Airlie sells on January 28, Nerstane on January 29 and Lorelmo on February 1.

Of particular interest is the Lorelmo offering with the third generation Ed Cordingly now engaging South Australian stud classer Bill Walker to work with the stud.

Lorelmo was a foundation member of the SRS system in the 1980s and has been a Poll Merino stud since its inception.

STORE lamb prices are about one-third per head dearer as we start the new year as compared with last January.

Last summer, buyers were looking at searing heat, huge bushfires and complaints that our new prime minister had taken a week's holiday.

In comparison, we now see a cool, green summer, one of the nation's best ever harvests and a prime minister who is on a well-earned family holiday.

We've also seen an unparalleled pandemic and an explosion of our national debt.

So back to the lamb market, and a leading stock agent says: "There are not a lot of little lambs about due to the great season, so restockers are paying $130 to $150 to get little woolly lambs. Woolly suckers weighing 13 to 15kg liveweight will make $140 to $150 all day long (around $10 kg carcase weight)."

THEN we stroll across to the cattle yards at Wangaratta weaner sale, where a major agent said that the overall presentation of cattle was second to none and reflected the "marvellous" season across the Riverina.

"After the kicking vendors had 12 months ago with bushfires, heat and drought, this is a bit of payback," he said.

A vendor from Seaton Park summed it up pretty well: "The best bloody result in my entire life."

The southern weaner sales have injected millions of dollars into local economies with every small business in every town receiving much-needed cash flow.

Our district's selling agents will host the Blue Ribbon Weaner Sale on Friday, March 26 with 12 agents arranging the event.

COWRA'S Mid Lachlan Merino Ewe Competition drew six entrants this year after attracting 16 teams in its first event in 2018.

The winning team this year was owned by the Wallace family at Morongla, who listed an 8.2kg wool cut and 130 per cent lambing from their Lach River blood ewes.

Lach River have great hopes for their top sire Collinsville Gladiator and the very high lambing percentage seems to occur regularly with modern Collinsville sheep.

Perhaps the idea of splitting our Bathurst district into four segments has given our ewe competition longevity as it prevents the same few teams being trophy winners each year and gives each segment its own winning chance.

THE team at Metro Perthville are again coming to the fore as the community are invited to celebrate Australia Day at a fundraising barbecue at the Village Store and Servo.

Profits from the day will be donated to the Perthville Public School that urgently needs a water cooling system for the students at an estimated cost of $4500.

Metro will donate all the proceeds of hot food sold on the day to the school project and all involved with the school are urged to attend the event and purchase plenty of fast food.

Last Australia Day brought lots of residents together for a yarn and a toast to our national day and our mates at Metro Perthville, and I reckon we can do better this time.

"YOU'LL never see Japanese cars in an RSL car park," said Ford Australia's managing director in 1965 as he commented on the release of the first Mitsubishi model, a Colt 1000, in our country.

This was only 20-odd years after Japanese Zero planes had bombed Darwin and they were manufactured in the Mitsubishi factories.

Fast forward 56 years to the present day and we see a great array of Japanese cars, trucks and motorbikes on every street and they are renowned for their quality and reliability.

To see a Falcon or a Commodore on weekend highways is almost a rarity in 2021.

WOOL auctions opened in 2021 on a very encouraging note.

Despite trade concerns of a very large offering of 57,000 bales Australia-wide and a 2.5 per cent strengthening of the AUD/USD rate compared to the close, our Australian wool market performed well.

By the end of the week, we had seen an increase of 1.3 per cent in AUD terms and a 3.8 per cent increase in USD terms.

After talking with some buyers at the sale last week, some of their comments were in regards to the current season causing an increase in average micron of the merino clip, thus less supply of the finer merino wools.

At the end of the week, we had seen a price increase of up to 50ac on 18mic and finer merino types.

Crossbred types were unchanged on their pre-Christmas levels.

All eyes are on the vaccine and recovery of traditional wool consuming markets.

SOME meanings to ponder for the new year: