla, and then New Years Eve with Mark & K.A. in Goondiwindi. Lucky to have my liver survive through that period which also included several parties leading up to the end of December as well…

However in the first 10 days into January this year Cathy, Harriet & I completed half of the fencing plan for Bokhara Plains that we had mapped out. That included one week where we got almost 30klms done and turned 4 paddocks into 16. Before you think that I’m some sort of slave driver… the deal with my girls was that we would start early in the morning but they could finish fencing for the day by midday & that is how we did it. Turns out we make a pretty good team on a tough job in hot weather. Nothing like a bit of pressure to bring out the best in people or livestock….

I must say though that I did have my reliable mate “Lobby� here for a week leading up to the Xmas break & we got stuck in with the old “Fergy� tractor, post hole digger & crow bar etc to put in all the end ‘assembly’ wooden posts. So that gave us a head start to put all the steel posts and wire up this month. We now have half the place broken up into paddocks that are from 50 to 75 Hectares (120 to 170 acres) and the cattle were moved back this way into the intensive area just last week. We have ‘moved’ the cattle, which is currently a herd of 512, forty two times since I got home at the end of October, and are now almost moving them every day with the exception of a few good paddocks that I stretch out to two whole days!

In among all that I managed to drop a trailer on my foot, cracking a toe, & then jumped onto my daughters kayak on Xmas day (post several lunchtime beverages!) and I’m pretty sure I busted a rib which is still giving me grief.

As I write though, beautiful light rain is gently falling on the roof and we have had about 13mm since yesterday afternoon, with the forecast potentially being for a good chance of more right through till the middle of next week. We had 65mm here at the house end of the place the weekend before last giving the grasses in the front country a great boost & it is the best I’ve seen those paddocks as far as quality of forage goes. This follow up will be fantastic with the cattle due up here in about another three weeks. One draw back with this intensive grazing scenario though… is that we have to go out this afternoon in the wet to move the cattle. I’ll see how wet it gets through the day to decide whether we take the horses as per usual, or whether I just take the four wheeler over there as they are about 8klms from the house and the horses are more inclined to mess the road up. It has been really good for us to use the horses so far as I find it very therapeutical to be quietly riding around contented cattle watching closely how the landscape is responding to this fantastic rain. It’s even more pleasurable to be able to share it with Harriet as well. May have to get Cathy back riding when our little princess heads back to school next week, particularly with the cattle close by for two months and hopefully another 300 joining them in the second week of February.

The “Obama for President� phenomenon that I witnessed in its infancy in the States last year came to a spectacular climax yesterday when the man with the weight of the world’s high expectations clocked on for the big job. I only hope that he can work his way through all of extraordinary hype, rock star status scenarios & wannabe celebrity hanger-onners to actually deal with some of the real issues confronting his government. And more particularly the effect they can have on the rest of the planet that too many in the good ‘ol US of A tend to forget even exist.

No doubt about him though, he has a way with words as an orator, & has an incredible ability to make Australian politicians look even more dull and insignificant then I thought could be possible.

Try watching one of his speeches & then look at our Ruddy give a press conference and I guarantee the words “insincere, fake, & maybe even ‘muppet’ will spring to mind. No disrespect intended towards our esteemed leader…

Mind you, all that Hollywood hype surrounding the inauguration made me feel a little uneasy as well. The $150,000,000 price tag for the whole setup certainly helps spread the word about the need for everyone to ‘tighten their belts’ with unsustainable spending doesn’t it?? 

Only in America….

I’m a big believer in setting some goals, and especially at the start of a new year with all its hope and promise, to at least get off on the right foot. This time I thought I’d try and make up for the extravagance of last year where although it involved lots of travel, work & learning, there was also way too much good hospitality and the gaining of ‘unwanted pounds’.

My major goal is to of course spend much more quality time with my wife and daughter (hence all the ‘fun’ fencing together!), and to also really focus on business, with the grazing control being a major priority.

However, like many, I also like to challenge myself when I think there is a need so I’ve decided to give up coffee (to hopefully result in more sleep, bit of a problem there!) and to give up on sweet biscuits & sugar on anything. That was going to be “any sort of sweets at all�, but hell………lets not get ridiculous about it! Going completely cold turkey on ‘Ice Cream’ for me would be a bit like living my life without good dogs…quite possible I guess, but I just don’t like to contemplate it.

Cheers for now with one from Kit Pharo that reflects the state of the economy…

Cowboy Logic: “Most people spend money

they don't have to buy things they don't

need just to impress people they don't like.