The Farmers Club Newsletter

The “Club Notes” for Saturday and Sunday, the 23rd and 24th of September 2023

By Dwain Duxson

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What's so funny?

We spent Saturday and Saturday night in Barham, A Murray River town with a bit going on. The River is flowing at a fair rate of knots ATM. The reason is "because they are filling a few swamps. They call it environmental flow or something like that," according to a couple of locals in the Koondrook (Vic side) Pub. It reminded me of a story my brother Ben told when he was ferrying a group of Argentine Sheep Breeders around a few Sheep studs in Vic and NSW. They crossed the Bridge at Barham, and Ben explained that this was Australia's biggest River. To which the Argies burst out in fits of laughter. I've been to Argentina a couple of times, and I know why they were laughing. The thing that struck me most was how big the Rivers were. Some can be a kilometre or more wide in places, hence, the reason our Argie friends found our Murray funny. See below a photo of the Murray River taken from the Barham Bridge on Saturday.

Owning an Upton Tractor

We wrote a "Club Note" about the Upton Tractors on Friday and got a few good responses from people who have had one. A Wudinna Farming couple sent this through. “Good morning Dwain. We were the second owners of the first Tractor in the lineup (see image below) with the big singles on the back. We purchased it with 1200 hours on the hour clock in 1978. We used the Tractor on the Farm up till we retired in 2015. It had done over 22,000 hours when we sold it. It was a very reliable and fuel-efficient tractor. We rebuilt the engine at 18,000 hours. The clutch was replaced at 16,000 hours when the gearbox was re-bearinged. We have very fond memories of operating and maintaining a very well-engineered piece of Australian-built Machinery. It is very pleasing to see it back to its finest so people can see what helped make this country so great”.

Central Vic to the Murray River

My wife Paula and I travelled from our home in Central Vic up to Murray River around Barham, and things are drying out. The Crops are holding on, but it's the pasture paddocks that are going backwards. There was quite a bit of Vetch cut North of Mitamo, and I think there will be more Crops cut this week with more dry weather to come.

Vegemite Roast Lamb, try it.

I am a bit of a Vegemite fan, and whenever we cook up a Sunday Roast Lamb, I make sure I smother it in Vegemite before it goes into the oven. My wife thought I was mad when I first did it, but once it came time to eat, she was suitably impressed. Give it a crack one day.

End of message.

Dwain Duxson

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Random and associated images.