In South East LLS, Nigel Baines was elected to a board position and he is well known in our district.

I'm told that the voter turnout was very small. In South East, about 165 people registered to vote, yet only 92 actually voted - of a total of probably 12,500 who were eligible.

Surely changes must be made or have landholders simply lost interest?

LAST week's rainfall was widespread across our district.

Falls varied from about 15-30 millimetres and left water lying on flats in some places and in contour banks on granite soils.

This year seems to be developing into an old fashioned Tablelands winter with paddocks really soggy underfoot and small water courses running with a bit of clear water.

An area from Blayney to Orange has a look of Tipperary about it and we all hope for regular rainfall as winter rolls on.

BILL Tatt writes a weekly column from Dubbo in the Western Magazine and gives a valuable insight into rural business life.

Last week he mentioned a trip from Dubbo to Mungindi and described wall to wall cropping with no sign of any sheep and very few cattle.

To our south, a long-time friend who works for a wool buyer as a commission agent tells me that around 80 per cent of his clients have left the wool industry and are content to produce crossbred, dorper or Australian white as they turn to specialising in the meat trade.

Many of these producers tell him that they are not interested in running unmulesed Merinos and that they believe that our tried and trusted blowfly treatments are not performing as they used to.

With all forms of livestock being expensive it's easy to see that finance lenders are more likely to look at grain or oil seed production as a prospect for quick returns.

The spectre of a drawn out trade war with China makes every Australian exporter draw breath.

HAPPY birthday wishes to retired grazier couple Margaret and Tony McIntosh, formerly of Freemantle.

They are celebrating a milestone birthday for one of them and a not-quite-milestone for the other.

THERE was great excitement for the Hutchings family from Parkes when their pacer Terryrama won the $100,000 Western Region Championship at Bathurst last week.

The family bought the horse on the nternet for $800 and this is their first Group One victory.

On the same program College Chapel won a race for the Georges Plains Hewitts and evergreen Beetson won for the Trevor-Jones family.

These horses are both former Gold Crown winners.

At 12 years of age, Beetson really is the elder statesman of trotting horses.

To be certain that Rural Notebook is apolitical, I secured a copy of Mark Latham's book, Take Back Australia.

I have a great old mate in a Sydney suburb who is a devout socialist and assures me that Labor leader Latham is "mad enough to bark at the moon".

His book is a great read from a man who grew up at Green Valley, was mayor of Liverpool, held Gough Whitlam's former seat of Werriwa, lost a close Federal election to John Howard and is now a One Nation supporter with Pauline Hanson.

I think Take Back Australia is a great story by a real Australian.

SOCIAL distancing lets up to 10 people per cafe and diners waited for half an hour while two talkative ladies took their time.

A would-be diner was heard to say "two tired white ants could eat faster".

SHE was a well-known country identity and was strolling along the Macquarie riverbank.

She noticed a big, green frog on the walkway and picked him up.

The frog said: "Dear lady, if you kiss me very slowly I'll turn into a hunky prince and stay with you forever."

She put him in her DrizaBone pocket and muttered "at this stage I'll be much better off with a talking frog than a hunky prince".

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GOOD old George slept with his head under the pillow.

He woke at 6am, his dentures had both gone but he had 22 50-cent pieces under his pillow.

Now he believes.