The Seamans have been involved in the merino industry from their Dunkeld base for more than 40 years and I’m sure that they’d love to see some of their industry peers turn up to watch what should be a very rewarding auction.

Agent Denis Tyson advises that the auction will be held on property at 11am.

OUR lovely Central Tablelands have now dried off quickly and even though there is a fair amount of green pasture down low, it is covered up by some mature grass that is quite dry.

Care must be taken when using slashers, welders or angle grinders during daylight hours as the dry grass will light and burn quickly.

Common sense tells us to leave these jobs until either a heavy dew or a fall of rain gives some protection.

Please have direct phone numbers of your local fireman at your fingertips as fire gets away very fast once its ignited and every minute will count.

REPORTS of swarms of little black house flies have been coming from western areas for several months and suddenly there are swarms of flies in outdoor areas, stock yards and work places in our area.

Maybe these flies have slowly migrated to  us or they may be bred right here.

Some of us have bought fly nets that fit over caps and hats and Frank Smith Workwear in Keppel Street is a stockist of these handy veils.

Supplies of long-term fly protection chemicals are quite limited in some districts where sheep producers are experiencing problems with their stock.  We may be wise to have a drum or two of one of these products on hand just in case.

SINCE feeling the mozzie plague along the Murray and Murrumbidgee, its easy to see why stocks of repellent are in short supply.

The Weekly Times newspaper provides a recipe for a do-it-yourself repellent: 15 drops of lavender oil, four tablespoons of vanilla extract, a quarter cup of lemon juice in 500ml of water.

The paper says that even if this brew fails, we will smell nice whilst being eaten.

VICTORIAN rural media reports that September rains across cereal grain districts have led to prolific regrowth in barley crops, creating two crops in one and maturing at different times.

Because of the prospect of moist grain heads some growers have decided to spray crops with glyphosate and harvest following the necessary withholding period.

 This method means that the sprayed crops can only be sold as feed.

LAST week’s feature sale of first cross border Leicester, merino ewes at the new SELX complex at Yass was a resounding success with a yarding of almost 10,000 young ewes topping at $280 and averaging $235.

Vendor Robert Hain whose family conducted the Egelabra blood stud “Gunyah” on the Cooma plain, topped the sale with 220 one-and-a-half-year-old first-cross ewes.

In a similar vein, we hear that two-year-old Santa Gertrudis heifers with young calves at foot sold for $3340 at last week’s Dunedoo store cattle sale.

These young cows were part of a 500-head herd dispersal from the Rouse family at Gulgong.

OVERHEARD in Maccas: Mum and dad and two young children were in for lunch and dad said he’d like an Angus burger. Mum asked: “Chicken or beef, love?”

Farmers are not spreading much of a message, are we? (Thanks to the Berkshire)

GEORGE was mowing the grass on the roadside in front of his house where he and his wife lived.

A women in a shiny Jaguar stopped and asked if he spoke English.

When told that he did she asked how much he charged for house yard work, and George replied: “Well, the lady who lives here lets me sleep with her.”

The lady and the Jag left very quickly. (Thanks WK)

***

THE wealthy grazier and his haughty wife didn’t approve of their 19-year-old son’s new girlfriend.

In the moonlight the son asked her: “Honey, will you love me always?”

She answered: “Of course, which way first?”