The Farmers Club Newsletter

The “Club Notes” for Friday, the 8th of December 2023

By Dwain Duxson

If you can, please get your family, friends and colleagues to sign up. See the website link here.

I'll meet you in the Paddock

I had a terrific conversation with Hayley Grosser yesterday. Hayley is a Farmer and Farmer's coach, and we are lucky enough to have her speak at our FarmTender2024 - Entrepreneurs in Farming event in March next year. For those who haven't heard Hayley, make sure you listen to this edition of Profitable Farmer. It's a ripper. So yesterday, we chatted about a lot of Farmer-related topics, and she has a real passion for the mental side of Farming and what goes on in a Farmers brain. She said when meeting a Farmer for the first time, she likes to schedule the meeting in the Sheepyards or in the Paddock. The reason being is it's a place where she finds Farmers can express themselves best. I am so looking forward to the conversation with Hayley in March, and I reckon for those who attend, there will be a Truckload of takeaways. Reply to [email protected]

Going back to manual

I bought one of those fang dangle new automatic rain gauges a year or so ago. It was from an Ag Company that sells good stuff. I bought a tank-measuring product that works like a treat and gives me a level update on my phone every few minutes. It also gives me alerts as to when the tanks drop down below certain points. It sits on the top of our hill, and we run the Sheep troughs and other things off this system and pump up to it from a bore (I spelt it right this time, Steven, haha). So we put this rain gauge up on this tank, and it operates under the same system as the tank measure. But then the gauge started to give me some funny recordings, and I went away once and knew it rained but it kept saying zero mm. Anyway, we got rain, not sure how much, but after that, I pulled the old manual one out again and use that now. Once you lose trust in a system that records information, then it's no good to you. What system/s have you lost trust in on the Farm? reply to [email protected]

Ok we're sticking to short

I was having a chat with Gun St Arnaud (Vic) Accountant and Farmer Peter Knights yesterday, and he said it takes him half the morning to get through this newsletter because there is so much stuff to read. He was having a bit of a joke, of course. But it did get me thinking that we do short-form stuff because we know our audience is time-poor. I have been sticking a few longer articles in lately, and I think it goes against what I intended to do in the first place. So we are switching back to short only and will have snippets from articles from all the publications I subscribe to. You will get more of an idea below of what I am talking about. I guess it was the old me coming out, where I used to want to tell those that wanted to listen everything. Now I'm wiser, it's not as much the case. Oh, and we will keep doing the photos, tweets, graphs, cartoons, etc. Do you like short better? Reply to [email protected]

The re-emergence of the Resocker

The confidence is returning to the Livestock game. Spurred on by some rain, the market is starting to regain some of the losses incurred. The Cattle market this week has spiked, with some Cow and Calf units rising up to $800 yesterday at Wodonga; see the report below. Sheep and Lambs have also been on the rise but at a steadier rate. Perhaps it's the Restocker that underpins the market rather than the trade. I'm told to watch the Lamb market in the new year as there are predictions it could spike, too. It got me thinking about confidence and the human psychology around it. Yes, it's rained in some spots, but many people have had grass all year and stood out of the market. But once there is a sniff that the market is on the rise, our heads peer up collectively, and we all go at it at once. It's just fascinating how it works. Can you feel the excitement around the current Livestock market? Reply to [email protected]

End of message.

Dwain Duxson
0427 011 900

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