Ochre Archives

Using 'Sheep Power' to Mow and Fertilise the Lawn

2012-01-03T21:15:00.000+11:00

Of late we’ve had quite a bit of rain resulting in rapid growth of the grass in the house yard. One of our mobs of sheep was in the front paddock as part of our grazing plan. Given that the weather is quite hot at the moment we decided to let the mob of over 400 sheep into the house yard to eat down the grass a bit and to do a tad of natural fertilization.

Here you can see some of the mob in the northern section of the yard.

This photo shows some of the sheep in the eastern part of the yard.

Yes, they did stir up a little bit of dust in the process but this was not an issue at all. See below.

To prepare for the sheep coming into the yard we moved some potted plants up out of the reach of the sheep and covered with mesh guards those we definitely did not want eaten.

It was difficult to assess how long the sheep should stay in the yard before bringing them in. To be safe we decided to 'stand guard' and let them out when we felt they'd taken enough of the herbage mass. The total duration ended up being approximately half an hour.

One unforeseen bonus of the sheep being in the yard was that they did an excellent job 'trimming the edges' and eating under things in the yard (like the trampoline) that we'd normally need to move if using the mower.

Here's a range of 'before' and 'after' photos. Not a bad effort, we think, especially given the whole process took less time than conventional mowing ... and a lot less energy.

Location 1 - Before

Location 1 - After

The hose is more visible and the flowers of the Patterson's Curse plants have been eaten.

Location 2 - Before

Location 2 - After

Location 3 - Before

Location 3 - After

Location 4 - Before

Location 4 - After

(Sorry ... this photo from a comparison perspective is a bit tough to judge ... it was taken on dusk).

We learned during the process that in addition to grass the sheep loved eating the following plants in the house yard:

Peach and apricot trees
Lilac tree
Grape vine

On the other hand none of the sheep touched any of the following plants in the house yard:

Geraniums
Heliotrope
Pumpkin
Cassinia
Nodding Blue Lilly
Lemon Tree
Smoke bush

We thought it was pretty neat that (as you will see in the following photograph) the sheep ate the weeds around one of the potted geraniums but left the geranium alone.

Given the success of the exercise we think we'll do a repeat each time we have a largish mob of sheep in the Front Paddock.

Sourcing and Installing Sundials

2012-01-02T19:40:00.000+11:00

We were delighted to receive a sundial as a gift for Christmas. We’d been keen on having for quite a while as both a tool to use for telling the time naturally and as a garden feature.

Our thinking was that a sundial would be a simple process to source and install, but not so as it turns out. We contacted Larry Varley who lives in Victoria and makes both sundials and weathervanes (http://www.acmefluid.com.au/larry/weathervane.html) for some answers to a few questions we had. Some of the comments that follow come mainly from the conversation we had with Larry.

The two components of a sundial are the sundial itself (or base-plate) and the 'style' which is the thing that stands up from the sundial and casts the shadow.

Most sundials are made in

India

. These are not expensive, but the catch is that they most are made for the northern hemisphere. If these are installed in

Australia

they are useless aside from midday for telling the time.

The sundial should be installed on a level surface in a place where it will be in direct sunlight for most of the day. In our case, we decided to relocate and use the old base 'milk and cream separator' base that the Causer family installed when they lived here during the period 1950-1965. We’ve positioned the base to the north of the house near the verandah. It will be a great location for it now that the large tree that used to be near the car shed has been removed. This photo shows the base with the sundial sitting on top of it.

The style needs to also be pointing toward true north. It is a simple process to loosen the screw on the underside of the sundial, turn the style to get it pointing to the ‘north’ indicator on the sundial, and retighten the screw.

The sundial needs to be oriented to ‘true’ (rather than magnetic) north. Here’s a few website links that give some important explanations:

1. Explanation of the difference between true and magnetic north: http://www.kxcad.net/3d_home/3D_Home_Architect_Design_Suite_Deluxe/Calculating_True_North_from_Magnetic_North.htm

2. Geoscience Australia – Calculator - Australian Geomagnetic Reference Field Values - http://www.ga.gov.au/oracle/geomag/agrfform.jsp

Using point 2 above it turns out the variation we need to use is 11.357 degrees.

For absolute accuracy the angle of the style should be equal to the latitude of the location. We checked ours and found the angle to be 37.5 degrees, meaning that it has been manufactured for use on latitudes about the same as the city of Melbourne. We are located about 33.5 degrees south so won’t get absolutely accurate time unless we purchase a new style. It may well be that the gradations on the sundial vary according to latitude as well.

As a general rule with sundials it is unlikely that the time on one’s watch will align precisely with the time on the dial. This is because of the way time zones are in place globally. Our area of Australia is such that we fall within Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) during the cooler period of the year and Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT) during the warmer part of the year. AEST is set at 10 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and AEDT is 11 hours ahead of UTC. It gets tricky to figure out what the time should be on the sundial because each time zone applies to a range of degrees of longitude simultaneously i.e. each location that is within the same time zone regardless of its specific longitude uses the same time while the position of the sun relative to the sundial changes constantly.

It is something of a brain-teaser exercise to work through the various aspects of how time is calculated. Here are some bits and pieces that have come out of our research (NB: Some figures are approximate only):

· The circumference of the Earth is 40,075.16 km

· A full circle is divided into 360 degrees

· It takes 24 hours for the Earth to do a full revolution

· During each hour the Earth rotates 15 degrees

· Given there are 60 minutes in 1 hour the Earth rotates through 1 degree every 4 minutes

· The speed of the surface of the Earth based on circumference and daily revolving calculates at approximately 1,670 km / hour

· We are located 148 degrees east of Greenwich

· We are thus technically 9 hours 52 minutes ahead of the true time at Greenwich at any moment in time

· The rotation of the Earth is slowly declining.

What we’ve concluded from all of the above is that understanding the various aspects of sundials is far from simple. The moral of the story also is that if you want your sundial to be very accurate then you should buy one made locally from someone who has the ability to customise components to suit your location.

Wool Sale - 1 December 2011

2011-12-04T21:46:00.001+11:00

On Thursday of this week we travelled to Sydney with our wool broker, Rowan Woods of Jemalong Wool, to see our recent clip sold. Another grower, Paul who has a property not far from Orange, joined in the trip as well. It was a most enjoyable day, although a tad more adventurous at the start with us finding ourselves traversing 5 flooded causeways up to 0.8 metre deep and running into a kangaroo on the way to Forbes.

THE MARKETING PROCESS BEGINS AT SHEARING

The sale process for us actually begins during shearing. Rowan has an excellent understanding of the wool market and comes out to our place at the start of the shearing. He works closely with the wool classer and other team members to give guidance on how best to prepare and sort each fleece in order to maximise eventual sale price. Market preferences do change from time to time. The wool classer we had this year was totally open to this type of input and on at least one occasion subsequent rang Rowan to check on a couple of aspects.

WOOL SAMPLE TESTING

On receipt of our consignment of wool the team at Jemalong Wool arranges for each line of wool to be objectively and independently sampled by representatives of Australian Wool Testing Authority Limited (AWTA). The most critical measures are listed below, together with some commentary on our ability to influence the results on farm:

Micron (Mic)– Average diameter of the fibres in the sample measured in micrometres (microns). Driven primarily by genetics, but impacted by the age of the sheep (finer in younger sheep) and nutrition. Our sheep always have plenty of grass to eat but our soils are light, we don’t ‘improve’ them through adding fertilisers and the species are primarily low to mid range nutrition natives. The micron of our main line of older ewes has stayed constant or in fact declined since we bought them. Our wool is on the finer end of the scale at 17 to 20 microns. As a general rule the finer the micron the higher the price per kg clean.

Length (MM) – Average length of the wool in millimetres. Genetics does have a role to play in that generally the finer the wool the slower the rate of growth. Leaving aside the impact of individual animal variation and nutrition this measure is one we can control to a high degree through altering the time between shearings. It is a balancing act though as we also need to take into account animal welfare. It’s important to us that we try and shear not long before the spring grass growth runs to seed as the seeds then have less of an impact on both the animals and through seed ending up in the wool sample (more on this later). In an ideal world and looking solely at this measure the goal is to shear as infrequently as possible at the point when there is no risk of the market penalising the price per kg due to it being over or under preferred length. According to Australian Wool Innovation research the ‘ideal’ merino wool length is 85-90 mm. The finer the wool the more susceptible it is to price discounts for any faults, including length.

Staple strength (S/S Nkt) - A measure of how much force is required to break a wool staple. Recorded as Newtons per kilotex (Nkt), this refers to the force/pull (Newtons) required to break a staple of given thickness (kilotex). Management has a significant impact on staple strength through ensuring adequate animal nutrition and minimising stress through the growing. Results above 40 Nkt are ideal. Significant price discounts kick in when the staple strength falls below 30 Nkt.

Position of Break (POB) - is measured in conjunction with staple strength and is a measure of the position in the staple (base, mid or tip) where it will break given enough force. Every staple has a point somewhere (just like a chain has a ‘weakest link’) where it will break. The POB is useful in processing since it provides the processor with an indication of where fibres are likely to break, and thus the length of the broken fibre sections. To quote from the AWTA website: “Strength and midbreak percentage are the two most important factors in determining the combing performance of wool. Many mills will specify a strength minimum along with a maximum midbreak percentage for their deliveries, thereby placing increased price pressure on low midbreak types and magnified decreases in wools displaying a high midbreak percentage.” We shear once a year and so far have had excellent ‘position of break’ results. Our POB has tended to not to be in the middle of the staple but we are happy to concede this may be due more to good luck than good management. Our theory is that the staple is likely to be weakest at the point in time when the animal experienced the most stress or change during the year. This could be dietary (moving from high to low nutrition or vice versa), environmental (cold or heat shocks), parasite / sickness burden (flies or worms to name two examples) or at different times in the breeding cycle (such as lambing). We move or sheep regularly, there is not a big variation in feed quality between paddocks, we don’t substitution feed (e.g. feeding hay or grain) and the animals always have access to mineral supplements. We rarely have issues with flies and cull those that do get blown and due to the regular moving to fresh pastures which have had long rest periods we’ve found that worm burdens are not high. Sheep are more susceptible to heat and cold shocks when the wool staple is short and to heat stress when carrying full wool, especially when they are grazed in conditions where there is no or limited shelter. Most of our paddocks have good stands of paddock trees and the topography allows for animals to find spots with less wind. Our lambing occurs not long before shearing. Given these factors it might well be that we can take credit for our good POB results!

Vegetable Matter (VM) - the percentage of VM found in the greasy wool core-sample. To quote from the Australian Wool Innovation website: “The presence of VM in wool is considered a disadvantage as its removal during processing can be costly. Depending on the severity and type of Vegetable Matter, the wool may need to undergo additional processing called Carbonising. Carbonising is a relatively complicated and expensive process which adds to the cost of the final product. It involves passing the wool through sulphuric acid bowls and ovens, before rollers crush the brittle VM that remains. As well as being slower, carbonising usually involves higher fibre loss than other processing methods”. The main types of VM we have on Ochre Arch are Bathurst Burr (not really a problem), Barley Grass (due to our sheep style we’ve not found this to be especially problematic) and Corkscrew Grass (this is a serious issue for our sheep). Barley Grass and Corkscrew Grass fall within the definition of ‘shive’. Again to quote from the AWI website: “In combing wool, fibrous types of VM (shive) are the most difficult to remove for processors as they align themselves with the fibre during combing and can pass through to the final fabric. Consequently these types of VM carry the largest discounts.” Historical records show that discounts for shive kick in when the amount exceeds 1.5%. We have not experienced this level yet but were not far from it this year. The main recommended strategies to reduce the impact of VM include grazing management (grazing planning, herbicide application and slashing), timing shearing to be immediately prior to the worst time of year for the most problematic species, and placing coats on the sheep that reduce the impact of the seeds. Last year we had one heck of a learning experience with the Corkscrew grass which manifested in the loss of some lambs. This year our strategies include shearing timing and grazing planning. With grazing we kept animals in the paddocks that have the most Corkscrew grass up until seeding started and have subsequently had them in paddocks with much fewer Corkscrew plants per hectare. We’ve about 1 month to go before we will be through the peak of the Corkscrew grass season. If we find that our grazing strategy does not prevent significant lamb losses we may need to look at altering our enterprise mix.

Yield: A measure in percentage terms of the amount of actual wool in the greasy wool sample. The non-wool components of greasy wool include vegetable matter, lanolin (wool grease) and other contaminants such as dust. Management can have a significant impact on yield through actions such as maximising grass ground cover thus reducing bare ground / dust. We are big on doing this here on Ochre Arch. The higher the yield the higher the amount paid per kg greasy.

Other Measures: There are also some subjective measures that can have a material impact on the sale price. Possibly the highest impacting of these is the presence of Dark and Medullated (hollow) Fibres (DMF) in the wool sample. Off the back of this Australia now has a Dark and Medullated Fibre Risk Scheme which is basically an assurance declaration that is coded and included in the wool description summary for buyers to review. Its purpose is to try and preserve

Australia

’s reputation as the premier white fine wool producing country in the world. Some of the main factors within the measure that have the biggest impact on wool price are:

Merinos being mated, reared and/or run with ‘exotic’ sheep breeds such as Awassi, Damara, Dorper and Karakul
Sheep aged 8 years or older
Not crutched at all or crutched longer than 3 months before shearing

BUYERS’ ACCESS TO WOOL SAMPLE AND INFORMATION

The AWTA, as mentioned previously, takes samples from each line of wool from each grower. Some is used for detailed analysis and the rest is placed in sample bags and sent to the wool centre that codes and displays it in sequentially numbered wool lots. The original bales of wool are held at the broker’s locale and remain there until sold.

The following photograph is a macro view of the huge wool centre shed at Yennora in Sydney.

The following photo shows our own wool ‘closer up’ in the sample bins.

Buyers are given a printout of the analysis as well as access to all of the wool samples prior to auction.

WOOL AUCTION PROCESS

In the case of the Yennora wool centre there are two separate auction rooms, each with viewing access for growers and other interested parties. Room 1 is dedicated solely to the sale of merino fleeces. Room 2 is for ‘all other’ wool types such as merino pieces and crossbred wools.

At the sale we attended wool was being sold by 9 separate businesses representing growers. Each theoretically provides an auctioneer to sell their lots but in practice some work together. The order of each of the broker’s lots varies sale by sale.

In each of the auction rooms are the following people:

Auctioneer – progressively works through each of the lots on offer. Approximately 300 lots are sold per hour meaning that on average 12 seconds are spent on each lot.
Australian Wool Exchange sale recorder – person who writes the price and fate of each lot on a running sheet
Australian Wool Exchange display board recorder – person who enters each sale result into a database visible to the buyers and visitors
Buyers

Each auctioneer takes with her or him a list of the lots they will be auctioning together with details of any reserve prices agreed with growers and a possible bidding start price which helps get things going. Each lot as it is dealt with by the auctioneer is displayed on an electronic board. The details shown are: Lot number, Broker, Price, Buyer and in the event that the reserve price for a particular lot is not reached the letters ‘PI’ (passed in) are posted on the board. There is a convention in place that allows buyers to place a lot they have purchased back up for auction provided this is done before 9 subsequent lots have been auctioned. This allows them to correct errors they may make.

