How to get a free NBN satellite dish, plus other free stuff

   Google   Apple Gully Farm  or click on the link below
http://lplatefarmer.blogspot.com.au/

The new millennium began 13 years ago, remember the Y2K bug, we survived that and powered on to MacBooks and flat panels, we queued up for iphones 3, 4 and 5 then we powered on through 3G to 4G ... do we have 5G yet and did you know there was a 1G system way back in 1981. When terabytes of storage are not enough we supersize up to petabytes. Did you know you can now have a Yottabyte or even a Brontobyte of disc storage.  I wish my cupboards could virtually expand  like that, then again maybe not!

Well all of that became irrelevant to us down on the farm because a single bar of 3G mobile coverage was a thing to wildly celebrate. Not that it did much, one bar allows the occasional email or text message to slip in and none to go out. In fact living in an area of virtually zero coverage messes with the mobile phone's head,  when we finally rejoin the world again- that is, drive down the road a few kms, it refuses to work and then the little ceremony of switching to airplane mode and off again seems to appease it.  Airplane mode in the middle of the bush! -  I know --well it just works -- some of the time.

Not any more- because we recently catapulted directly into the 21st century. Our roof now sprouts
   an 1.2 m NBN satellite dish for the internet & phone
   a mobile phone network antenna
   a mobile coverage booster
   a TV antenna
   a cable TV dish

and did I mention the solar PV panels for electricity
plus the solar hot water system

there is no room for a cat on our hot tin roof.

Some of this costs money of course - but not the NBN satellite dish. Here is a little secret,  the government will actually give you a FREE NBN satellite dish if and here is the catch- if you really cannot access the internet where you live. That is, no ADSL, no fibre, no 3G, no nothing.
We don't live out in the back of beyond, we live 1 hour 40 mins from both Sydney and Canberra, right on one of the busiest communications corridors in the country.  What we have that many haven't  are a few big hills around us that happen to be strategically placed so they block out the 21st century.

Some might sigh and say 'how blissful - good bye world'
but farmers need weather forecasts, weather radar, bush fire info, to pay bills ( not many banks around anymore)  and to contact family, check Facebook and Instagram and of course Google useful and time wasting stuff just like our neighbours over the hill.

the cable ties are a hi tech way of keeping the birds off!

So on our roof we make
free electricity
free hot water
from our free dish we get 20 GB of data for around  $40 a month

So far the TV is the only piece of technology not getting used- we're too tired at night and anyhow  the internet allows the digital paper to arrive in bed every morning -  our front fence is way too far away and no unravelling the plastic wrapper, movies, music and every other app are all there on demand-
                just click!

Spring Mischief

 
We've survived another winter down on the farm, at last the days are getting longer and the grass is starting to grow. In our part of the world winters mean frosts on the ground and some years we have the occasional snowfall.
In winter the nutritional level of our pasture really falls away, our cattle visibly loose weight, on top of this they are usually pregnant as our aim is for a spring calving. To keep the herd going we buy in large round hay bales to fill their stomachs. The old girls know the routine and work their way through a bale over the course of  a week, that is until the calves arrived with an even better idea.

wonder what you do with this round thing

where did it go?

that was fun- can we have another one to play with

spreading the round thing all over the paddock was hard work

uh oh!! better make myself scarce -I think we are in big trouble

It's a small world

Google:     Apple Gully Farm     to see this blog at it's best 

spot the mini Hereford

Plan B  down on the farm is up and running.   For several years we've been breeding Herefords and selling the offspring at the local sale yards. Our sales cheques are pleasing but nothing to have us laughing all the way to the bank.  Remember when you thought you might be in the running for a prize at the end of the school year - and you were handed a small  'best effort' certificate. Well that's us on the way to the bank- better than nothing.

We've been researching farming options that will keep us out of the sales yard. Knowing there are bigger and better farmers producing animals for the dinner plate along with supermarkets with big red fingers intent on sending prices down, down, we searched for ideas that avoided the bar-b-q.

First to arrive in stage 1, was the little bull from northern NSW, then came the 3 girls from Victoria. They all look just like our big cattle only smaller and if you have nothing to compare them with they look like --- a Hereford!

Tony with the blended herd

To fast forward our plans to breed up this comparatively rare breed, we've teamed up with a like minded owner of mini Herefords.   We have a bull and not enough cows, she has cows but no bull - perfect.
And was our little bull happy when he realised he had sole responsibility for a paddock full of girls!!

the harem

We're looking forward to calving, with newborns no bigger than a medium sized dog.  The plan is to build up numbers to supply four legged lawn mowers to small acre farmers like ourselves.

