The Farmers Club Newsletter

The “Club Notes” for Monda3, the 11th of November 2023

By Dwain Duxson

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Trippin around

Mike and Libby Pickard are on a working holiday in their Truck and Caravan (see image below). Mike works for us at Farm Tender, and he and his wife Libby have been tripping around Australia for 2 years and 7 months now. They have done something like 20,000km in each state over the course. Mike is a Queenslander, so he can struggle with the cold down South in the winter. What they do is travel and sight see over the weekend, and Mike sets up for a five-day work stint, usually at a Caravan Park, during the week. If you had ofasked me if I thought it would have worked, I would have said Mike is heading for semi-retirement. However, he has proved me wrong and hasn't missed a working beat since deciding to hit the road. They love the freedom and get to meet so many people, although it's not advisable to get too close to the Caravan as the Red Healer is very protective. They are looking for Farm/Station sitting opportunities down the track. If you want to follow their progress, here is their Pickard and Pets Facebook page. Reply to [email protected]

Farmers sharing their info

Farmers have so much knowledge tied up in their heads, but many are reluctant to share the info they have for a number of reasons. I think the biggest reason is that most Farmers are humble people and don't want to "brag" the information they have built up because they think it's just that, bragging. Most are not the bragging types. Others might think that no one has any interest in the knowledge they have built up, and some might think that their knowledge is their advantage and won't share because of that. One medium that has a tendency to bring out information is the podcast, where you have someone interviewing a Farmer. Nigel Kerin (NSW) and Andrew Fowler (WA) are two leading Farmers who openly share their Farming secrets, good and bad, and I find the learnings from these guys are plentiful. In our FarmTender2024 - Entrepreneurs in the Farming event in March, we are interviewing two ripping young Farmers, Sam Van Assche (Livestock) and Broden Holland (Cropping), who are doing some special things at the Farm level. Do you love sharing your Farming info? Reply to [email protected]

Have we got sign fatigue?

I put a photo up of a "livestock ahead" sign the other day asking why most people don't take any notice of it and slow down when there are Livestock on the road. One person wrote in saying the reason why they don't is that we have sign fatigue. With all the terrible roads we have across the country, each individual pothole you hit that isn't signposted would slightly outweigh the ones that are signposted but are not as bad. What I am trying to say here is that you can't trust the rough road ahead sign, but you also can't trust that the biggest pothole will be signposted. I see incidences where the road has been patched, but the rough road sign remains. Would you agree with the replier that we have sign fatigue? Reply to [email protected]

We went to the war museum

It was remembrance day on Saturday, and I'm sure many of us reflected and paid tribute to those who have served us. I thought back to when Paula and I went to the War Museum last month in Canberra. The place is amazing, even though there are plenty of renovations going on, and where you could go is a bit restricted. What I couldn't work out was you had to buy a two-hour ticket, but there is no way known you could see everything you wanted to in 2 hours; it's more like 2 days. But the takeaways were plentiful; some of the things that come to mind are the courage, the death, the terrible conditions, the mateship and the risks they took. Stick this one on your bucket list if you haven't been already. Reply to [email protected]

Watch this for a bit of a Monday laugh

I came across this song by Joe Merino called El Nino Shuffle. Farmer Joe Merino is a regular at doing funny stuff about Farming, and this is worth a watch just for a bit of a Monday laugh. Take a watch here. These guys have nailed it. For all the other funny stuff they do, check out their Youtube Channel here. Reply to [email protected]

End of message.

Dwain Duxson
0427 011 900

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