We estimate that there were 12-15 buyers in each of the auction rooms. The reality though is that the majority of wool is purchased by 3 major companies. We were surprised to learn that one of these is in fact a cotton producing company. Obviously they use there skills to acquire and process both wool and cotton – both natural fibres.

The results of the auction of each line are verified by AWE staff and made available shortly thereafter to the brokers in electronic format.

GROWERS’ ACCESS TO WOOL INFORMATION

Jemalong Wool is big on providing its growers with timely and accurate information. Wool sampling results, including nett weight per line, are accessible via user ID and password based login on their website. They also provide a succinctly formatted summary before the auction which includes an estimate of sale price per kg and total gross proceeds.

Immediately after the auction the staff back at Forbes receive from AWE the electronic sale results file which is then fed into the computer system. Generally each grower can access sale results within 2 hours of the auction completion and it is normal practice for Rowan and his team to also call each grower within the day to advise results.

GROWERS RECEIPT OF NETT SALE PROCEEDS

At the same time as grower advices are prepared Jemalong Wool also issues invoices for payment to the successful buyers of each lot. The buyers have 2 weeks to pay Jemalong Wool and Jemalong Wool pays the growers at the same time. This then means that Jemalong Wool is not exposed to credit risk. A question we did not ask but in hindsight should have was “What happens if the buyers do not pay”?

SALE RESULTS

In the overall scheme of things our wool was in good order with no major faults. Our overall returns were higher than for the previous year due to higher volume and comparatively higher prices per kg for the non-top line. The price per kg for our top line was in fact less than in 2010. The market was ‘softer’ than the pre-sale estimates supplied by Jemalong Wool but not materially so. We agreed with Rowan not to set reserve prices for our wool for a variety of reasons.

The main advantages of actually attending the auction are that we get to see the results of auctions of many more wool lines and can learn from this, and we get to spend quality time with our host and his other guests and contacts. In Paul’s case he produces substantially more volume at finer micron than our own. It was most curious indeed that the buyers on the day simply were not aggressively looking for wool at the finer end of the market. Consequently the auction prices for Paul’s wool were only marginally higher than our own, and his two main fleece lines did not reach the reserve. The major learning for us was that the market is ‘moody’ when it comes to fine wools. Paul is likely to re-offer his two fleece lines for sale early in 2012. Jemalong Wool is happy to keep the wool not sold in the warehouse. They do, though, charge holding fees after a reasonable period.

Tallabung Mountain Telstra Tower Outage

2011-11-20T14:34:00.000+11:00

First thing on Thursday morning 17/11/2011 we noticed we had no signal for our wireless internet connection or mobile phones. This is not unusual as on occasions Telstra carries out maintenance activities. By lunch time there was still no signal so we decided to call the Telstra technical support number to resolve the issue. After selecting various options on the automated voice response we were put through to a consultant, who it turns out is based in the Philippines. He carried out some searches which suggested there were no problems with any of the communication towers in our area and proceeded to get us to de-install and re-install the software on our PC for our BigPond wireless connection.

During the reinstallation process the phone cut out and we were basically left in ‘no-mans land’. On calling back the technical support unit we were put through to a representative of the ‘Customer Excellence’ team (still in the Philippines) given that our service problem had not been resolved on the first call. It was at this point we were basically told that we were at fault because we did not still have the original installation CD from when we bought our USB modem and set up the internet plan. We were also informed that the software could be downloaded from the internet; but obviously this was not acceptable to us as we no longer had internet access! The option put to us was to ring the Young Telstra franchise store to see if they had a copy of the software. We did this and were told that they had received about 25 recent calls from customers located west of Grenfell through to around Temora suggesting that one of the Telstra towers was experiencing an outage, and that they did not have a copy of the software but have a consultant who comes into the store on Wednesday afternoons who might be able to assist with re-installing the software.

We put another call into the Telstra technical support team and ended up speaking with a different member of the ‘Customer Excellence’ team. They had been incorrect in telling us that that there were no outages with any towers and they had also misled us by getting us to de-install the software from our PC. Off the back of this we sought approval to contact the consultant that goes to the Young Telstra store and get him to re-install the software, with Telstra to pick up the tab for the cost. On the cost side we explained that we would be prepared to travel to the consultant at our own expense, and thus they would only be up for the cost of the consultant’s time. Our suggestion and the background to it was communicated to the Telstra ‘complaints’ unit, with us being given a complaints reference number, a phone number for the complaints team and told that the matter had been logged as urgent and that we might get a call within 24 hours. The consultant also told us that he had arranged for a copy of the software we needed to be posted to us and that it might reach us in 5 working days.

To us connection with the internet is important as aside from personal use it is also handy for our farm and consulting activities. We were not prepared to wait indefinitely for a telephone call from the Telstra complaints team so rang them first thing Friday 18/11/2011. The case manager assigned to us read the background from their case management system and we also explained what had happened. Her initial stance was that Telstra would not pay for the consultant’s time, that the only option was for us to wait until we received the software CD, and that Telstra does not have any technical support people that do face to face work (all of them can only be accessed by phone). She put a call in to the Telstra technical area and was told that there were no outages in our area. We put it to her that she was thus basically saying that the person we’d spoken to at the Young Telstra store the day before was a liar, and asked her to call him. She did this and we were pleased that from that point on she was no longer implying we were lying and insisting that the problem was not at their end.

Telstra has an internal database called something like ‘Network Wellbeing’. From this customer service staff can do searches to indentify reported problems with communication towers and the like. After quite a bit of searching our complaints case manager found that the Tallabung Mountain Telstra Tower had been experiencing an ‘outage’ since late on 16/11/2011. We can see this mountain from our verandah, happen to know it is located about 30 km in a direct line, were aware that it had communication towers on it but believed they were owned by Optus and Vodafone. . Until that point in time we did not know that Telstra also had a tower on it and that it was the source of our Telstra wireless and mobile signals. We finished the call with our complaints case manager with agreement that they would waive a full month of our total telecommunications fees and call us every two days until we had connection installed, and that we would try and access the consultant who works out of the Young Telstra store at our own expense.

We called the Grenfell Internet Centre and were pleased to learn that they were willing and most likely able to get our PC software issue resolved. Later in the day we took the PC to them and it was up and running within about an hour. By yesterday morning our signal was back up and running i.e. we were ‘back on the air’.

The key lessons others might like to consider taking from our experience are:

1. Get to know your signal origin tower name. This information can be found on most mobile phone bills. It is from this that you will be able to give sufficient information to the telecommunications provider when something goes amiss. We'd have saved ourselves a lot of angst had we known this when we first called for help.

2. Be wary of the advice that comes from the technology support team.

3. If asked to de-install software first check to see if you still have the original installation CD on hand

4. Don’t be bull-dozed by the complaints case managers and stay focused and determined in dealing with them. They do have authority if pressed to at least temporarily waive plan fees to help compensate you for the run-around where errors do occur. They are performance assessed based on complaints closed at minimal cost and our experience suggests that the culture, policy and processes centre on not believing what complainants say.

Having made the last point above we are not suggesting that Telstra’s staff are unskilled or unhelpful. All those we dealt with tried to help. It’s just that there are massive disconnects in their spatial knowledge about rural areas. By way of example, the bloke we spoke to first in the Philippines mentioned at one point that he’d never come to Australia ‘because it’s too cold’.

Shearing 2011

2011-11-12T11:46:00.000+11:00

The main shearing for 2011 on Ochre Arch was completed Monday through Wednesday of this week. Once again Heathcote Shearing Contractors provided the team of workers, with our role being primarily to have the sheep ready each day. We also help out in the shed and are available to assist as and when appropriate.

This year we decided to have ALL of the sheep (ewes, lambs, ewe hoggets and rams) shorn during the period given:

Experience last year with some lamb losses due to the impact of seed burden from the native Corkscrew Grass. These plants are currently seeding. This year we are managing the grazing plan differently to (hopefully) avoid a repeat and have been assured by many that shearing the lambs (not done at this time last year) will help.
Forecast for a relatively wet summer (although not as wet as lat year) which can mean ideal fly strike conditions. Having the wool short should help. That said, our sheep have been bred to minimise the risk of fly strike - plain bodied (less wrinkles to trap moisture) and more 'open' wool (able to dry out faster after rain)
Shearing the lot at once means that all the animals are aligned and we thus minimise the number of times we have to arrange for shearing each year - hopefully to just the once. We do have them crutched on a needs basis.

Our shearing this year was more complex because of the constant threat of rain and our desire to make sure that lambs were not away from their mothers for more than 24 hours at a time - much easier said than done, but preferred given the lambs are not yet weaned i.e. they are still sourcing milk from their mothers.

On Sunday we drafted off sufficient ewes for a full days shearing and shedded them overnight - with some in the shearing shed and the balance in the solar shed which we'd fenced on a temporary basis specifically for this purpose. We are pleased to know that we can now shed enough sheep for a full day's shearing. Here you can see some of the ewes in the solar shed.

The team of workers for Monday comprised Howard (wool classer - lives locally), Nicole (roustabout - from Germany currently 2 months into a 12 month working holiday), Belle (trainee roustabout - originally from Gilgandra), Eddie (shearer - based at Dubbo and originally from New Zealand) and Tim (shearer - lives locally). In the following photo you can see from left to right: Tim, Eddie, Howard, Belle and Nicole.

On Tuesday Tim was replaced by another local shearer, Michael.

For Belle, Monday was only the second day she'd been in a shearing shed or near sheep with the first having been on Sunday when she spent half a day helping by sweeping the board for the shearers. Sheds like ours are ideal for learners as the pace is less hectic. We quite like the idea of having learners on our place as there is a great need for more people in the shearing industry and they have to learn somewhere. The new skill Belle worked on acquiring during Monday was how to 'throw' a fleece onto the wool table. This is not at all easy and we gave her full credit for trying hard, staying focused and willingly seeking coaching all day. Here is a photo of one of her early attempts. One of the trickiest aspects is to hold the fleece together and get the whole thing onto the table. In this shot the neck area didn't quite clear the edge of the table ... but almost!

A critical part of the shed work is preparing the wool for sale. The wool classer is the key player in this respect. That said, we are also fortunate in that our wool broker (Rowan from Jemalong Wool at Forbes) takes a very active role as well and comes out to see the condition of the wool on the first day of shearing and to give guidance to the wool classer where appropriate. If the wool is classed the way the buyers like it then this does translate into a better price for us. Here you can see both Howard and Rowan skirting one of the fleeces on the wool table whilst discussing what the wool was like and agreeing the classing criteria. Not all wool classers are open to suggestions from wool brokers - no problems at all with Howard though, who takes considerable care and attention in performing his role.

In this photo you can see some of the shorn sheep waiting to be returned to the paddock as well as some of those who were soon to enter the shed. Quite a contrast!

In days gone by it was the role of the farmer to have available equipment in the shed enabling the nominated 'expert' or in some cases the shearers to sharpen the combs and cutters used in the hand pieces. Times have changed and it is now the case (there are some exceptions) that all shearers have their own grinders, with most sharpening taking place after hours. Eddie asked if it would be OK if he set up his grinder in the shed and did the sharpening during lunch. Fine by us. Here's a photo of him 'in action' on the sharpening. We hope that he doesn't one day learn the hard way the benefit of wearing safety glasses!

In the interest of work efficiency the wool classer has to quite early on determine the type of wool that is to become the 'main line'. It is these fleeces that go directly into the wool press to avoid double handling. The remaining lines are stored in 'bins' until either there is enough stored in one to create a complete bale or the end of the shearing. The following photo was taken at around 9.00 am on day 2 (Tuesday) and shows what by that point had been stored in the bins.

We hire our woolpress and this year sourced one from Young Shearing Supplies and Woolpress Hire. All went well in this regard.

The ewe hoggets were shorn after the ewes. It was then on to the lambs. Whilst our lambing percentage was down on prior years we are very pleased with the growth and condition of the lambs we do have. Here you can see a group of them in the yards just after we drafted them from their mothers.

Only a few of the lambs were shorn on Tuesday. Thus almost all of Wednesday was devoted to lamb shearing. It was not necessary due to the shortness of the lambs wool to have a wool classer at hand and the roustabout workload was also much less. Thus the team on Wednesday was just Michael, Eddie and Belle with us taking the main role in penning up the lambs. Shearing the lambs makes them look like 'real sheep'. Here's some post shearing.

Earlier this year we changed ram supplier. Some of the rams have genetics from the Konsortium Merino group in South Africa. One of our ewe lambs for some reason stands out as having something special about her - assessed in terms of growth rate, wool growth, absolutely no wrinkles and fine features. She was the only one to have grown sufficient wool within a maximum of 10 weeks such that the fleece could potentially have been thrown onto the table. At marking about a month ago she literally hurdled two fences in the sheep yards and we at that time named her 'Springbok' reflecting the country of her genetics. Given Belle is still a bit anxious about sheep having not worked with them we caught Springbok and got her to hold her for a while. Thus this photo:

After the lambs were shorn it was then time for the rams. You can see in this photo that the are very substantial animals with horns to match. We had hoped to trim the horns but decided to defer this for the time being.

Arrangements are in place to have the wool bales collected this coming week and most of it will be sold at auction shortly thereafter.

Our remote power supply system once again handled the power demands of the shearing effort. It was overcast on Monday and Tuesday which did mean that the diesel generator kicked in late Tuesday. This did create a tad more 'excitement' than we'd planned. We had the lambs penned up in the solar shed at the time. They were spooked by the noise and all rushed into the temporary fence breaking the wire. By the time we got to them about half had escaped and we ended up placing those that had escaped in the shearing shed. Such is life! Being on remote power does at times have its advantages. On Monday due to a lightning strike a fair chunk of New South Wales was blacked out during the day ... including our area ... and we motored on totally unaffected.

In closing ... a big thank you goes to Jan's sister Ros who was a great help with the sheep work in the paddock.

Preparing for Shearing 2011

2011-11-11T16:17:00.001+11:00

This year we decided to 'bite the bullet' and finally fix the concrete floor in the shearing shed prior to shearing.
It proved a fairly labour intensive activity.

The first step was to remove the old concrete floor. It turns out that the original construction method was basically:

Create a layer of sand
Bring in rocks, presumably from off the farm somewhere, and set them up so that the tops were reasonably level
Fill the gaps between the rocks with more sand, creating a relatively level surface
Pour a layer of concrete on top and level off as best as they could

From what we could see the old concrete most likely had no cement mixed into it and was more like a mortar. It certainly was not reinforced in any way. Whilst we did borrow a jackhammer to help break up the old surface it proved a bit of over-kill in that the old material shattered making it time consuming to move out of the shed. We ended up cracking the old surface with a crowbar and moved the material in pieces.

A big question was 'What to do with the old material'? The answer ... something useful without carting it too far away. It turns out there's a deep hole in one of the creeks not far from the house that continues to get bigger each time we have a major fall of rain. The 'fill' is clean and comprises the concrete and some of the rocks. Here you can see us off-loading some of the stuff from our trailer. With luck the hole in the creek will now no longer get any bigger.

The following photograph is a progress shot in getting the surface ready for the blokes who we selected to lay the replacement concrete. Basically we re-used most of the rocks but buried them in the old sand. On the right side of the picture you can just see the level sand surface. As the new concrete was to be 100 mm thick we used several pieces of baling twine to act as the leveling guides together with a piece of timber that was 100 mm wide, dragging the latter across the surface to finish it off.

All in all it took us a day to remove the old surface and two days to level the sand.

