A good crowd of local buyers braved the wet weather to attend the sale.

The sale saw 22 of the 30 rams on offer being sold to 10 registered bidders to a top price of $1700 with an average of $1100.

Many thanks to the bidders and buyers for making a good day. Also thanks to family and friends who make it all happen. (Contributed by Scott Seaman.)

LANDHOLDERS are urged to take urgent action right now to control the noxious Scotch thistle that is just about to go to head.

At this stage this weed is controllable but will spread rapidly if let go.

Good results have been obtained by spraying and good advice is available at Upper Macquarie County council of your rural supplier.

Please take action now as seeds from this highly invasive weed will last for almost a decade.

Farmers in the Boorowa area ignored thistle for some years and paid a heavy price for their neglect.

The plant that is causing so much worry is almost five feet (1.5m) high when fully grown, has a whitish colour and seed heads are a mid purple.

DISTRICT vet Bruce Watt wrote an interesting article in last week's The Land where he gave a snapshot of the Ovine Johne's disease situation some 25 years after the problem was brought to notice.

Bruce gave his usual down to earth opinion on vaccinating different age groups of sheep with Gudair vaccine and its obvious that the under 50 age group of farmers has no idea of the problems that were caused by the Department of Agriculture, segments of NSW Farmers and Rural Lands Protection Board officials who all turned a tin ear to people who knew the prevalence of the disease in many districts.

A lot of those officials have passed on, the vaccine's effect has been brilliant and Zoetis has a huge market for its product that has doubled in price in recent years.

THE recent death of Jeff Hollis of "Sunnyside Cottage", Perthville took away a member of one of our district's pioneering families who conducted the Sunnyside orchard for many decades.

At its peak the orchard supported three families and sent consignments of boxed fruit by train to varied destinations on a regular basis.

Jeff is remembered for his family involvement, his sporting and work ability and his friendly, pleasant attitude.

He was a valued management member of Jemena Gas and is missed by all who knew him.

THERE is often a comment made about the strength of the real estate market in the Central Tablelands and we certainly have some attractions:

THE highly priced Charinga ram that Chris Stapleton recently bought for his Capree stud will add some more of the bloodline to Central Tablelands flocks.

Charinga Stud at St Arnaud was one of the original studs to join the elite woolled SRS breeding system and stayed with the group for some years.

The Banavie/Charinga type was used for Severn Park, Winyar and a host of progressive studs and a commercial flock at Peelwood is recognised as one of our district's very best.

The Stuart family at Newbridge bred some excellent ewes of this bloodline and former Local Land Services ranger Paul Medway often admired that flock.

I regard Paul as a top judge of Merino sheep and his talent may have been under-used as a board ranger.

JOHN Payne, who writes the Bathurst Movie Lovers email newsletter thinks that some readers of this column will be interested in the comedy-drama movie, Rams, that starts today at Metro 5.

Starring Michael Caton from The Castle and Sam Neill, this movie, which was filmed at Mount Barker in Western Australia, tells the story of two bitterly estranged brothers who, in an isolated valley, have raised separate flocks of Dorset horn sheep descended from their family's bloodline.

When one brother's prized ram is diagnosed with a rare, lethal disease, authorities order a purge of every sheep in the valley.

Rams is an adaptation of the prize-winning Icelandic hit movie of the same title. (Thank you, John.)

THE wool market started the week with a huge leap, gaining from around 90c-130c/kg for all Merino types.

Crossbreds also saw rises of around the same money to start the week but on day two of selling the demand dropped away and the market lost up to 50c/kg by the end of selling.

Overall, the market still saw significant gains for the week with the Northern Market Indicator rising 94c/kg to finish the week on 1278c/kg.

This rise of the market has brought a significant amount of wool onto the market that had been on hold and 44,000 bales will now be offered for sale next week.

ONE new mother appealed to he minister: "Oh father, I think my husband has been unfaithful. My new baby does not look a bit like him." And another said: "I can only tell you this bit of scandal once because I told my neighbour that I would never repeat it."

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MILDRED was a hard-to-please customer. She told the butcher: "I want good beef with no fat and no bone." The butcher looked glum and replied: "Lady, we've' been tryin' to breed them like that for years, but they keep falling over."

Thursday, November 5: Mount Bathurst poll Dorset sale at Black Springs.

Saturday, November 7: Pomanara ram sale, 34 superfine rams at Sallys Flat.