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The one key difference between a great investment and a waste of money…
There is a lot of difference between a great investment in machinery or infrastructure and a bad investment. We can get quite technical and look at measures such as return on investment and look at factors like labour hours saved and total cost of ownership. This GRDC factsheet looks at some of these methods. I want to talk…
Read MoreAre we whiteanting our sucession dreams without even realising it?
We all know how we raise our kids and the conversations we have with them are powerful. I was reminded of this on the weekend. We had a lovely family lunch and the wise old teenagers were reminiscing about their distant childhood. They admitted to programming/training/manipulating their youngest sister from about 2 into liking Turkish…
Read Moreare you setting the wrong sort of goals?
Hopefully you have had a chance for a rest and some sort of reset over the last month or so. Hopefully you are feeling so rested and recharged you are goal setting for the year to come, or refining goals you have set for this coming year at an earlier date. Goal setting is hard…
Read MoreARE YOU YOU? OR ARE YOU YOUR FARM?
When kids are about preschool age one thing we like to teach them is their full name. First name, middle name, last name. Poor Dan got a bit confused and for a short and delightful period thought his full name was not just Daniel John Quade, but Daniel John Quade and Sons. As adults we…
Read MoreDealing with inequity in our equal farming business
Family partnerships are really common in ag. Sometimes they are structured as partnerships but companies, family trusts or even as employer/employee relationships are also common. Regardless of structure we often have siblings working together, and parents and adult children working together in farming businesses. One thing that has come up a few times in discussions…
Read MoreWhat are you putting off?
There is real pressure in tougher years to put things on hold. I have some bunnings shelves in place of bookcases in my office and so little storage that things are all over the floor. I have been hesitating to do anything about it, stuck in this “let’s just be careful, it’s not a good…
Read MoreHow much are our trucks really making us?
Or are they costing money, and are contractors a good alternative? Conventional accounting methods in enterprises with trucks tend to overinflate grain prices, pool truck and trailer repairs in with other paddock based equipment and under cost inputs like fertiliser, lime and gypsum that you may be transporting yourself. You should be able to easily…
Read MoreHolidays – It would be so nice
I just wanted to talk about holidays. It can be hard to fit them in, can’t it? Sometimes it seems all to easy just to stay at home. Steph Schmitt from Farm.Life.Physc writes about how leaving the farm is not a possibility for all of us, and most certainly not all the time, and developing…
Read MoreWhen things go missing
There is nothing that fills me more with murderous rage than having my things taken. I think lots of people are the same. I’m not talking about the spate of ute or stock thefts, but the acts of misplacement levied on us by our spouses, siblings, children and staff. It’s the tools, brooms, batteries, computer…
Read MoreIs legacy planning a thing?
Hopefully, some time in the not too distant future sucession planning will be an issue for our kids as we work out the best way as a family to give someone (or sometwo) a start in farming. But it might not be the case, we may end up being one of the many families, who…
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