Next step was for the professional concrete company (Makcrete Concrete Services in Grenfell ... they were excellent) to prepare the level surface prior to the concrete pour. Here you can see the result, with the plastic layer in place overlaid with the steel reinforcing. Nice job!

Then it was time for the concrete pour, and here's an action progress shot.

The chute from the concrete truck is visible in the foreground. In the background you can see Justin and Matt flat-chat moving the slurry into place quickly before it set. One thing about concreters ... they certainly earn their money at this point!

Once all of the concrete was roughly in place and fairly level Matt uses a 'bull float' to do the initial final level (if that makes sense). Here he is in action:

Over the next couple of hours as the concrete cures an automated trowel (AKA helicopter or whirly bird) is used. It serves to properly level the surface, force the gravel under the surface and create a proper surface prior to drying. Here's a link to a short video of the machine (guided by Justin) in action:

After 3 days the new concrete was ready for use. Here's a shot of the final product. Perfect!

The other major non-routine task getting the shed ready was repairing the roof on the skillion on the western side. When originally constructed second hand iron was used. Thus there were plenty of holes to fill in using silicon, and it also proved necessary to replace a whole bunch of nails and screws. Another aspect was that a year or so ago the flashing that covered the gap between the main section of the roof and the skillion blew off in a very strong wind storm and needed replacing. The question was: "How to do this cheaply, effectively and in a way that continued to allow light into the shed"? The answer took a long time to come up with but was very simple in concept: take one piece of poly-carbonate, cut lengthwise into 4 equi-strips, and install using specially designed screws used solely on poly-carbonate sheeting. In this photo you can see the final product.

During the shearing earlier this week (further blog to come) the poly-carbonate solution proved to be just what we needed ... especially given that it rained a few times.

Removal of Stump from Large Sugar Gum

2011-09-13T21:19:00.000+10:00

Further to our blog of 1st September 2011 sharing some of the details of having the large Sugar Gum tree out the front of the house here removed - today Maurice from Lachlan Valley Tree Services returned with his trusty stump grinder to remove the stump.

Here you can see the 'Red Roo' SP8018 stump grinder positioned over the stump prior to the start of the job. These 80 horsepower machines cost on the order of $80,000 and are a serious bit of gear.

Here is a close-up of some of the 32 tungsten tips 'teeth' on the cutter wheel. They comfortably handle timber and soil, and can be used for cutting rock and concrete - but the latter is tough going. Steel if in the soil or timber causes considerable damage to the teeth.

The machine is controlled via this handy wireless remote control unit.

You'll find a short (6 seconds) video showing the stump grinder in action here.

The above photograph was taken about half way through the removal process. The dark area you can see in the middle of the stump is a large white ant nest.

Here's a close-up of a section of the white ant nest.

The above photo was taken at the completion of the grinding effort. There was a very large amount of wood chips mixed earth with produced during the process, with the actual stump proving to have been about 50 cm deep in all.

We agreed with Maurice that we would move the excess mulch ourselves. Here you can see our trusty trailer almost fully loaded.

We moved the mulch to a couple of 'scalded' areas of bare earth in the Yabby Dam Paddock. One spot is below. Our hope is that over time this added organic matter will encourage vegetation to grow and rainfall runoff to reduce.

The photo above is one of the other scalded areas in the Yabby Dam Paddock just to the west of the dam, with the mulch placed at the down-side of the contour bank.

The vast majority of the timber in the stump is pulverised into quite fine pieces, but you can see in the above photo that some pieces are pretty 'chunky'. This happens when pieces break off rather than be ground off.

The above shot shows the 'finished product' after we'd removed the excess mulch and done a tad of leveling. We do expect that over time the material that is in the hole where the stump was will compact and break down. At that time we plan on bringing in some topsoil to level things off again.

It's good to now have the whole job of removing the massive and dangerous tree complete.

Bees, Wattle and Emus

2011-09-06T16:59:00.000+10:00

Earlier this morning we checked our lambing ewes up in the Big Pine Paddock. On the way back we saw something light blue and out of place in the distance in our Spring Paddock and drove up to investigate.

It transpired that what we were seeing (above) was 27 bee hives left in the paddock left without our knowledge or permission. All of the hives had a common number on them which we deduced was a registration number. A quick search of the internet brought to light some contacts in the NSW Dept of Primary Industries who are involved in regulating the bee industry. A call to the main contact for NSW resulted in us being given the name and phone number of the bloke who owns (unless the hives have been sold or stolen) the bees. He lives in Bathurst and we have at this point left a message with his daughter for him to ring us back.

This afternoon we walked up to the Spring Paddock to see if the hives were still there. They were, and we took the photographs in this blog post. On the way there we walked past the enclosure we constructed last year where we transplanted some wattles. Of the 10 we transplanted from roadside reserves 4 are thriving and one was in full flower as you can see above.

As we approached the spring we saw 5 emus near it (above), all of which seem to have recently decided to call our place home. The spring is the most easily accessible permanent water point in the north east part of our place and it seems this is where they are regularly coming for water.

At the spring itself it was a bit of a surprise to see and hear just how many bees from the hives were sourcing water there. It was truly 'buzzing'. On the way from the spring to the hives there was quite a flow of two-way bee traffic. At the hives themselves we took a 12 second video which you can access of YouTube here. We also took a close-up still shot of one of the hives (below) where you can see the access point into the hive itself.

It looks a bit like honey around the entrance but we are not sure.

Bird Habitat Clusters Constructed and Planted

2011-09-05T13:44:00.000+10:00

In July this year we entered a Management Agreement with the Lachlan Catchment Management Authority to establish ten 10 by 10 metre bird habitat ‘clusters’ spread across 7 paddocks located to the north and east of the farm. Each is to contain trees and shrubs, and collectively they are designed to act as ‘stepping stones’ allowing native birds to move more safely across the broader landscape. Funding toward the fencing and planting comes ultimately from the Federal Government’s “Caring for Our Country” initiative.

Once the Management Agreement was signed we set about putting in all the posts and strainers at each cluster location. To make this easier we made up a template out of baling twine that would allow us to easily locate where the posts should go and ensure each was in fact square and 10 metres by 10 metres. For the fans of algebra we used the formula for triangles of A² X B² = C², and physically tied knots in the twine at 5 metre intervals for two sides (each 10 metres long) then a gap of 14.14 metres for the hypotenuse.

In the photograph above you can see the final / standard layout of the posts and stays at each site.

Here you can see the stay arrangement we used. These are specifically designed to be ‘temporary’ and were manufactured for us by M A Steel at Young. The original design was from David Marsh at Boorowa who uses them for temporary electric fencing.

You can see in the above photograph that top of the stay is slipped over a star post and attached with wire. The base is anchored using another star post, visible in the second photo above/

One component of the project involved ornithologist Tony Saunders calling to assess the property for birdlife potential and to share his knowledge. When it came time to select the species to plant we sought his additional input as we wanted to make sure we maximised the value to our local birdlife from the exercise. Here is a selection of his comments … which of course we found most helpful:

"Go with the 3 trees and 10 shrubs for each 10m x 10m cluster.
Make each cluster planting as random as possible. This will put some shrubs in shade and others in full sun, as well as provide some clusters with scattered shrubs while others will have a patch of dense shrubs. Make them as different as possible. It would be interesting to monitor the clusters through time and see how effective they become for wildlife.
I suggest a mixture of shrubs from the approved list for your area. The shrubs should be predominantly Acacias, but the species should not aim for equal numbers of each. In natural areas there is generally a dominant species followed by lesser numbers of subordinate shrub species, so I suggest planting the 10 shrubs in a ratio of 4:3:2:1. The actual species can be selected from the list to match the closest existing similar patch to the cluster.
Based on the location of the proposed clusters and what I recall from the location of existing tree species, I suggest that the tree species should be as follows: Front, Saddle, Duck Dam and Yabby Dam - 2 Grey Box and 1 Yellow Box per cluster; Yellow Box - 3 Yellow Box per cluster; Crater and Plateau - 2 White Box and 1 White Cypress Pine per cluster

The shrubs within each cluster should provide some passage habitat for small birds, and the White Cypress Pine/Gum mix will provide for the Grey-crowned Babbler. The clusters are probably too small to provide sufficient resources for residency by small birds. Glossy Black Cockatoo prefer large, dense patches of Allocasuarina species, and I doubt that they will find much use for the suggested clusters."

Armed with the above information we set off to acquire what plants we could. It eventuated that we could not source two species of shrub, Silver Casia and Angular Hopbush, so we substituted these for Wedge Leaf Hopbush. Suppliers were Gum Tree Nursery at Young and Oz Plants at Cowra.

Another important aspect was how best to actually do the planting and what materials and treatment to apply. Matt Kilby from Global Land Repair was who we went to for advice and supplies. Here’s a summary of the planting process we used:

Dig a hole about 400 mm deep and 30 cm across
Create some bull swales out both sides from the hole which will channel runoff into it when it rains in the future.
Mix a cup of tree starter into the loose soil that will go back in the hole when planting the tree.
Have a mix of tonic in a bucket. Soak the plants whilst still in the tube in the tonic mix to ensure the soil in the plant tube is completely hydrated.
Remove the plant from the tube and spread a heaped tablespoon of the soil mycorrhiza around the soil covering the tree roots and at the base.
Plant the tree in the hole with the base of the tree below natural ground level. Make the remaining hole ‘cone’ shaped so that water will run in it naturally and large enough to hold about 10 litres of water.
Make a hole in the centre of the mulch mat that will end up being where the tree stem comes through. Place the mat in the cone shaped hole around the base of the tree. The pre-cut bits of the mat should thus overlap slightly.
Place the tree guard over the tree and drive in the stake.
Pour about 5 litres of mixed tonic at the base of the tree.

We recently finished all of the work. The biggest unexpected learning from doing the planting was seeing the diversity of soil types and profiles when digging the holes for the plants, down to about 30-40 cm. They range from heavy clay, to sandy loam, to coarse 'breaking down' granite.

What follows are photographs of each of the clusters by paddock name and cluster location together with some shots of what the soil profile looked and plant species that were put in the ground. All of the landscape photos have been taken in the direction rain water will naturally flow when it does rain i.e. from the high side looking down-slope. Thus the photos are indicative of the aspect of that particular piece of land and it will be relatively straight forward for us to take subsequent monitoring photos from approximately the same position should we choose to.

1. Crater Paddock – East

Here's the Crater Paddock - East cluster. The Weddin Mountains are coincidentally just visible on the horizon on the right hand side.

Here's the first soil profile sample. Breaking down granite toward the bottom.

Here's the second soil profile sample. Breaking down granite toward the bottom mixed with a type of light grey clay.

The plant species put into the soil in this cluster were: White Box, 2, White Cypress Pine, 1, Currawang, 1, Varnish Wattle, 3, Wedge Leaf Hopbush, 2, Western Golden Wattle, 4, Aspect SSE

2. Crater Paddock – West

Here's the Crater Paddock - West cluster. The Bogolong Hills are visible in the background.

The soil profile at this location is weathered granite but a brighter ochre colour.

The plant species put into the soil in this cluster were: White Box, 2, White Cypress Pine, 1, Currawang, 2, Hickory, 4, Varnish Wattle, 3, Wedge Leaf Hopbush, 1, Aspect SE/Flat

3. Duck Dam Paddock

The Duck Dam is visible in the background, quite full at the moment.

The soil profile at this cluster has a high clay content. In one place we noticed what seemed to be a fine salt layer at around 30 cm which immediately preceded what we call 'cement rock' - an impervious layer best described and compacted clay. It proved necessary with two of the 13 holes to use the crow-bar in order to get sufficient depth.

The plant species put into the soil in this cluster were: Grey Box, 2, Yellow Box, 1, Currawang, 3, Varnish Wattle, 4, Wedge Leaf Hopbush, 1, Western Golden Wattle, 2 Aspect North

4. Front Paddock

At the back of this view of the cluster in the Front Paddock can be seen the hill that has Lookout Rock on it, and in the mid-ground a few quite impressive Yellow Box trees.

The soil profile at this cluster was very damp heavy clay, which made for the toughest digging as it was quite labour intensive to remove the material from the auger. The above photo was taken the day after planting had occurred and some drying of the soil had occurred.

The plant species put into the soil in this cluster were: Grey Box, 2, Yellow Box, 1, Currawang, 4, Varnish Wattle, 1, Wedge Leaf Hopbush, 2, Western Golden Wattle, 3, Aspect, S

5. Plateau Paddock – East

At the rear of this cluster can be seen the trees in the gully below what is normally a dry dam, and across to the Crater Paddock.

Here you can see the coarse broken down granite sub-soil at the rear of one of the plant guards. This was particularly easy digging. Also in the photo is the mini-bull-swales created to channel runoff to the plant thus theoretically reducing the need for watering of the plants in the early stages.

The plant species put into the soil in this cluster were: White Box, 2, White Cypress Pine, 1, Currawang, 2, Varnish Wattle, 4, Wedge Leaf Hopbush, 4, Aspect, NNW

6. Plateau Paddock – West

The view from this site is similar to the last with the exception that a neighbour's Canola crop in full flower is to the right.

The soil profile was the same as for the Plateau Paddock - East site.

The plant species put into the soil in this cluster were: White Box, 2, White Cypress Pine, 1, Deane's Wattle, 2, Hickory, 4, Varnish Wattle, 1, Western Golden Wattle, 3 Aspect, NE

7. Saddle Paddock

This site is the closest to Goodes Lane and thus the easiest to see by the passing traffic.

The sub soil was wet and quite sandy. This site had an awesome number of active worms detected during digging. This augers well for future pasture health.

The plant species put into the soil in this cluster were: Grey Box, 2, Yellow Box, 1, Deane's Wattle, 2, Hickory, 3, Wedge Leaf Hopbush, 1, Western Golden Wattle, 4, Aspect, SW

8. Yabby Paddock - North

The Saddle Paddock cluster is in the background of this photo (trust me!).

This site was the driest of all, which we attribute to the impact of the contour bank slightly up-hill. In a couple of locations there was a cover of Redgrass which proved quite a challenge to dig through as the plants create a solid mass of vegetation just below the surface. The Couch Grass was also very thick at this site.

The plant species put into the soil in this cluster were: Grey Box, 2, Yellow Box, 1, Deane's Wattle, 3, Wedge Leaf Hopbush, 3, Western Golden Wattle, 4, Aspect, NNW

9. Yabby Paddock - South

A quite similar background to the other cluster in this paddock.

This site had the most diverse sub-soil profiles of any of the 10 as the above 3 photographs show.

At one point I finished digging one of the holes and went away for a couple of minutes to retrieve another implement. On return I found this 'surprise' at the bottom of the hole. Obviously it had inadvertently entered and was unable to escape. We think it is some type of juvenile Brown Snake but someone else has suggested it might be a type of Legless Lizard. We released it to under a nearby low bush.

The plant species put into the soil in this cluster were: Grey Box, 2, Yellow Box, 1, Currawang, 2, Varnish Wattle, 3, Wedge Leaf Hopbush, 4, Western Golden Wattle, 1, Aspect, NNW

10. Yellow Box

The above photograph was taken on disk and is not quite as clear as the others. The trees you can see to the left are in Ochre Arch gully. This site will also be visible from Goodes Lane, especially as the trees grow.

The sub-soil colour at this site is a vibrant ochre, verging on orange red. Quite stunning and very friable.