That's the roundup of things growing above the ground.  Meanwhile, below ground, this years garlic crop is in and already sprouting.

 A post script:  Our new venture got a feature in The Land this week, so read all about it there too.
 

six different varieties of garlic to test

Avoiding the sale yard

  click   Apple Gully Farm 
          

Our rare new addition- the small one

  The rural adage advises -   never give a name to anything you plan to eat, so our cattle have always had numbers- a letter for the year of their birth and a number to correspond with their parent, their mother that is. We have B2 and over the years she has produced calves CB2, DB2 and currently we have EB2. Each year the calves are weaned some more successfully than others, they learn to love grass, they fatten up and they're shipped off to market.
  
Depending on

• the rainfall
• the quality of grass
• the degree of sunshine
• the local economy
• the rural economy
• the global economy
• the weather in Russia or South America
• the current exchange rate
• the el nino/ la nina index
• the changing fashion for wagyu to angus burgers

and  any number of other variables, we just get a 'market' price.

We sell  our cattle for a cents per kilo rate. In the past we've received anywhere from 196 cents/kg to 100 cents/kg  for 350 - 450 kg animals.

That's right  $1.96 - $1.00 / kg.  
Compare that with the price you pay in the butcher shop or super market.

On a small holding it's hard not to get to know your stock animals, there will always the noisy one, the sociable one, the boof heads, the shy ones. So when they're loaded onto the back of a truck and trundled down the road there is a twinge of regret about their life and the fact that you have got to know them.
After a few years of this pattern we decided to try a new idea. And so was born the germ of an plan to go smaller. Like strawberries and tomatoes, certain breeds of cattle have been bred bigger over the years because big has always been better. But like the hollow, tasteless giant strawberry and the brilliant red but brick hard and tasteless big tomato, the bigger cattle have a limited appeal on smaller acreage and gourmet palates.

Compare the size - mini and regular

And what about the fact that it's OK to get to know your animals, to appreciate the welcome you receive when you walk into the paddock and to realise that though it takes a moment or 3 they do recognise you,  as the chatterbox starts bellowing and the sociable one ambles forward of the herd for a quick scratch.
Don't forget that above all cattle are ever willing lawnmowers with the added bonus of being enthusiastic fertilizer producers and they beat sitting on the slasher going round the paddock for hours on end.

We settled on miniature Herefords, a smaller but rarer version of what we already have because we know they can manage on our native pasture. They aren't too fussy,  they just have to inhale a blade of grass to put on weight.
First came the bull from up north, then the cows from down south, their diminutive size means four of them fitted into a double horse float with room to spare.

Miniature Herefords might seem small by today's standards and they have had their ups and downs - literally. Back in the late 1700's they were large plow pulling oxen from the Welsh border region, later they were bred to be chunky fatty animals providing not just beef, but tallow for the candle trade,  as the electric light took off so did a taller, leaner sized Hereford, no one needed or wanted fat any more. The popularity of smaller cuts of meat and small acre farms has helped reshape the Hereford yet again.

Horns - now you see em

Because they are quite rare we are planning to breed up our numbers and so avoid the truck to market option.  A smaller area can carry many more minis, an important factor when it comes to calculating your rural rates bill.  They are also excellent limited edition compact lawnmowers and out door companions to people like us on small farms.

Now you don't

So far there has only been a slight hiccup, miniature Herefords come horned, not polled which means to be born hornless. Because they will sometimes run with horses it was decided that the horns  would have to be shortened. Such indignity-- but they are forgiving creatures and forgetful too.
Horns -- what horns I don't remember them.

Meet the Team - the 2013 year book

 click  Apple Gully Farm  to see this at its best.

It's time to get to know our production team, the four legged wonders who tirelessly turn grass into protein.
  
Meet the leader of our production team, this is B3 - the alpha female. She is the smartest in the herd, first to figure out if a gate is open and first to act in any situation. Rounding up the herdlette is just a matter of getting B3 to go in the right direction and the others will follow.  B3 is a good mother and all her calves assume the dominant position in their year group, she must somehow instill  ' a born to rule' attitude.  So far her calves have all had her brown markings around their eyes - deemed positive for Herefords.
 B3 is currently pregnant by AI to a bull who died 3 years ago!!

