farmdoc's blog post number 549

The art, and science, of rehabilitation involves setting goals, determining what barriers stand in the way of achieving those goals, and then working to remove those barriers. A lot like life in general, really. Most of life’s barriers are intangible. But sometimes they’re tangible. As WriterBee wrote and illustrated here, last week some trees came down and blocked one of the tracks we walk on and ride our ATV on. Yesterday was a lovely warm sunny, and still, day – in other words a perfect day for clearing a blocked track. So I gathered up some tools – especially my chainsaw – and set out to do it. As I predicted, it took a leisurely hour. At the end of which it was done. Cleared. Open. I think the rules are the same whether you’re clearing a track or removing one of life’s intangible barriers: Allow plenty of time so you don’t have to hurry. Don’t rush in, but rather spend some time sizing up the job. Make sure you have the right tools. Tackle the easy tasks first and leave the difficult ones until later. Focus on the task you’re doing at any moment without thinking about the whole job. Oh, and don’t forget to bring a rake so you can make it all lovely after you’ve cleared the big stuff. Do all that and you’ll get a wonderful sense of achievement at the end. And you’ll sleep well afterwards. Like I did last night.

farmdoc's blog post number 524

A compendium is a publication containing a variety of works. Starting today, each Saturday’s Farmdoc’s Blog post will be a compendium – comprising multifarious snippets from here and there, with Farmdocs’s comment on each – in italics. Ready? Let’s go…

1. In the week of his 70th birthday, Ron Walker was forced to abandon his bid to remain chairman of Fairfax Limited [1]. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Not. If he’s unfit to run Fairfax, why’s he still running the Grand Prix Corporation? P.S. Happy birthday, Ronny.

2. Tasmanian police were forced to abandon their prosecution of over 40 people who were arrested for trespass during a blockade of the Upper Florentine Valley four months ago. Why? Because Forestry Tasmania gave police incorrect information about the forest exclusion zone, and most of the protesters were arrested about 300 metres outside the boundary [2]. The police are lackeys, and Forestry Tasmania’s full of morons who aren’t fit to be trusted with stewardship of our precious forests.

3. In the 2010 F1 calendar, the Australian F1 GP’s no longer the season opener. The Grand Prix Corporation tried bravely to put a positive spin on this slight [3] The GP Corp’s full of bullshit. And their spin won’t help – because the 2010 event will make a record loss.

4. Consumer body Choice has slammed the exorbitant credit card fees levied by Qantas and Tiger Airways on credit card fare bookings. [4] ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel and his ilk couldn’t care less. Neither could the government. None of them pays for their own air travel.

5. Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s UN General Assembly speech was to a half-empty chamber. Many delegates either didn’t show up, or walked out in disgust [5]. I’m proud the Aussie delegate walked out. I’d have been prouder if he hadn’t attended at all.

6. Finally, thank you WriterBee for writing so beautifully about life, and death, on our farm this week [6, 7, 8, 9]. I never have any trouble at all realising why I adore Writerbee.

Finally, I wish you, dear Farmdoc’s Blog readers, a wonderful week.

farmdoc's blog post number 478

Increasingly the briefing documents for my work, come to me by email rather than pages in the post. Invariably I print the emailed documents – for I need to see them in hard copy form. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m conditioned to better absorb the content of paper documents. Perhaps I’ll relent in the future. Who knows. Probably for the same reason, I prefer to read books in paper form. So I’m in no rush to buy, or even try, a Kindle, an eBook reader, or whatever. In his book Reading the OED: One man, one year, 21730 pages, Ammon Shea writes of how he loves the smell of books and bookshops. I agree with him 100%. Until a week ago, Sweetheart Vivienne had seen her book Alzheimers: a love story only in electronic form. That is, the writing, the revision, and the iterative to-and-fro with her publisher and editor, had all been done by computer hardware and software. Until last Wednesday when the ‘first pages’ arrived by Express Post ready for the final proof-read prior to the first print run (of several, I hope). The ‘first pages’ show the page size, layout, fonts and pagination in their final form. What a joyous moment – to see, hold, touch and smell those ‘first pages. I’ll bet no matter how many books a writer writes, the thrill of the ‘first pages’ never abates. So now Sweetheart Vivienne’s dream’s finally assumed tangibility. I couldn’t be happier for her.