The plant species put into the soil in this cluster were: Yellow Box, 3, Currawang, 2, Deane's Wattle, 4, Varnish Wattle, 1, Wedge Leaf Hopbush, 3, Aspect, N

In Conclusion

We now look forward to watching the plants grow, and in time be used by the birds in the area. On the weekend just gone we did our first watering of the plants via natural syphon from our fire-fighting tank. In all it took about 1.5 hours and as we get better at it we expect the time to reduce to around one hour. Not bad at all, and will be important during the summer months.

Removal of Large Sugar Gum 1st September 2011

2011-09-05T11:02:00.001+10:00

On Thursday 1st September 2011 a team of 4 from Lachlan Valley Tree Services Pty Limited (Phone 02 6341 1458) based at Cowra came and removed the monstrous Sugar Gum tree located immediately to the north of the house and east of our smaller machinery shed. The team from Lachlan Valley Tree Services comprised Maurice (owner), Oliver (key man who scaled the tree and lopped most of the top of the tree using ropes and a light saw), Michael (experienced lopper, whose core day job is actually doing forensics on fires across most of rural NSW) and Scott (labourer – and it was his first day on the job).

The tree can be seen in this photograph prior to removal. Surprisingly it was planted in about 1948 meaning it was only 63 years old – with the growth rate having obviously been quite impressive.

The primary driver of our decision to remove the tree was concerns for our personal safety and potential damage to property due to the high risk of limbs falling. Sugar Gums are renowned for this. We also discovered during the removal process that the tree was heavily infested with white ants. The other benefits of the tree removal include:

Our solar hot water system tubes will no longer be shaded in the morning meaning it will be able to perform to full potential
It should now be possible to get some ground cover / grass to grow to the north of the house reducing the amount of dust
There will be a significant reduction in the volume of leaves entering the gutters, reducing the need for regular cleaning
Elimination of the litter that fell on the ground where we have kept our garbage bins

Countering these benefits are the following downsides of the tree removal:

The tree did act as a significant bird habitat and rest spot
We will no longer enjoy the relief from the direct summer sunlight on the north of the house
The tree did add value to the general aesthetics of the front of the house
The hollow in the trunk did at one point provide habitat for “The Boss” – a 2 metre Lace Monitor

What follows are a selection of photographs and short videos taken during the day.

One of the first steps was setting up the tree felling rope controller onto the base of the trunk of the tree. Here you can see Ollie (L) and Maurice (R) at work with a chainsaw creating a vertical flat section.

Here you can see the rope controller in close-up installed. It acts something like the things you see on sailing boats. A length of rope goes from the limb being removed, through a pulley attached to a branch close to the one being removed and strong enough to hold the weight of the lopped branch, several times around the centre of the controller, and into the (gloved) hands of the person on the ground who will be managing the descent of the pruned limbs to ensure safe landing on the ground.

Here you can see Ollie suspended by his ropes just after felling a a major limb from the tree. Michael commented to Jan at one point that Ollie is considered 'the fastest chainsaw-er this side of Katoomba. He also happens to have his own tree services business based at Bathurst, and was sub-contracted on the day by LVTS.

Here's a pretty neat shot of Ollie 'suspended' on one of the tree limbs. Note the special spikes gripping gear on his lower legs and shoes. He also happens to be highly skilled in rope working and knot tying.

The above photograph shows what was left of the tree once Ollie had done what he could using ropes and actually climbing the tree. Getting to this stage took about 1 hour in total - very quick.

Here you can see the 'cherry picker' brought into action for the remainder of the above ground lopping work. In the bucket were Ollie and Michael, with Scott (L) and Maurice (R) watching on to begin with.

Here is a link to a short (10 second) YouTube video showing one of the branches from the top of the tree being felled. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bquCFqaoNI4 If you look closely you will notice how the limb is controlled from the ground using the rope. Maurice was the one on the ground doing this. His skill in using the swing of the limb to time it so that it missed the shed was impressive. In this 8 second video you will see another limb falling directly to the ground. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8j7V-uR6yc Sorry for the quality of the videoing in this one. It was a tad unnerving seeing such a limb falling towards me ... although I was of course very safe, being a long way back from the direct action.

In this photograph you can see Ollie doing the final cut on to fell the last of the main stem of the tree. You will also notice a rope attached to the upper part of the limb. The rope was what's called a 'bull rope' of around 30 mm in diameter. It is 50 metres in length, cost about $1,000 2 years ago and is a critical bit of gear with felling large trees. At the other end of the rope was the Bobcat being driven by Maurice. Here is a 9 second video showing the actual fall of this limb to the ground. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndV8w1ZLtAM Both Jan and I were somewhat in awe at the skill of Maurice, Ollie and Michael and their ability to 'see' in advance where each limb would fall ... and more particularly the way they communicated at all times ... being rightly obsessed about the safety of people and property.

The Bobcat was and is one of the most handy bits of equipment for tree removal. There seemed to be not much it could not do or handle in the hands of Maurice. Here you can see him moving a single bit of trunk that would have been close to 1 tonne in weight.

It was then on to removing the main stem of the tree which at the point you can see in the above photo was in excess of 1.3 metres in diameter. Ollie first removed the wedge you can see on the ground. Michael then used an axe to create a cut into the back of the cut, following which Ollie used the saw to cut further into the centre of the trunk.

Ollie then went to the back of the trunk and cut all the way through to immediately above the horizontal bit of where the wedge had been removed. You can see him doing this in the above photo. Michael drove a wedge into the centre of the back of the big cut to ensure continuing gap for the saw blade and to assist with the eventual felling of the trunk.

Once the cutting was done the bull rope was attached to the top of the main trunk and the Bobcat with Maurice at the helm. This 5 second video shows the main trunk coming down to the ground. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qvfLVQ0mYA

In the above photograph you can see the main trunk after it toppled to the ground as mentioned above.

Here is a close-up of the remaining main trunk at that point. Michael and Ollie pointed out that this was a 'text book' fell of the main stem. The two 'rough bits' you can see at the extremities of what was where to wedge was removed actually physically act a hinges for safe toppling.

It was then over to Ollie to cut the remaining short section of the truck off at just above ground level. Here you can see him using the big Husqvarna chain saw for this purpose. Ollie is not at all a fan of this brand of chain saw as they can be difficult to start and lack the 'grunt' of the Stihl chainsaws. I noticed that all chain sharpening was done using a file. They don't use electric sharpeners because the grinding wheels tend to overheat the steel reducing the steel quality which translates into more rapid blunting of the cutting edge.

It was then time to reduce the bulk of the main trunk from what was estimated to be 6 tonnes. During this process one cut proved not worth proceeding with as something hard was embedded into the core of the trunk which made the chain instantly blunt. It may have been that many years ago a piece of steel or stone was left in what at that time may have been a fork in the tree. It's not a good idea to place of hit hard objects into trees that may need to be removed in the future.

Once the main trunk was reduced to a more reasonable size it was then up to Maurice and his trusty Bobcat to move it to the storage location. In this 6 second video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdKbbzgfEbw you can once again see just how handy a Bobcat is in the hands of a good operator.

The only task that now remains is grinding out of the stump. Maurice will return in the next week or so to do this. Jan and I have nothing but praise for the work done by Lachlan Valley Tree Services. They are not cheap but there's no question about their skill and commitment to their craft. Having all the right gear helps as well ... and being obsessed about safety as they are is paramount.

In closing, above is a photograph of the house and shed taken from the same positioning as the 'before' photo ... quite a change!

Three Extra Solar Panels Added to Our Power Supply System

2011-08-24T14:52:00.003+10:00

Today Robert and Damien from Central West Solar called and installed an additional 3 X 190 watt BP Solar panels to our off grid power supply system, increasing the rated capacity from 2,625 watts to 3,215 watts, which in jargon terms equates to going from a 2.6 to a 3.2 kilowatt system.
Our decision to increase capacity was off the back of us over time placing more load on the system than we had originally planned leading to slightly greater generator run-times. The additional load has come from:

Our stock water pump draws slightly more power than we'd expected
We installed a refrigerated air conditioner rather than water cooled
Our solar hot water system has an electric boost rather than gas

We also now know that our generator uses 3 litres of diesel per hour rather than the 1 litre we believed to be the case at the time on installation. NB: We didn't ask the manufacturer how much diesel it would use at the time of purchase.

In this photograph you can see Damien and Robert putting the first of the 3 new panels in place on the frame that they assembled on site.

The frame assembly is a different design to what was used 2 years ago but does the same job. Here you can see that the 3 panels are loosely in place.

The next step after tightening the panels to the support frame was the run the leads across to the junction box.

In the last photograph you can see the finished product. We've now 18 panels rather than 15, with the rating of the original panels being slightly less at 175 watts each.

There were some new learnings for us that came out of general discussion during the installation:

The Government's practice of issuing 'Renewable Energy Certificates' is a bit off target in comparison to countries like Germany in that the power generation ratings (and ultimate sale price of the RECs) are based on the total theoretical energy capture of the panels rather than actual. In our case our panels are set up in the best possible position and we will in fact harvest 3.2 kW and above at various times. Many systems are not so installed (e.g. panels facing south meaning they have no chance of performing to rated specifications) but the owners will still receive the same number of certificates.
There is a significant difference in the quality of various panels, depending on brand.
BP Solar who at one point were market leaders has recently taken the decision to no longer sell panels via retailers. They will only supply to very large systems and will be directly involved in the installations.
To pass Australian standards for potential hail damage test panels have to be undamaged from 30 mm steel ball bearings being fired at them at 40 km / hour.
Solar panels have an inbuilt mechanism whereby power is diverted around connectors that are shaded, as in the case when, for example, birds poo on them. The impact of this is that the temperature of the panel in the area where the power is diverted increases relative to the rest of the panel, which can over time impact of panel performance. We will keep a closer watch on the panels during extended periods without rain and clean the bird poo off them if there's a build up.
Connected with the above, whilst dust on the panels can impact on solar energy capture performance it is not necessary to clean the panels as the film of dust is even ... and will wash off naturally when it does rain.

We are looking forwarded to having just that bit extra power generated from our own system here on Ochre Arch.

Surveying Our Farm Water Scheme

2011-07-19T21:20:00.001+10:00

On Saturday just gone Shayne from Forbes came out to the farm out our request to survey the pipeline and associated infrastructure that constitute our on-farm stock and house water set-ups. He uses digital equipment that draws on satellites and a base station, and will provide us with a digital file that will enable us and those that follow to accurately locate the pipeline in case of need. This is to some a discretionary and unnecessary exercise but we've heard countless stories of farmers who for various reasons need to locate pipelines on their farms and struggle; resulting in some cases in having to actually lay new lines when they may not have had to do so.
In this photo you can see the antenna (left), rover (leaning against the wooden post) and base station.

The antenna and base station are powered by the large battery you can see near the base of the antenna. The base station is positioned directly over a semi-permanent marker that can be re-used in case of need. This marker is a galvanised iron short star post hit in to level with the ground surface and has had a depression placed on the top of it using a hole punch.
The 'rover' is mobile and has a pole on the bottom that can be removed when appropriate to help make sure accurate elevation (metres above sea level) recordings are taken.

In this next photo you can see Shayne at the back of Ochre Arch (Weddin Mountain in the background) setting up a second semi-permanent marker, which in this case is a wooden square section 'dumpy' that has been hit into the ground and a galvanised nail hit into the top as a centre.
At the semi-permanent marker locations Shayne sets the equipment up to run for quite some time (3 minutes) to allow for much more accurate coordinate and elevation recording.

This next photo gives a better view of the semi-permanent marker. You can see how Shayne has stabilised the rover on top of the centre-point using a support stand.

In this final photo you can see Shayne putting his quad bike back on the specially designed trailer he has for transporting it. Pretty neat, actually.

Shearing Shed Practice Changes Over Time

2011-07-18T22:36:00.000+10:00

We lived away from farming for almost 30 years. It has been curious to see how sheep shearing and shearing shed practices and equipment have altered during this time. Below is a list of what we've observed as being different so far.

Wool Presses are now hydraulic electric powered rather than ‘human’ powered dramatically reducing the amount of time and effort involved and enabling higher bale weights/reduced bale numbers
Combs are wider, reducing shearing times by around 30 % depending on sheep type and wool condition
Shearers now carry and use their own hand-pieces meaning that they can be confident this critical piece of gear will perform properly
Shearers also now carry a range of combs and cutters which are changed to suit the sheep and wool conditions.
It is no longer the farm manager’s responsibility to have grinders in place for the shearers to use to sharpen combs and cutters. Each shearer as a rule now has his or her own sharpening grinders and sharpens their combs and cutters at home.
Each shearer has a ‘counter’ which they set up at the entrance to the catching pens. Each time they enter the pen they click the counter by a single digit. This means that it is no longer necessary for the rouse-about to ‘count out’ the number of sheep shorn for each shearer at the end of each run, saving time and reducing the likelihood of arguments over daily tallies. There is a low risk of shearers abusing the trust by doing more clicks than sheep shorn as the farmers generally have a good sense of total numbers of sheep to be shorn.
Music is played in the shed via ghetto blasters while shearing is underway. The shearing sheds thus really do ‘rock’!
As the old petrol motors and overhead gear wears out electric motors are installed at each stand.
Light-framed collapsible wool pack holders are used to hold wool packs upright and open for temporary storage of smaller quantities pending ‘proper’ baling using the hydraulic presses.
Wool packs are light and synthetic instead of hemp avoiding the risk of loose hemp fibres contaminating the wool.
“Raddle” (colouring for distinguishing different sheep classes identified during shearing) is now in spray can form rather than chalk making the marking process quicker and the colour much more distinctive.
Shearers and shed staff provide their own food, rather than it being supplied at the shearing location. There are still some places that provide food for shearers but this is by far in the minority (1 in 10 sheds).
Many local farms now have their shearing done on a contract basis rather than directly employing shearers and shed staff. The contractor takes responsibility for ensuring appropriate numbers of skilled workers are on hand, pay the team members direct, and issue a single invoice to the farmer covering the lot. The contractor does charge a fee for doing the administration.
Special solid board sweepers are used rather than straw brooms eliminating the risk of straw strands contaminating the wool.
It is now reasonably common place for women to work in the sheds.
Shearers use back support frames to reduce the risk of back injuries.
There are a myriad of new OH&S requirements in shed design. One is that the grates in the catching pens are supposed to be parallel with the direction sheep are dragged from the catching pens rather than perpendicular. The latter means that the sheep are more readily able to resist being caught making the work more difficult for the shearer.
The old-style wool ‘paddles’ (two flat boards about 1 metre in length connected by leather or canvass) used for picking up wool from the floor have been replaced by separate plastic paddles.

Wind Turbine Information Pack

2011-06-17T08:07:00.001+10:00

Since having the wind turbine installed on our farm as part of our remote power supply scheme we've been disappointed with its output and general performance. In the past few days we have had ideal conditions to see what it could do; with very strong and steady winds from the south to southeast. The data from our inverter shows that the peak power output from the turbine was consistent at various points in time with the maximum rating of the turbine (from the product manual) ... which is pleasing.
This morning I came across this Wind Turbine Information Pack on the Central West Solar website. What is particularly interesting and relevant for us is the diagram on Page 2 referring to 'Flagging' or vegetation deformation as a consequence of consistently strong winds. In our case NONE of the trees or vegetation here on Ochre Arch are in any way deformed due to the impact of wind. So the 'bottom line' for us is that where we live is simply not suitable to installing wind turbines. Such is life, and to be honest we are not sure that we'd actually want to live in a location that had ideal wind turbine conditions!