 B10 was alpha female in the early days of our herd. The transition to number 2 was gradual, she is a sort of vice captain now.  B10 considers life from all angles, she weighs options carefully before acting. She will stand at a gate - look left- look right- then enter. She will never be hit by a car if she has to cross a road.  B10 is the mother of our snake bite calf, she stayed with him through the entire ordeal, lived in the shed with him and even let us milk her- consequently she is very calm around the human team. B10's pet hate is the cattle crush, she does not do narrow spaces gracefully. She too is pregnant by AI.

 B2 is a bit of an enigma. She has challenged B3 several times for supremacy. Once in a 45 minute duel in and around the dam she was beaten and nearly drowned.  She is only semi resigned to her subordinate position and has chosen the aloof and remote approach to life.  If B3 was to ever falter, she would immediately step up.   She never gets pregnant with the rest of the girls and has to be shipped off to a special bull or AI'd separately. True to form we had to call the AI specialist back for her this year.

What can be said about B6, just look at that face, there is not much going on between those eyes, in fact she is partially blind in one of them. Last through the gate, last to get any hay, last to realise something is happening - the slow learner of the group. Her pin bones always stick out and her ribs are always visible.  BUT she has the most amazing maternal instinct, she has nursed and saved  orphaned calves, she acts as nursery maid for each seasons batch of calves and her milk just never runs out. She is a dairy cow in disguise.




This little chatterbox is B10's off spring, BE10 is the survivor of the snake bite.
There are some benefits to being at deaths door- when the other yearlings went off to market we kept him back because he had been a slower grower, probably his early development was compromised by the effects of the snake bite. He's smaller and slow moving and if he was to be tested, he would be classified as 'developmentally delayed'. However he's a happy chappie who enjoys human company, especially if there is a molasses treat on offer. I suspect he may become a permanent member of the team.

  

F B2 is B2's calf, born a bull but along with the fate of most males on a farm soon became a steer. A farm is one place where females have the distinct advantage - they generally become breeders while the boys end up neutered and at the market. Being a calf of  the contrary B2 meant he arrived out of sync with the rest of the herd so he'll spend the winter on the farm. Like his mother he is an independent creature, he chose to wean himself early, usually most steers remain permanent mummy's boys and will suckle forever if allowed.



Now it's time to meet the newest and very important member of the team - the little bull known as 'Lord Harry' who is only just a year old -- with long lashes like that he's bound to attract the females.
There is a plan to avoid the market outcome,  but more about that later.
                                ````````````````````````````
Our production team is an amazing group of herbivores with the simple but sustaining power to turn grass into protein.               Wish we humans were that smart.

Hello -communications in the bush

 or just google Apple Gully Farm -  it looks better there

Back in April 2010 I wrote a blog on our trysts with Telstra  over the issue of getting a phone connection.
In my many chats with Telstra call centre employees  learnt terms like 'greenfield' which doesn't mean a field full of lush green pasture but rather a scraped bare brand new housing development. At the time Telstra was finding it hard to believe that in 2010 there had never ever been a phone connection to number 141 and now we wanted one but we weren't a 'greenfield'.

Fast forward nearly 3 years, we have had a phone all that time, sort of. The connection went down for a week after a cow scratched her back on a phone pole and managed to disconnect the line. Reception is almost impossible when the winds blows above about 25 kph. If it rains more than 60mls at a time the line is likely to go out, and if the wind blows and it rains -- it's called a storm-   then we are off the air for a week or so.

Get a mobile, (that's a cell phone to some), you say.  Great idea, I reply. I've got a smart phone, it's fantastic, I can check my emails, trawl through facebook, search for anything I want, take photos, play Scrabble with strangers, listen to music.

 A joke ( I think):  If someone returned to earth from the 1950's, how would you explain the mobile phone?
 'I have this small device that I can carry around in my pocket. It can access all the known information in the entire world. '
What do you do with it, they ask.
'I use it to look at cute photos of cats and to send stupid pictures of myself to strangers.'

Back to the story -   now we live one and a half hours from the country's largest city and one and a half hours from the nations capital, that's 5 million people not counting the ones who live in between. You would expect communications to criss cross our part of the world like a spiders web, yet we have zero mobile reception. 

When you live in the country, ingenuity becomes a vital part of your existence, so we built our own personal 'phone tower'.  It adds little to the front garden, but if it's calm and the skies are clear we can sometimes make contact with the outside world
 

Hello...