Cross Slot Arrival

 We ordered a new seeder from New Zealand called a Cross Slot.

It arrived a couple of weeks ago and was unloaded from 2 shipping containers via a crane.

It's a strange looking outfit but is supposed to be the dux nuts of minimum till machines. It wasn't cheap, but it is a long term investment and our hope is to improve our soil health with retention of organic matter.

It is a disc seeder with a 35 foot bar and 33 discs. It weighs about 14 tonne on its own.

Cross Slot, (a John Baker invention) have been very accommodating of my husbands changes and additions to our machine. It's basically been custom made for what we want.

My husband has spent about 3 years researching seeders and the Cross Slot, to decide what we would upgrade to.

The new seeding rig is currently being hooked up to a John Deere air seeder and our CAT tractor, so another blog post will follow once we get it all set up.

Dial Up Internet!!!

No, we're not on Dial Up anymore - but it sure does feel like we are!!!!

Apparently the NBN satellite mob have reached their quota for customers, but unfortunately they don't have their own satellite and this has now resulted in the slowing down of our internet service (as if it wasn't slow enough already!)

So this excuse would say to me that they have over committed the number of users of the NBN satellite internet service!

The word from Activ8 (our provider) is that the NBN Co will not be purchasing their own satellite until at least 2015, so there is nothing Activ8 can do for us.

Honestly, how much do we have to put up with in rural Australia. I mean for god's sake, we are invited to get satellite internet, its at a speed we can live with and we appreciate having it in the first place. Then it's taken away again until someone feels like we deserve to have it back.

We are actually trying to run a business here. So it's all fine and dandy for the governments and do-gooders of the world to impose regulations on farmers for everything under the sun, but then you don't give us the necessary tools to comply. You just assume we have the same facilities and services that you do in your 30 level office block! 'Newsflash' - we don't! 

And don't even get me started on the mobile phone service (or lack there of!)

What else can I say, it's just f...n crap! Happy Birthday to me!!!

   Dead tree branch removal 'farmer style'