Guidelines for Cleaning Polyethylene Lined Steel Rainwater Tanks

2011-04-26T14:15:00.001+10:00

In the next couple of weeks when the community water scheme becomes operational we propose cleaning our 104,000 litre Rhino polyethylene lined steel rainwater tank given that the community scheme supply will be high quality clear bore water. We want to clean the tank given:

To date we have been using dam water which is not clear due to natural tannins. It may also have contained some sediment that will have settled on the tank bottom
We have had some challenges with frogs living in the tank and they naturally produce excrement. We do know that they were able to access the tank for a while due to some vermin proofing being missing when the initial installation was done and it is also possible frogs’ eggs entered the tank from the gravity fed dam water.

We’ve been in contact with the team at Rhino Tanks to seek guidance on how best to approach the cleaning task. The main things to remember in cleaning this type tank given it was filled with dam water are below.

Getting Started

Make sure it isn't a windy day as the liner will blow around and move inside the tank and give you all sorts of trouble when you fill it up again.
Take the first and last roof sheet off for ventilation
Test the air for hazardous gasses with a Gastec machine and purge the tank if needed
To begin the draining process grip the scour drain pipe as well as the bung when loosening or tightening to prevent the drain pipe from twisting
If using a separate ladder from ground level to access the man-hole ensure it is stable
Given the edge of the man-hole is sharp it is not a bad idea to wear gloves until you are in the tank

Doing The Cleaning

Don’t wear shoes or waders as you won’t be able to feel for any rocks or lumps under the liner or in the tank
Lightly sweep the sediment to the scour drain with about 150mm of water still in the tank
Clean/flush the tank with just water and don’t use any chemicals or cleaning based products as you would only be dissolving soil based solids
If using a hose from, say, a fire fighting pump the water pressure must be no stronger than low pressure. Don’t use a pressure washer.
A soft horse hair broom can be used if you have one, but nothing with stiff bristles.
With shoes removed swirl the water around to stir up the sediment and drain through the scour valve.

Refilling the Tank Post Cleaning

Make sure the liner hasn't moved or twisted. Reset the liner with the floor to wall seem in correct location as the water is running in

Frog Removal Tips

Some tips in getting frogs out of tanks (including poly tanks) based on our recent experience are below:

Ideally the water depth should be knee depth or lower
To locate the frogs use a very strong torch or spotlight
Remember to check every little nook and cranny for frogs, including the hole under the intake float valve and on top of it PLUS under the lid of the tank itself
Frogs seem to be able to stay under the water for several minutes so be prepared to stay in the tank for quite some time in order to ensure you locate them all
It is much easier to catch the frogs using a flexible net, obviously with no sharp edges
It is also a good idea to have someone outside the tank at the same time, for occupational health and safety reasons and to assist in spotting the frogs in the water
Turn the torch off at some point for a while to see where light is entering the tank. Gaps will need to be filled to prevent frogs returning.

Community Water Scheme Close to Operational

2011-04-16T12:36:00.002+10:00

In March last year we posted an article on Ochre Archives where we shared some of the base information about the Ooma Water Scheme. At that time the scheme had been in the planning stages for a few years and construction had just commenced. Since then the local area has had its wettest year on record, making it impossible for the contracted company to complete the task in what would normally be considered a reasonable period of time. It’s ironic that the idea for the scheme came out of many years of drought but then completion was delayed due to flooding!

Last Saturday we decided to take a drive down to the main bore site as we’d learned that some of the members in the scheme were now receiving water. Our own supply from the scheme has yet to commence for various reasons, including the fact that we are at ‘the end of the line’ and thus will be last. We expect our own connection, though, to be operational ‘soon’.

Here are some of the photographs we took and some accompanying commentary.

Forbes Shire Council and especially the Mayor, Phyllis Miller has strongly supported the project from the start. Three very tangible forms of support have included creation and future maintenance of a gravel roadway to the main bore pump site (see photo), support for our grant application to the NSW State Government (approved) seeking funding to cover the cost of the main pump, and lobbying to several key players at at least State level to help ‘remove roadblocks’.

Country Energy was engaged by the main contractor to supply mains power to the main and other pump sites. This photo shows the new ‘heavy duty’ power pole and transformer at the main bore site. Cabling from the power pole is underground which makes for better safety all-round.

Dubbo based irrigation supplies company ‘Aquawest’ was / is the main contractor for the scheme. Jeff Vandermaal has been the lead contact point all the way through and has been great to deal with. This photo shows the main pump overall set-up, with shed close to completion.

The above photo shows the main pump set-up above ground. Components from left to right are: (partially obscured) ball valve to allow to air release and on-site water access, main joiner in case of the need for repairs, water metre, air pressure tank (NB: I’m not exactly sure what it’s role is but hope to find out at some point), gate valve (to close off the flow on the main line if necessary), water pressure metre and the bore casing / head. From memory the bore is around 110 metres deep. The pump is fully submersed which also means it is totally silent when running.

Here is a close-up of the water pressure gauge. The pump was running when we were on-site. Pressure was around 520 kilopascals which in theory suggests that water was being pumped to around 50 metres above the height of the pump prior to adjusting for pipe friction loss.

The above two photos are of the pump control unit … as a whole and a close-up of the control panel.

Here is a close-up of the water metre. At that moment at total of 2,468 cubic metres had so far been pumped. If you look closely you will see that the metre actually measures down to 1/1,000^th of a cubic metre which equals 1 litre.

In closing … countless amounts of time, effort, persistent and creativity have gone in to making the Ooma Water Scheme a reality. I ‘take my hat off’ to all of the Committee members and especially the Executive: John Johnson, Clemence Matchett, Robert Johnson, Bill Matchett and Murray Mitton. Our little piece of the world is a better place thanks to these good folks.

Inland Carpet Python

2011-04-07T16:24:00.002+10:00

Yesterday we were heading off to town and were surprised and pleased to come across the 1.5 metre Inland Carpet Python (Morelia spilota metcalfei) in the accompanying photos just inside our front gate.

It's been over 7 years since we saw another of these on the farm. It was about 2 metres in length and not far from Lookout Rock.

It is unusual to see Carpet Pythons locally and discussions with local long term residence suggests they were once more common. Whilst Carpet Pythons are not listed as endangered nationally (Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act of 1999) or in New South Wales (Threatened Species Conservation Act of 1995) they are listed as 'threatened' in Victoria under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988. (NB: Our sincere thanks go to our nephew Scott H for researching the status on these 3 Acts of parliament for us).

To quote from the Melbourne Museum website: "Inland Carpet Pythons are preyed upon by foxes. Furthermore, habitat loss through logging and firewood collection has reduced their range. They are also commonly killed by humans, even though they are largely harmless and are natural enemies of pests such as introduced mice and rats. Inland Carpet Pythons are semi-arboreal, living in tree hollows and rock crevices. Females lay 10–50 eggs every 3–4 years and guard their clutch, ‘shivering’ to generate heat to warm the eggs. Inland Carpet Pythons are not venomous, but kill their prey by constriction. They ambush their prey and wrap themselves around the animal, squeezing until it dies from suffocation. Despite this, Inland Carpet Pythons are popular as pets since they are generally not aggressive towards humans."

Peron's Tree Frogs in Big Numbers on Ochre Arch

2011-04-05T07:40:00.002+10:00

The continuing comparative wet conditions have been a catalyst for the increase in frog numbers here on the farm. It was only yesterday with the help of our friend Tamara G that we learned that the main species we are seeing (especially in the outside loo and in some of the new poly tanks) is Peron's Tree Frog (Litoria peroni). Here's a link to a website that provides more information. Those reading this who live in or have visited south east Australia might like to click on the 'Hear it now' link ... and may recognise the call of these critters.
We do find it curious that these are tree frogs given we find them in wetlands and pasture ... but stranger things have happened. Maybe they do spend much of their time in trees. They certainly move around quite a bit, and find our mobile stock troughs quickly after each move.
The photo was taken a few days ago at one of our stock water troughs.

Himalayan Crystal Mineral Rock Salt Analysis

2011-04-02T10:25:00.000+11:00

On Tuesday we expect to collect 1 tonne of Himalayan Crystal Mineral Rock Salt which we intend giving our sheep constant access to. We've selected this product and option for several reasons:

The salt is world renowned as being the best of its type ... containing as many as 88 separate trace elements. See analysis included at the bottom of this post.
We are able to purchase it reasonably large quantities, which makes both the product and transport cost effective. The supplier is based at Uralla in the northern tablelands region of NSW and there is regular truck transport services that run from there to Grenfell (Uralla to Tamworth, Tamworth to Dubbo, Dubbo to Cowra, and Cowra to Grenfell). Cost per dry sheep equivalent is expected to be in the order of $1-1.50 per annum on a long term basis.
We know that our soils are 'light' and the samples we had analysed last year demonstrate that there are some mineral gaps. Mineral gaps in the soil translate to mineral gaps in the plants which in turn translates into mineral gaps in the diet of the sheep. If the right minerals are able to get to the life forms in the stomachs of the animals then they are capable of better utilising the herbage mass the animals consume.
It will be very simple to both store and make available to the stock. The salt blocks can be left in the rain without damage (unlike some granulated salts and licks) if left on a simple platform of some type that allows the blocks to dry completely post rainfall events.
We want our sheep to be healthy and have access to appropriate dietary input.

The supplier has given us an analysis of the product taken from the book "Water and Salt: The Essence of Life" by Dr. Barbara Hendel MD and Peter Ferreira which we've included below.

Element	Order	Num.	Results	Analysis Type
Hydrogen	H	1	0.30g/kg	DIN
Lithium	Li	3	0.40g/kg	AAS
Beryllium	Be	4	<0.01ppm	AAS
Boron	B	5	<0.001ppm	FSK
Carbon	C	6	<0.001ppm	FSK
Nitrogen	N	7	0.024ppm	ICG
Oxygen	O	8	1.20g/kg	DIN
Flouride	F-	9	<0.1g/kg	Potentiometer
Sodium	Na+	11	382.61g/kg	FSM
Magnesium	Mg	12	0.16g/kg	AAS
Aluminum	Al	13	0.661ppm	AAS
Silicon	Si	14	<0.1g/kg	AAS
Phosphorus	P	15	<0.10ppm	ICG
Sulfur	S	16	12.4g/kg	TXRF
Chloride	Cl-	17	590.93g/kg	gravimetrie
Potassium	K+	19	3.5g/kg	FSM
Calcium	Ca	20	4.05g/kg	Titration
Scandium	Sc	21	<0.0001ppm	FSK
Titanium	Ti	22	<0.001ppm	FSK
Vanadium	V	23	0.06ppm	AAS
Chromium	Cr	24	0.05ppm	AAS
Manganese	Mn	25	0.27ppm	AAS
Iron	Fe	26	38.9ppm	AAS
Cobalt	Co	27	0.60ppm	AAS
Nickel	Ni	28	0.13ppm	AAS
Copper	Cu	29	0.56ppm	AAS
Zinc	Zn	30	2.38ppm	AAS
Gallium	Ga	31	<0.001ppm	FSK
Germanium	Ge	32	<0.001ppm	FSK
Arsenic	As	33	<0.01ppm	AAS
Selenium	Se	34	0.05ppm	AAS
Bromine	Br	35	2.1ppm	TXRF
Rubidium	Rb	37	0.04ppm	AAS
Strontium	Sr	38	0.014g/kg	AAS
Ytterbium	Y	39	<0.001ppm	FSK
Zirconium	Zr	40	<0.001ppm	FSK
Niobium	Nb	41	<0.001ppm	FSK
Molybdenum	Mo	42	0.01ppm	AAS
Technetium	Tc	43	unstable	artificial isotope - not included
Ruthenium	Ru	44	<0.001ppm	FSK
Rhodium	Rh	45	<0.001ppm	FSK
Palladium	Pd	46	<0.001ppm	FSK
Silver	Ag	47	0.031ppm	AAS
Cadmium	Cd	48	<0.01ppm	AAS
Indium	In	49	<0.001ppm	FSK
Tin	Sn	50	<0.01ppm	AAS
Antimony	Sb	51	<0.01ppm	AAS
Tellurium	Te	52	<0.001ppm	FSK
Iodine	I	53	<0.1g/kg	potentiometrie
Cesium	Cs	55	<0.001ppm	FSK
Barium	Ba	56	1.96ppm	AAS/TXR
Lanthan	La	57	<0.001ppm	FSK
Cerium	Ce	58	<0.001ppm	FSK
Praseodynium	Pr	59	<0.001ppm	FSK
Neodymium	Nd	60	<0.001ppm	FSK
Promethium	Pm	61	unstable	artificial isotope - not included
Samarium	Sm	62	<0.001ppm	FSK
Europium	Eu	63	<3.0ppm	TXRF
Gadolinium	Gd	64	<0.001ppm	FSK
Terbium	Tb	65	<0.001ppm	FSK
Dysprosium	Dy	66	<4.0ppm	TXRF
Holmium	Ho	67	<0.001ppm	FSK
Erbium	Er	68	<0.001ppm	FSK
Thulium	Tm	69	<0.001ppm	FSK
Ytterbium	Yb	70	<0.001ppm	FSK
Lutetium	Lu	71	<0.001ppm	FSK
Hafnium	Hf	72	<0.001ppm	FSK
Tantalum	Ta	73	1.1ppm	TXRF
Wolfram	W	74	<0.001ppm	FSK
Rhenium	Re	75	<2.5ppm	TXRF
Osmium	Os	76	<0.001ppm	FSK
Iridium	Ir	77	<2.0ppm	TXRF
Platinum	Pt	78	0.47ppm	TXRF
Gold	Au	79	<1.0ppm	TXRF
Mercury	Hg	80	<0.03ppm	AAS
Thallium	Ti	81	0.06ppm	AAS
Lead	Pb	82	0.10ppm	AAS
Bismuth	Bi	83	<0.10ppm	AAS
Polonium	Po	84	<0.001ppm	FSK
Astat	At	85	<0.001ppm	FSK
Francium	Fr	87	<1.0ppm	TXRF
Radium	Ra	88	<0.001ppm	FSK
Actinium	Ac	89	<0.001ppm	FSK
Thorium	Th	90	<0.001ppm	FSK
Protactinium	Pa	91	<0.001ppm	FSK
Uranium	U	92	<0.001ppm	FSK
Neptunium	Np	93	<0.001ppm	FSK
Plutonium	Pu	94	<0.001ppm	FSK

Additional Combined Elements

Water	H2O	1.5g/kg	DIN
Ammonium	NH4+	0.010ppm	Photometrie
Nitrate	NO3-	0.09ppm	Photometrie
Phosphate	PO43-	<0.10ppm	ICG
Hydrogencarbonate	HCO3-	<1.0g/kg	Titration

The inert gasses Helium-He-2, Neon-Ne-10, Argon-Ar-18, Krypton-Kr-36, Xenon-Xe-54, and Radon-Rn-86 could not be included in the research. Many of the elements could not be proven with conventional chemical analysis. Through the transfer of frequency patterns by means of wave transference, it was possible to prove the frequency pattern with the aid of frequency spectroscopy. With this, the dectection of elements even smaller than <0.001 ppm was proven.

