Hello Agmates, almost 700 of us now and what an exciting ride it has been.So many dragons to sleigh that one could almost forget that I am meant to be running a business here.

Back in July when this group went on (I just read my pitch) prospects were reasonably positive with a bit of spring rain not an unreasonable expectation. Unfortunately like many others we have got a little not that often and have just scraped through due to a major sell down of yearling cattle.

Normally they would be here till mid next or late next year but with the pathetic returns for beef I couldn't take the chance of being caught and having to buy feed in.
It is not all bad as we have all the cows with babies again and about 1300 lambs to find room for. Per head returns were at 1983 levels( without adjusting for inflation) but by selling 340-9 decks it generated a bit of Bill fodder and after being on the tightrope for so many years all seems fairly normal.

It has been pleasing to have the three blood staff here for a while and while we have our moments we are a pretty formidable team when we get on a roll. Photo below is of Donna crutching ewes at back sheep yards

Put in another 10kms of poly and 15 troughs and12kms of new fencing since winter and started desilting a few dams with the loader. Sorting and weighing stock, shearing lambs for a new year sale and getting rid of the young cattle.

We shear a couple of thousand in January(mid) and still have 150 odd 2ths to sell next year.I found it demoralising that only 2.6% of cockies voted on MLA levy- therefore 70% of company held votes had their way to keep the gravy flowing. Too bad about the real beef and property market which has halved! Stopping the ETS has taken precedence over all this and rightly so.

The next on the list is to help Peter Spencer help all of us and not be a martyr. After that NFF and Agforce betrayals re ETS and Free trade deals. Boy it is hard work being an Agmate but someones got to do it I guess.

While on topic of Agforce I found myself in a Turnbull style moral dilemma! We have had a V.W. Transporter dual cab for about7yrs and 200K so went to Wippells Toowoomba and bought the same again. They are so good I'm keeping the old one for a flash work vehicle.Now a fact that I stumbled on was that if one is in a State Farm Group you can get a fleet disc from VW. Agforce probably aren't even aware of this as they promote Mitsuibishi so I have to show a current membership to get my almost $4000 Disc.

I mulled over it for a few days and of course the answer was so simple. Ph the Fleet manager in Sydney and we put the Australian Beef Association onto his list and bingo all members there can now access V.W.

While I am doing Advertorials- Jim Knott, GDL agency ST George deserves praise for putting up with me and finding the cattle a new home.

Steve your site is really taking off after all your hard work and I was happy to become a passive investor. Bought a few shares in Agmates to help with the cash flow and because we have shown what a useful body we are now-I would be lost without it.

As for my Heifers , today it has had a whopping 221 views and one of them was the buyer.

Certainly didn't do my cause any harm so the E-Trader is a very useful part of this site too.
Enough for now.