Thursday, November 6, 2008

An 'axe' to grind.


This is my old guitar. I bought it second hand in 1968 for $95. And that was a lot of money in those days considering I was working on the station for no salary at the time, my earnings coming from meat shooting in my spare time.

When I got married in 1971 I went on to the princely salary of $28 per week!

The guitar is a 12 string Hofner; a bit tuckered out now and can only handle six strings because with 12 the neck bends and I can't tune it. Never-the-less, with new strings on it it has a great sound and is still my old favourite.


Tuesday, November 4, 2008

And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.


I'm a bit of a closet guitarist and like folk, country, blues and ballardy type songs. Recently I discovered "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" in a bunch of Joan Baez MP3s I put on my puter. I promptly downloaded the lyrics and proceeded to learn it.

Part of the appeal of this song is that it reminds me of an old guy that came to our high country station at Queenstown in the mid '60s to train a thoroughbred horse for my mother. Roy was his name. Roy must have been a bit of a hard case when he was a kid because he bull-shitted about his age and got himself on troopship bound for Gallipoli and there, amongst the carnage, had his sixteenth birthday!

Click on the image to see the song full size.


Friday, October 3, 2008

Says It All Really

Click on picture to view full size.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Interesting Shot


An interesting shot from the fall muster '08. I thought we were going to get a wet arse, but it didn't come to anything.

Emissions Tax Scam - The Cost

The ETS Bill (with it's 750 amendments) was recently pushed through Parliament under urgency. Why, no one knows except Helen Clark and her minions whose main goal in life appears to be to control the masses, increase taxes by any means possible and bury us in paper work.

Of course, if we hadn't signed up for the Kyoto Suicide Pact in the belief that Owl Gore actually knows something about the environment and pushed the Global Warming bullshit (GAF = Global Alarm Fest), we wouldn't need the ETS.

Homepaddock reports on the cost of the Emissions Tax Scam here.

What to do about it.

"HortNew Zealand say it will cost the sector an extra $40 million a year and Lincoln University says in 2013 it will cost a sheep and beef farmer $36,000 and a dairy farmer $41,000 a year."

The only way I can see myself surviving on my farm, which is already bordering
on the negative profit line, is to find a way of minimising the tax as best I can.

In my PhotoShop Genetic Engineering workshop I've come up with this low emission, low carbon footprint deer. To make use of the spare room at the front, I've added the front feet of a wallaby which will be useful for the deer to manipulate things such as a pen. Giving the deer the ability to use a pen will further cut my costs by allowing the animals to fill out their own Carbon Tax Returns, thus reducing the number of staff required on my small farm to keep up with the paper work.


Of course the downside of low carbon footprint farm animals is the loss of meat production. To get around this I have genetically engineered larger fruit and vegetables, as seen with the example of the large Kiwifruit below.

The downside (there is always a downside) especially with the Kiwifruit, is the huge steel structures that will have to be built to support the vines.


A vicious circle.