The research analysis confirmed the holistic properties of the original Himalayan crystal salt. The sodium chloride content is 97.41% and meets the worldwide necessary standards for table salt.

g/kg	Grams per kilogram
DIN	German Standards Institute
ICG	Ionchromatography
AAS	Atom absorbtion spectrometry
TXRF	Total reflection -X-Ray -Floresence-Spectometry
ppm	Parts per million
FSM	Flamespectrometry
FSK	Frequency Spectroscopy

An Introduction to Natural Bee Keeping

2011-03-17T12:36:00.000+11:00

Nick and Kirsten at Milkwood Permaculture have had Tim Malfroy run natural bee keeping courses for their clients. Here's a link to an article they've written which provides some of the basics together with links that provide more detailed information. Fascinating!

NSW Department of Lands 'Lite' Maps Website

2011-03-16T13:00:00.002+11:00

Here's a link to the NSW Department of Lands 'Lite' Maps website.

Google Maps Area Calculator Tool

2011-03-14T15:36:00.001+11:00

The following link takes you to the Google Maps Area Calculator Tool. We've just used it to calculate the paddock areas here on Ochre Arch, which is something I've been meaning to do since we completed the new fencing a couple of years ago. From what we can tell it is quite accurate, or certainly sufficiently accurate for what we need for our planned grazing calculations.
Yes ... it does give figures in both acres and hectares (the latter in square metres).

Ground Cover and Soil Carbon Article

2011-02-21T02:56:00.000+11:00

The following link contains a great little article by Christine Jones on the link between ground cover and soil carbon sequestration.
http://www.fromthesoilup.com.au/images/stories/Feb_11/Carbon_that_Counts.pdf

Monster Crickets Living on Ochre Arch

2011-02-18T20:36:00.003+11:00

On 2nd February 2011 we came across the large insect in the accompanying photograph on the old Sunshine Gate at the entrance of the house yard. We had no clue on how best to identify the species and a friend suggested we contact the Australian Museum.

We went onto the Australian Museum website and found the spot where scientific queries can be lodged. This was a fairly straightforward process.
Today we received a reply from the Australian Museum which reads in part:
You have found a female Thick-legged raspy Cricket Ametrus tibialis one of the family Gryllacrididae. The females are the ones with the long egg laying tube at the back end which allows them to hide their eggs deep underground. These are generally beneficial insects and feed on seeds and flower parts but also any insects they find amongst the same plants. They also defend themselves quite vigorously so don't pick them up with your bare hands! Here is a link to some relatives of your species but yours being an inland species is not represented in the east coast fauna and unfortunately there is little published information on your species that I can send you:- http://www.brisbaneinsects.com/brisbane_grasshoppers/Gryllacrididae.htm
It's neat to have things like this living here on the farm.

Hands-on Learning from our Farm Water Scheme

2011-01-31T11:18:00.002+11:00

In recent months with the seasonally warmer weather we have been using and relying our farm water scheme (refer previous post) to provide drinking water to our sheep via the portable troughs. Given that the Ooma Water Scheme is not yet finished we are using gravity fed dam water to fill the Rhino tank as the stock water source.

What follows are some of the practical hands-on learnings we have had so far. I’m sure our experiences are not unique, but figured they were worth sharing.

Frogs in the Rhino Tank

When we had the Rhino tank installed we requested that ‘dust and vermin’ proofing be installed. Our thinking was that it would keep dust, mice, locusts and other small critters out which in turn would help maintain water quality and reduce the risk of pump, pipe and trough valve blockages. The ‘proofing’ is achieved by putting a filler of sorts between the corrugated zincalume roof sheeting and the supporting wall of the tank. The contractor from Molong who did the installation did a great job of constructing the tank but a while after we filled the tank we began to hear frogs in it during the night. It transpired that the contractor omitted to put the filler underneath one side of the access hole and also where the bracket that holds the ladder goes. The omission was a simple oversight but the learning is two fold: need to closely check the work completed and frogs can get through almost any gap.

Air Valves

There are air valves installed at every high point in the main line (4) and on every tank. Pockets of air in pipes act like physical blockages and can dramatically reduce flow rates. The air valves also play a critical role in allowing air into the pipes during intended of unintended rapid flow instances and prevent the polythene pipe from collapsing.

Two different brands of air valves were used by the contractor during the installation: one has a membrane mechanism to seal off the valve once the air has escaped and the other uses a small plastic ball that acts as the stopper. We have had trouble with several of the membrane air valves due to shavings of polythene pipe coming though the pipe and into the air release hole combined with the very high pressure of water in the pipes. The membranes have perforated meaning they do not seal properly and thus leak. We intend having these replaced under warranty. The faulty air valves are VYR brand and are actually manufactured by VYRSA in Spain! We strongly recommend that anyone looking to source air valves stay way from these.

When our scheme was installed the contractor placed small ball valves under only two of the four main line air valves. Without the ball valves it means that to fix a problem with an air valve the main pipe above the air valve has to be emptied of water. Whilst problems are likely to be very rare emptying the pipe takes time and is a nuisance. We have subsequently (ourselves) installed ball valves under the other two air valves.

Ball Valves

A few different brands of ball valve are installed along our scheme. This is not a problem per se but there are different features. For example, one brand has a mechanism that allows for the valve to be locked open (very handy) and another has a direction flow indicator on the side.

With one of the ball valves I’ve removed the handle completely to avoid the risk of it being closed accidentally by stock. We always have a shifting spanner in the ute which can be readily used to close the valve if necessary.

The above photograph shows standard hydrant layout with ball valve (handle removed) and air valve on top. The gate valve is 1.5 inch with male cam lock fitting attached. The safety connection hose is attached and runs to the trough (not visible). You can see the alloy female cam lock with two high quality hose clamps in place.)

Connecting hoses from the hydrants to the troughs

We bought high pressure safety hose from which we manufactured our hoses to connect the portable trough to the hydrants. There are female cam lock fittings on both ends of the hoses, and obviously male fittings on the troughs and hydrants.

Twice (so far) the clamps tightening the cam lock fitting to the end of the hose have “let go’. On both occasions the main 22,730 litre poly tank at the top of the farm emptied. In hindsight the cause of the cam lock fitting slipping out of the safety hose was three fold: 1) We bought cheaper cam lock fittings that have poor ribbing along the shaft that goes into the hose and thus there is less surface area for the hose to connect to the shaft 2) We bought conventional hose clamps that are narrower and more difficult to tighten. 3) The safety hose is quite thick and tends to soften when heated reducing the tightness between the hose and the shaft of the fitting. We have now purchased high quality cam lock fittings (manufactured or imported by Advanced Industrial Products in Brisbane) and the highest quality hose clamps, using two clamps per join. When clamping the hose to the shaft of the cam lock fitting we tighten as much as is possible, connect the pipe to the trough and fill the trough but then shut off the gate valve at the hydrant. Once the sun has properly heated the hose filled with water we tighten once more and repeat the process i.e. the clamps are tightened at least three times. So far so good!

Hose lengths of 5 metres seem to work well.

Checking Troughs

Given our experience we now make sure we check the troughs at least every two days. If we had cattle it would be essential to check them daily, especially during summer.

Low Pressure Safety Switch on the Pump Controller

Both times when the hose fittings let go we had the sheep in paddocks and were using hydrants located not far from the house … and thus not far above the house in terms of elevation. Our pump system has a low pressure safety mechanism that turns off the pump if the pressure in the pipe when pumping is low. There is a manual override in the control box. For us this is very handy, and in fact we did not even know about it at the time of installation. It means that there is a much lower risk to the solar system if something goes wrong while we are away.

Absences from the Farm

We now turn off the pump when going away for a few days, making sure that the top tank is full.

Location of the main storage tank

When designing the farm water scheme one of the toughest decisions was whether to locate the largest storage tank at the house or at the top of the farm. After several conversations with experienced farm water scheme operators we opted to have it at the house given 1) As far as the Ooma Water scheme goes it was very important to us to get the water on farm … and we then at least have it to use. The receiving tank will auto fill once the Ooma Scheme gets going. 2) We don’t need all of the stock water in our scheme to be pumped to the top of the farm as not all the tanks are at the top of the farm. Thus if we don’t need to pump it to the top of the farm it does not make sense to do so as it creates more wear and tear on the pump.

If the main tank had been installed at the top of the farm it would have been set up with a safety mechanism such that it only emptied to about 20 percent capacity, with the ability to access the 20 per cent in an emergency. When we had the problem with the hose fittings in both cases (as stated above) the main top poly tank emptied and we lost 22,730 litres each time. If the main tank was located at the top of the farm we’d have lost around 80,000 litres each time. It’s fabulous to have incorporated the ability to shut off the two other 22,730 litre tanks when not needed. These remained full and in reserve.

(The above photograph shows the end of the connecting hose where it attaches to the fixed trough fitting. The brass section is the pressure reduction valve).

Float Valves

In our view, given our water system has in excess of 100 metres of elevation / head, it can be classed as high pressure. Most of the farm water schemes to the north of us do not have more than around 40 metres of head to deal with. We bought a float valve for one of the troughs that the bloke in the shop at Forbes told us was specifically designed to handle high pressure. Given past excellent experience with this fellow we trusted his advice. During shearing we ended up at one point with about 900 sheep in one paddock. The paddock does not have a dam in it and the sheep would thus be solely reliant on the trough for water. When we filled the trough we found that the float valve ‘got the shudders’ and water was spilling over the side (despite the cover) and when the trough was very close to being full the float valve made an unbelievably loud ‘screaming’ sound.

We rang the fellow who sold us the float valve and he very quickly transferred the call to an irrigation specialist they work with. This subsequent fellow we spoke with explained that the float valve we’d bought was not suited to high pressure, high pressure float valves are available but were not in stock, and that there are pressure reduction fittings that can be purchased.

Pressure Reduction Valves

Continuing the above story, we called our trusty adviser, Phil Wells, who provided us with more detail about the pressure reduction valves and confirmed they were a good option. They are made from brass, are about 15 cm in length and can be purchased in a variety of diameters and pressure reduction outcomes. We ended up buying two 1 inch valves each costing a tad under $140 GST inclusive: one reduces the pressure by one half and the other to one third.

We installed the pressure reduction valves as part of the fixed fittings on two troughs. They work well and mean that we do not need special float valves.

In hindsight it was probably better to have set up cam lock fittings on the pressure reduction valves so that they could be added into the overall connections for the troughs only when needed. Our third trough does not have a pressure reduction valve on it and will only be used in paddocks where the water pressure is much less than at the bottom of the farm.

Hose Clamps

The high quality hose clamps we now are using cost about $6 each. One thing about them … it is more difficult to tell at a glance what the sizes are. When I returned home from buying them I found that one was a size smaller than the others. One needs to look VERY closely at the labelling to make sure it’s the right size.

Cam Lock Fittings

I asked several experienced people whether there was a difference in terms of functionality and durability between the plastic (or whatever the material is) and alloy cam lock fittings. The common response was ‘none at all’. Based on our own recent experience we have a different view … the non-metal cam locks fittings are not the go as they are more flexible and thus prone to leak while the trough is connected and the water is turned on. The alloy ones are made to much finer tolerances as well.

I’ve managed to find what seems to be a good brand of alloy cam lock fittings. They are made or sourced by Advanced Industrial Products in Brisbane and have the initials AIP on the handles of the female fittings.

Height of the Hydrants

We made the hydrants a tad too high out of the ground at about 800 mm. They should have been lower at around 400 mm to reduce the leverage from the trough connection hose when full of water. This then means that there is less chance of water leakage and damage to the hydrants from stock. On the other hand, having them higher does mean they are easier to see and locate.

We’ve still plenty more to learn!

Ochre Arch Farm Water Scheme - The Basics

2011-01-29T15:22:00.003+11:00

In July 2010 our own on-farm stock and domestic water scheme was installed on a contract basis by Aquawest from Dubbo. The basic design elements are:

104,000 Rhino tank near the back of the house. It has a water depth gauge that is easily visible from the kitchen window making for easy monitoring. The tank has two sources of water: bore water from the Ooma Water Scheme (See post 11 March 2010) and back-up gravity fed water from the main dam in the place. The Ooma scheme is not yet finished so we are currently filling the tank via the second option.
Grundfos electric water pump located in the same shed where the stand alone power supply scheme is installed. The pump was selected to pump 10,000 litres of water to the tanks at the top of the farm in 2 hours … a flow rate of about 1.5 litres per second. This is the same amount of water as we will be receiving on a daily basis from the Ooma Water scheme and is sufficient to water 2,000 sheep or 200 cattle in mid summer. The pump is located about 1 metre lower than the bottom of the Rhino tank creating what’s called a ‘flooded suction’ line. These are much better than the alternate (where the pump has to suck water up from, say, a dam) as it then means that the only time the pump is likely to run dry is if the tank runs dry.
A 22,730 litre balance tank located about 4 fifths of the way up the farm and two 22,730 litre tanks at the top of the farm. One of the top tanks acts as a reserve as does the balance tank depending on stock location. The top tanks are just over 100 metres in elevation above the house creating water pressure at the pump of 1040 kilopascals. Each tank has float valves installed, cutting off the water flow when they are full.
Controls on the pump such that it auto starts at 8.30 am and runs until the balance and top tanks are full. There is a water pressure monitoring mechanism in place and when the pressure reaches 1200 kilopascals (which can only be reached once the tanks and full and the float valves stop the flow) the pump stops.
Just less than 5 km of 63 mm polythene pipe and 16 water hydrants each fitted with 1.5 inch gate valves and male cam lock fittings. The hydrants have been positioned to allow for further subdivision of paddocks should this prove appropriate. A water flow rate to most of the hydrants is in excess of 2 litres per second. There is one main line of pipe and several spur lines. In essence water is pumped to the 3 tanks up the farm and flows to the appropriate hydrant via gravity.
3 portable aluminium water troughs and connecting ‘safety’ hoses

We now have water accessible in every one of our 21 paddocks and remain extremely grateful to Phil Wells from Cootamundra for his awesome knowledge and skill in assisting us with the design.

Herding Animals Return To Safe Places

2011-01-07T15:49:00.000+11:00

A few weeks ago in the midst and as a consequence of our Corkscrew Grass outbreak we came across a dead stag hogget. Given what we now know it was not surprising that the animal suffered in response to the heavy seed load but what was surprising was that the sheep left the other animals and found its way into the shearing shed (close to the house) where it died. We’d been in the shed the day before and could not believe our eyes that it was where it was the next day and was dead.

A week or so ago I recounted what had happened to Chris Henggeler from Kachana Station. He felt that the sheep may well have deliberately returned to the shed as this may have been the last place where it had felt really safe. With herding animals there is a strong instinct for them to stay together given there is ‘safety (from predators) in numbers’. On reflection the shearing shed would have been the last place this particular sheep was in close proximity with others as we were running it subsequently with our small group of rams and two other stags.

We have previously witnessed individual animals separate from the mob when close to death and concluded this is a type of auto-response to protect the rest of the herd from infection from whatever the ailment might be.

We had also previously learned during the Low Stress Stockhandling course we did a few years ago that herding animals remember and resist going back to arrears where they feel stressed, such as into cramped areas where they don’t feel free to escape. An animal returning to where it feels safe is the opposite response.

Chris shared with me a recent observation on Kachana to illustrate his point. To give this event context readers need to be aware that Kachana Station is located in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia, comprises over 770 square km, and Chris manages his main herd of cattle in high densities within a relatively short distance from the main camp. Just over 3 years ago a young heifer escaped from the main herd and as far as Chris knew was gone forever. Recently, though, it returned to where it had been with the herd 3 years ago and gave birth to its first calf. Given there are wild dingoes in the area it would have felt safe close to and with the main herd when calving.

A further observation here on Ochre Arch: We have two pet lambs (Thelma and Louise) that Jan has been caring for since the end of September 2010. They were recently weaned and we have had the rest of our weaned lambs running in the same paddock with them adjacent to the house. Despite our best efforts to get them to move on with the other lambs they continue to return to near the house. It is not us (the people) they feel safe near but the area near the house.

Lambs and Corkscrew Grass Don’t Mix

2010-12-16T18:56:00.002+11:00

* THE IMAGE IN THIS ARTICLE MAY UPSET SOME READERS *
We recently experienced significant lamb losses to the extent that we engaged the veterinarian from the Lachlan Livestock Health and Pest Authority to come out and take a look. It transpired that the root cause of the losses was our decision (made in hindsight out of ignorance and inexperience) to put the ewes and lambs post shearing of the ewes into paddocks that had a heavy load of Corkscrew Grass seed. The deciding factors at the time were that the paddocks had not been grazed for quite some time, were next in the grazing rotation plan, contained a solid stand of fresh diverse pasture which would give good nutrition, and we were keen to reduce the herbage mass to reduce fire risk.

With the benefit of hindsight what follows are the key factors that contributed to the lambs losses (no ewes were lost):

The Corkscrew Grass seeds penetrated the wool and skin of both the ewes and lambs
The resultant pain and stress on the ewes triggered many of them to wean their lambs as an automatic mechanism. Presumably being larger and older the ewes were still able to seek feed and water although many did lose condition.
The pain and stress on the lambs was such that many ‘hunched up’ and found it difficult to walk and feed
The weaning from their mother’s created a simultaneous reduction in nutrition intake for the lambs
The height and density of the Corkscrew Grass stand coupled with the severing of the coaching relationship with the mothers meant that the lambs either found it difficult to go to the water or were not at all able to go to the water. NB: In all of the paddocks there was a plentiful supply of good quality drinking water. There was also plenty of green feed in the paddock which will have provided for the majority of an animals hydration needs – especially given that the daily maximum ambient temperatures have not been extreme.

The veterinarian who came to our place asked the night before for us to have a couple of affected lambs close to the house – preferably one that had died a short time ago and another that was exhibiting classic symptoms of the problem. Due to the extreme wet conditions the best we could do was bring back two that were still alive but were in an advanced stage of ill-health. She took the temperature of one of the lambs and checked its mouth and eyes. This showed that the animal was not suffering from infection and had good pink colour meaning it was not anaemic. The other significant diagnostic action taken by the vet (with our permission) was to humanely slaughter one of the lambs and conduct a simple autopsy. Some of the specific attributes checked and what each indicated are:

Inspection of the underside of skin (visible in this photo) to see how much seed had penetrated and how far it had gone. The attached photograph shows a section of the area examined. We found it upsetting and disturbing to see what the lamb was dealing with. Seed numbers were high and in some cases they had completely penetrated, rather than just the sharp seed tip.
Inspection of the main lymph gland at the shoulder. This was huge in relative terms compared to what would normally be the case indicating the level of stress on the animal from the seed load
Inspection of the fat around the kidneys and one of the kidneys. Whilst the kidney was in excellent order there was little to no fat around it – proof that the lamb was in poor condition.
Inspection of the stomach and intestines. This revealed a very low level of worm infestation - nothing that would suggest parasites are causing animal losses.

Last year we had no problems with Corkscrew Grass and lambs but on the other hand seasonal conditions were dry until December. Discussions with our wool broker, shearing contractor and neighbours suggest that this year’s wet conditions really are extraordinary and ‘perfect’ for the proliferation of this species. One neighbour has also had problems with impact of Corkscrew Grass on his lambs and commented that this is the first time this has happened and that he has never experienced a season like this one.

Yesterday we had all of our lambs shorn and have drenched them for worms. This, combined with our intent to keep them on paddocks with little to no Corkscrew Grass, should reduce the risk of further losses. That said we have noticed that the seeding period for this grass now seems to be over i.e. the bulk of the plants have now ‘shed’ their seed which will make it safe for the sheep.

To the future … we will do further research on whether Corkscrew Grass can be managed better through grazing and other management techniques. It may also be time for us to look at acquiring cattle which we know are more effective at enhancing soil conditions and they naturally ‘shed’ seed like Corkscrew. What we do know with absolute certainty is that lambs and Corkscrew grass just don’t mix.

How to make a Worm Tower

2010-11-01T11:10:00.000+11:00

I am a big fan of what Nick Ritar and Kirsten Bradley are doing - spreading knowledge of sustainable living (Permaculture) - through their business near Mudgee, Milkwood Permaculture. Anyone with an interest in this subject can sign up to receive their free monthly email distributed newsletters. It's a simple as going to the Milkwood Permaculture website homepage and inserting your name and email address in the registration section and clicking on the 'Subscribe' button.
In this month's newsletter Nick and Kirsten provide step by step instruction on how to make a Worm Tower. Here's a link to the full article for those who would like to know more. Jan and I have decided to give it a go!

Air Conditioner Installed

2010-10-27T08:31:00.007+11:00

Yesterday we had an air conditioner installed in readiness for summer. We selected a unit manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries given its products have (one of) the highest energy efficiency ratings and were strongly recommended as best in the market by two trusted contacts ... one of which works in the industry for a competing manufacturer and the other in the solar energy supply industry.

Here are some of the key details:
Model #: SRK71ZEA-S1
Supplier: Coles Hardware & Glass, Cnr Flint & Bathurst Sts, Forbes Phone (02) 6852 1955
Installers: Michael Coles from the above business did the gas fitting work (mike@coleshardware.com.au) and the electrician was Colin Mayo also from Forbes phone 0419 697 168.

We were impressed with the overall supply and installation and are happy to give both Michael and Col a plug.

The first step in the installation is locating the best place for both the 'head' (inside unit) and 'compressor' (outside unit). The head is located in a position in the living room that will allow for the cool air to reach into the two bedrooms. This photo shows the backing plate and hole through the wall for the wiring and pipes.

This photo shows Colin (L) and Mike (R) putting the head on the backing plate. The head is a tad under 1100 mm wide.

Here you can see the compressor unit on the concrete pad supplied as part of the installation. Sitting on top of the unit is a high pressure vacuum unit ... used to basically extract all moisture from the copper pipes prior to releasing the refrigerant (stored in the unit). Most of the compressor units are placed on wall brackets but in our case we opted for a concrete pad on the ground given concerns that being an old weather board home the noise from the compressor would go straight through the wall. It's the way to go for us ... and we also learned that with houses like ours the vibrations can also trigger rattles from windows.
The compressor has to be installed (and is) at least 1500 mm from any gas tanks to comply with regulations.

Here you can see Mike and Col doing the last bit of the installation. There was a reasonable amount of pipe fitting and electrical work involved ... all carried out without fuss. Col was able to source power using one of two spare cables that our local electrician (Alf Zammit) left for this purpose when he originally wired the cottage for us.

In terms of trends we learned that the majority of people locally are now tending to buy evaporative air conditioning units in response to escalating electricity costs. This is turn places pressure on water supplies ... but at least water is a renewable resource. Given we have a stand alone power supply system we don't have power bills ... so a refrigerated unit suits us and we don't also have to muck around connecting water to the unit. During peak usage our air conditioning unit is expected to produce around 3 to 3.5 litres of water per hour.

A comment Mike made that I found enlightening was that one way to determine the quality of a product (such as air conditioners) is by going onto e-Bay and seeing how many spare parts sellers there are. The more spare parts sellers there are the poorer the product quality!

Location of Ochre Arch

2010-10-24T16:38:00.002+11:00

The following Google Maps link shows the location of Ochre Arch. Included in the map are the directions to the farm from the towns of Grenfell, Forbes and West Wyalong via the roads we tend to use. The farm area is also marked on the map.

View Ochre Arch, Grenfell, NSW, Australia in a larger map

Solar Panels ... Setting the Angle

2010-10-23T12:47:00.000+11:00

In November 2009 I posted an article containing information about our remote power supply setup. Systems such as ours are more commonly known as Stand Alone Power Systems or SAPS.

When Central West Solar installed our system they set the angle of the fixed solar panels on the shed at approximately 43 degrees ... being latitude (34 degrees south of the equator) plus 10 degrees. From this I assumed that the ideal 'rule of thumb' for all solar panels would be the same as ours i.e. latitude plus 10 degrees.

A farming family we know who live south of Grenfell recently had a 10 kW grid-connect solar system installed, with the panels attached to the roof of one of their sheds. The panels have been attached directly to the roof without angle-adjustment frames and thus are at the same angle as the roof pitch. The pitch of this roof is very low ... at a guess around 5 degrees. My initial reaction was that they would most likely be missing out on quite a bit of potential energy capture at this angle.

I've been in contact with Robert at Central West Solar to get some clarification on the solar panel angle conventions and now understand that the angle can and should be set differently depending on the goal of the solar panel installation. Robert advises that "Generally peoples power consumption in this region over winter is approx the same as summer. If you dont take bias of array to suit loads in different seasons then the rule of thumb is:

For the best all year round yield: Angle should be equal to the latitude
For the best summer yield: Angle should be latitude MINUS 10 to 15 degrees
For the best winter yield: Angle should be latitude PLUS 10 to 15 degrees"

In our own case, given we have a SAPS (and cannot sell surplus or externally source shortfalls), our goal is to maximise the winter yield as this is naturally a low capture part of the year due to shorter day length, less intense light, and higher probability of cloud and fog cover. Thus 43 degrees is spot on for us.

For those who are on grid connect systems where the primarily goal is to reduce the year round power bill (or maximise year round revenue) then the appropriate angle would be equal to latitude. Letting the mind wander creatively for a moment (and assuming all things being equal ... which they are not) people with this goal:

Living on the equator could install panels directly on to flat roofs
Living on the south pole could install panels directly on to north facing walls
With a 20 degree north facing pitch roof living at one of the following places in Australia could affix panels directly to their roof: Camooweal, Charters Towers or Bowen in Queensland; Tanumi or Avon Downs in the Northern Territory; or Port Hedland in Western Australia

What I have not investigated and thus don't have a feel for is what the yield reduction is for each degree the panels are not at the ideal setting. This is the type of information I reckon anyone with a grid connect system should find out as it would allow for cost benefit analysis to be carried out to assess the return from spending money on frames and structures that alter the angle of the panels from the pitch of the roof or for 'follow the sun' moving solar panel support structures.

UBank losing its gloss

2010-10-03T21:54:00.001+11:00

On 31^st October 2009 I posted an article on Ochre Archives explaining how in rising rate economic climates financial institutions have a tendency of releasing new variable rate savings based products offering rates that are at the time of release competitive, whilst at the same time either capping or slowing the rate of rises on existing savings based products. In this way they are able to attract ‘new’ money (to the new higher rate accounts) but at the same time broaden the overall margin between lending rates (interest rates on variable rate loans almost always increase in line with market movements) and deposit rates leading to even greater profitability. I also explained how we had moved our main deposit funds to UBank which is part of the National Australia Bank (nab) group in an attempt to keep pace with changes.

When we opened our UBank USaver account they were offering two types of USaver accounts. The ‘standard’ one was for those who did not want or need a regular savings program and the second was for those who were prepared to commit to a regular savings plan. UBank offered a premium of about 0.1 % above the rate payable on the standard product to those who selected the regular savings option.

This morning I decided to have a close look at what UBank/nab had been ‘up to’ since we transferred funds to them in the context of the above and subsequent movements in the ‘official cash rate’ approved and determined by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Board.

On the ‘rate changes’ front from early December 2009 to end June 2010 the following has occurred:

The RBA made 4 upward / increase rate adjustments totalling 1.0 % in the official cash rate taking the total rate to 4.5 %
UBank (nab) made 5 upward adjustments totalling 0.55 % (55 % of the increase in the RBA adjustments) in the UBank standard USaver account rate making the current total rate 6.01 %
UBank (nab) has broadened the margin premium for the regular savings USaver account by about 0.4 % to take the total rate to 6.51 %. Thus the rate on this product has risen roughly in line with the RBA official cash rate.

Thus based on the above anyone who has a standard USaver account has been ‘left behind’ the rise in official cash rates announced by the RBA to the tune of 0.45 % which roughly equates to a $45 opportunity loss for every $10,000 invested over a 12 month period. What I'd suggested normally happens in rising rate environments has been confirmed.

I’ve observed a couple of other changes in the UBank experience and general offering:

The complexity of what UBank does has increased. When you call the main switch number you now get an auto message offering superannuation product offerings
The nab has re-enforced the ‘right of set-off’ clause with UBank deposits. Essentially and simplistically what this means is that the Bank has the legal right to report in its figures to the regulators the net balances (loans less deposit funds) of ‘same customer’ arrangements. The advantages to the banks are that in some circumstances they can reduce the amount of capital shareholders need to provide to support the balance sheet gearing and they can also physically transfer funds from a customer’s deposit account to the same customer’s loan account/s clear or reduce loans should they choose to do so. The advantage to some customers is that they can opt to only pay interest on the net loan, rather than pay interest on the gross loan balance and receive credit interest on the deposit account/s. Because of the right of set-off clause some customers choose have their deposit funds in a different financial institution to the one they get loans from.

The moral of the above story with variable deposit rate products is basically that as far as the financial services industry goes (or at least some of the players) the saying “If you are on a good thing stick to it” does not apply and we need to regularly check to see that we are being offered competitive deals.

For those who love micro detail below is what has happened with RBA official cash and UBank standard USaver account rate movements during the period I have referred to above.

2-Dec-09 RBA increased the official cash rate by 0.25 % to 3.75 %

9-Dec-09 NAB increased the UBank standard USaver account rate by 0.05 % to 5.51 %

22-Jan-10 NAB increased the UBank standard USaver account rate by 0.11 % to 5.62 %

3-Mar-10 RBA increased the official cash rate by 0.25 % to 4 %

12-Mar-10 NAB increased the UBank standard USaver account rate by 0.13 % to 5.75 %

19-Mar-10 NAB increased the UBank standard USaver account rate by 0.1 % to 5.85 %

7-Apr-10 RBA increased the official cash rate by 0.25 % to 4.25 %

5-May-10 RBA increased the official cash rate by 0.25 % to 4.5 %

24-Jun-10 NAB increased the UBank standard USaver account rate by 0.16 % to 6.01 %

Moving the RA Lister Motor in the Shearing Shed

2010-09-17T10:57:00.000+10:00

When we were shearing the weaner lambs at the end of March it became apparent that it would be necessary for us move the old R A Lister petrol engine that used to power the old overhead gear to allow sufficient room for the large fleeces when we shear the older ewes.
Given we are now only a month or two off shearing the ewes I'd been mulling over the best way to move the motor and had been considering hiring some form of heavy lifting device. I then recalled a conversation I'd had a few years ago with David Byrne who owns and runs the Tasmania-based business Solutions for Sustainable Living. During that discussion David mentioned how he at one point was installing and removing fuel (wood) stoves on his own without using any heavy machinery. Basically the technique involved the use of steel pipes (as rollers), ramps and pulleys. Off the back of this knowledge we decided to give it a go with our old motor. Yes ... whilst it did take us quite a while due to lack of experience we found the whole process simple, safe and effective.
The accompanying photo shows the motor after we'd managed to move it from the concrete base it used to be on down a timber ramp and across some steel plating. Since then I've moved the motor to another part of the shed where I suspect it will stay for quite a while.
Moving the motor has had another benefit in that we found the old specification plates that were not previously visible. The single cylinder petrol motor was manufactured by R A Lister & Co Ltd, Dursley, United Kingdom. The engine number is 77599 / Spec 83 J. It is rated at 4 1/2 horse power and runs at 525 revolutions per minute. We are most curious to ascertain the year of manufacture. A bloke who works at Lister Petter Limited in the UK thinks it may have been manufactured in the 1920's but is not sure. We'll keep researching and see what we come up with.
Getting back to the main intent of this post ... the technique we used to move the motor has made us think of possibly how the Egyptians might have constructed the pyramids. Slow and steady but very effective.

Sheep Yards on Ochre Arch

2010-08-20T17:51:00.002+10:00

In response to the recent article published in The Grenfell Record titled “Shearing with Sunshine at Ochre Arch” we received a fabulous letter from David and Jenny Johnson who now live at and farm using Permaculture techniques near Woolgoolga on the north coast of New South Wales. David’s father Clarrie at one point owned the property “Rutland” located about 5 km from us further along and to the east on Goodes Lane. David’s sister Marie and her husband Don Hampton owned “Ochre Arch” (“Cleveland” as it was then known) from around 1965 to 1977.

The sheep yards on our place are quite unusual as far as materials go, with the main steel pipes having originally been manufactured for and used as steam engine pipes. The accompanying photograph was taken 15th June 2010 and shows the pipes quite clearly, as well as some of our wether lambs prior to them being transported for sale at Forbes. Our shearing shed can be seen in the background.

In David and Jenny’s letter they explained that the steam pipes Don Hampton used when constructing the yards in came from a large batch that Clarrie Johnson had procured from the railway workshops in Sydney in about 1963 when David owned neighbouring property (to the north of us) “Pinnacle”. “They came as four pipes about 12 foot long in a continuous session with two open ends along side each other with a double flange and three of the joiners like shown in the yard picture”. David used pipes from the same batch for manufacturing cattle yards at the property he owned at that time “Braeside” near Bogolong towards Grenfell. He slipped the pipes over the top of the weldmesh and cemented them in as the corrosion from prior use made the material extremely difficult to weld.

Batteries for Our Remote Power System

2010-08-13T10:06:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I re-read the ‘Operating Instructions’ for the batteries that are installed as part of our remote power system and was reminded of quite a few important things to keep in mind about them. To be specific we have 24 X 2 volt ‘valve regulated lead-acid’ “type 8 PVV 1200” batteries manufactured by the German company BAE Batterien GmbH. The purpose of our batteries is to store and provide direct current for conversion to 240 ac volt via the inverter.

The valves on the top of the batteries allow for release of hydrogen and must not be opened as doing so permits the access of oxygen which discharges the energy in the battery cells. Adequate ventilation is essential.

The batteries have to be kept out of direct sunlight and need to be installed and operated such that the ambient temperature difference between the cells or blocks within individual batteries is very small (less than ‘3 K’ … whatever that means!). The strings of batteries are best to be installed in specially designed cabinets for temperature evenness control and the connectors between the cells all need to be the same diameter and length.

During discharge (supply of an electrical current) the active materials in the batteries are converted to lead, sulphate and water. Curiously, the faster the rate of discharge the less amount of aggregate current ends up being available.

For long life the batteries need to be returned to full charge within a period not exceeding 4 weeks. Our batteries are classed as ‘deep discharge’ which means they can be totally discharged from time to time, however it is not our intention to do this. We have our back-up generator set up to auto recharge the batteries by 20 % from 65 % as and when this reduced charge level occurs (as mentioned in a previous blog post). I’m assured that the 65 % minimum is about optimal but have not seen any empirical data supporting this. Car batteries are not at all ‘deep discharge’ and will deteriorate rapidly if this occurs regularly.

If the battery voltage is permanently less than full it will discharge by itself resulting in ‘loss of capacity and possible sulphation of the electrodes’.

What I found particularly interesting is that when a battery is classed as ‘fully discharged’ this does not mean that it has zero voltage. By way of example, each of our ‘2 volt’ batteries are considered fully discharged (called the ‘final’ voltage) when their voltage falls to 1.8. Conversely a ‘full’ battery holds more than 2 volts … and for us this generally occurs when the voltage is 2.4.

The ideal operating temperature range for our batteries is 10 to 30 degrees Celsius. The rated maximum is 45 degrees C however they will handle temperatures for very short periods of up to 55 degrees C. High temperatures have the affect of reducing the operational life of a battery. I was unable to find information on the absolute minimum temperature batteries can handle and have noticed that cold nights do seem to reduce battery voltage more. Cold temperatures have the long term impact of reducing battery storage capacity.

As far as maintenance goes, during the whole life (estimated at 15 years) our batteries do not need to be refilled with water. “The electrolyte is diluted sulphuric acid and fixed as GEL made with micro porous SiO2.” It is recommended that every 6 months the voltage and surface temperature of a sample of batteries be checked and recorded together with the room temperature. Every 12 months the voltages and surface temperature of all batteries are to be measured and recorded.

If the batteries ever need to be stored for extended periods they should be left fully charged and in a dry frost-free room.

So … what does all this mean in the context of how our batteries are presently installed? In short our location and set-up augers well for good extended life and performance of the batteries. We experience very few frosts each year and having the batteries off ground level within a cabinet within a closed room means that they should never reach zero degrees C … especially given that each one weighs 70 kg and they are installed side-by-side effectively creating a 1680 kg block. Whilst our summers are hot it is not common for temperatures to exceed 45 degrees C and since climate records have been kept in the district the hottest day on record was 48 degrees C … well within the 55 degree C maximum. Added to this we do have an additional roof over the container where we keep the batteries, virtually eliminating the chance of temperatures getting higher than the external ambient within the storage room due to heating by sunlight on the roof and walls. The set-up of our back-up generator means that the batteries should never be discharged to high risk levels and the sunlight patterns are such that I’m confident the batteries will get to fully charged levels for short periods at least once every 4 weeks regardless of season.

Dew Quantity Variations

2010-08-11T13:39:00.000+10:00

We’ve yet to connect the guttering on the solar-panel shed to one of our new tanks. Consequently each morning when dew has formed on the roof the resultant water runs out of the guttering onto the ground. I decided to measure the quantity of water generated by the dew process over 3 nights by placing a 200 litre drum under one of the gutters.

The shed dimensions are 12.2 metres width and 17 metres in length giving a total roof area of 207.4 square metres. The roof is peaked in the middle with gutters along both of the long edges. This means that the roof area feeding into a single gutter is half of 207.4 square metres = 103.7 square metres. The quantity of water captured from ‘normal’ overnight dew was 3 litres; on a ‘light frost’ night 8.5 litres water was measured and on a ‘heavy frost’ night 22 litres resulted.

22 litres from 103.7 square metres equates to receiving 0.21 litres (210 millilitres) of water per square metre of roof area … or the same as receiving 0.21 mm of rain. This is just less than a cup of water (250 millilitres) per square metre … quite a bit of water in the scheme of things.

Rain Water On Tap

2010-08-05T10:39:00.000+10:00

Yesterday we finalised connection of rain water (cold only at this point) into the pipes in the cottage on Ochre Arch. The set-up for rain water supply was described in broad terms in the blog article we posted on 28^th May 2010 titled “Planning Our House Water Supply”. http://ochrearchives.blogspot.com/2010/05/planning-our-house-water-supply.html. We ended up using 63 mm outside diameter polythene pipe in the ground, meaning that there is virtually zero friction loss. The pump is a Grundfos model CH 2 60. After correct priming the flow rate to the top (balance) tank was 22 litres per minute and the pressure was 450 kPa. Both of these figures were / are spot-on with what we were hoping for.

In this photograph you can see the actual connection from the poly pipe into the copper cold water pipe at the rear of the cottage. The internal diameter of the flexible connecting hose is very small at about 4 mm but the pressure generated from the balance tank located 45 metres in elevation above the house ensures adequate volume.

It is worth recording what having the water connection means in practical terms. In the accompanying photograph are the items we can now retire. What we did routinely was:
• Use the 2 X 10 litre containers to carry drinking water from the concrete tank at the shearing shed to the house. The distance is about 75 metres and on average we used 20 litres a day for drinking and hand washing
• From these containers we’d fill on a needs basis the blue 5 litre plastic drink bottle (kept on the bench in the kitchen), the green with white spots jug (kept on the wash-basin in the bathroom) and direct-fill other water bottles, hot water kettles and jugs, and drinking glasses
• Use plastic buckets and 20 litre containers to source washing water for the washing machine from the galvanised iron tank at the house

Right at this minute Jan has a load of washing underway via the washing machine. Not only does the new set-up save a lot of physical energy but it also avoids water inadvertently spilling on the bathroom floor and requiring subsequent clean-up.

A Tale of Two Whistles

2010-07-03T19:57:00.004+10:00

Last week I found the whistle seen in the accompanying photograph on the ground about 2 metres to the east of the car shed here on the farm. I was impressed with the quality of the item, which still works superbly, and figured it was likely that previous owners who lived on the farm between around 1935 to 1965 were likely to remember … had any of their members owned and lost it.

With the above in mind my first approach was to Don Bokeyar … whose family owned our place from around 1935 through 1950 and built the house we now live in … around 1940. I sent him an email without an accompanying photo (I’ve only taken the photo this morning). His reply read in part as follows: “That whistle got me into big trouble one day. I was riding my pushbike home from the Feeney’s where I had been dropped after school. Mrs Feeney was the teacher at the Pinnacle school. I was riding up the then dirt track from the mailbox quite happy blowing the whistle all the way home. Not a good idea at the time because Mum thought I had hurt myself or worse. On arriving home Mum found I was all OK, that was when the strap that hung behind the kitchen door was put to very effective use. Needless to say I did not see that whistle again. I recall the incident very clearly.”

There were several aspects of Don’s reply that really hit home for me:

A mother’s concern for the safety of her children
The innocence and excitement of youth
The toughness of justice in days gone by
The richness of the (real and rarely known) stories behind artefacts
How well sound travels in the country
How asking one question leads to a myriad of more questions
The reason why a whistle is generally considered to be one of the top 10 items to have in any safety kit

I called Don to thank him for his feedback and discuss the incident a bit more. The Feeneys lived on a property on Hoctors Road called ‘Talbalba’; about 1 km to the west of where the Pinnacle Guinea Pig Races are held. The house at ‘Talbalba’ has been unoccupied for about 40 years and is now in total disrepair. It would be about 6 km in all from ‘Talbalba’ to where we live. The distance from the mailbox Don refers to to our own house is a tad over 2 km. At the time Don had a “21” pushbike and recalls the toughest bit of the ride home as being over Simpsons Hill … the property on the north side of this hill is called Milroy (where the Guinea Pig races are held) and was owned by the Heathcote family when I was growing up. Once Don arrived at the Feeneys in the morning they would then travel via horse and sulky to the Pinnacle School … no longer in existence but the site was located not far from the present-day Pinnacle Hall. Don cannot recall a specific occasion for receiving the whistle (e.g. birthday) but knows that he did not have it for longer than a couple of days in total! As we talked further it became clear that the whistle I’d found was not the one he’d been given. His was similar to a referees whistle … complete with a ‘pea’ that meant it was capable of generating even more noise than the one I’d found. After I described the whistle to Don he expressed the view that it was most likely a 'dog whistle'. From a ‘life experiences’ perspective Don looks on the event as a positive learning on the need to be aware of how sound travels in the country and the role sound can play in warning of danger.

This morning I contacted the Causers (Lindsay ... lived here from 1950 to 1965), the Hamptons (Don who owned our farm from 1965 to 1977 and his sons David and Paul) and the Pitts (Ian ... lived on the farm from 1981 to 1987). Lindsay commented that the only whistles they ever had while here were ‘fox’ whistles … round in shape with a hole in the centre. The Hamptons and Ian Pitt have no recollection of the whistle. Ian's daughter Jenny thinks that she once had a necklace that had a whistle on it as a pendant but is not certain.

So … it seems there may have been at least two whistles ‘lost’ on our place … and the story behind the one we have is uncertain. Don’s story will not go to waste … and I’ll likely use the whistle we now have and extracts from his story as education for the school excursions we aim to host here from time to time.

(My thanks go to Don Bokeyar for permitting me to share the above story)

Pregnancy Testing the Ewes

2010-06-21T08:29:00.004+10:00

On Thursday 10th June 2010 Andrew Naylor from Canowindra came and pregnancy-tested our older ewes. There were several reasons why we wanted this done:

It would provide us with an indication of how well the ewes were travelling health-wise under our management.
It enables us to identify those that are not pregnant. We see little point in carrying 'breeding' ewes that don't in fact breed. Culling them sooner rather than later is in our view better all round in that we realise the cash from the sale, have less animals to manage, and have more grass available for the rest of the mob.
By identifying single and multiple embryos we can forecast how many lambs are likely to be 'on-ground' when it comes time to do the marking.
Had we decided to brand those with multiple embryos we then would have had the option of separating them out and giving them access to better feed which in turn increases their prospects for taking the multiple lambs through to weaning. We did not do this because our flock size is not large and our intent is to give all of the ewes access to the best of our feed.
Our joining period was the bare minimum at 35 days (2 full cycles) and if the pregnancy percentage proved to be very low we would have the option of putting the rams back in with the ewes or maybe even getting other rams for the job.

The pregnancy test involves placing an ultra-sound device just near the front of the udder area and identifying from the connected display screen whether the ewe is pregnant or has multiple embryos. In the photo you can see the mini-tent that Andrew places over himself and the equipment. It is positioned at the end of the drafting race enabling us to more easily run the sheep up the ramp and into the crush where each ewe is individually held while the scanning is carried out. The process is very quick at in excess of 200 per hour, although we understand the throughput rate may have been 300 an hour had we been better at pushing up the ewes into the scanning structure i.e. the weak-link was our ability to herd the sheep.

We were pleased with the results (3% 'empty', 37% singles and 60% multiple) and found Andrew great to deal with. No fuss - and his system for setting up, using and removing his equipment was excellent.

Seasonal Sheep Price Variations

2010-06-20T21:12:00.000+10:00

Tonight we had a call from our stock agent to de-brief us on the sale of our weaner wethers at Forbes on Tuesday 15^th June 2010.

Whilst the wethers were on the light side they apparently looked excellent when penned up into the 3 lots - larger, main line and small. The agent commented that we should stick with what we are producing as they are the type of sheep the market is looking for.

We asked the agent whether there are any specific seasonal trends we should be aware of in the context of best time to buy and sell sheep. Some of the main points included:

50 years ago prices used to peak in January / February as this was when the croppers were cashed up post harvest coupled with crop stubble to put the animals onto
In very recent times mixed farmers tend to sell stock so that they can fund cropping inputs such as fertiliser, seed and chemicals
Best time to buy stock in this region is when Victoria is in drought conditions and the local area is not
Lower prices are generally from March through May
Peak prices are January / February and August / September