PUREBRED KELPIE PUPPIES FOR SALE

Just arrived are three week old purebred kelpie pups that need a good home. They are 'Bob' the Kelpies pups who are in my ebay pictures under aws803 or farm picture also other pictures of these pups are listed on there. And Jess above obviously is the mum there are 6 pups 2 Black and 4 tan. email me for any further information.

alicewsmith@bigpond.com

Thats Life Magazine and the LAND

I was in this weeks thats life magazine they contacted me through my ebay and send them a couple pictures. They wanted to do a story, Iwas disappointed they didnt put more about my Uncle Bill in there as I  had told them. But this media thing is still new to me dont understand it all.
I am also in the land there right up was more accurate i will post what was written. below!
ITS said a picture is worth a thousand words.
Alice Smith, so far has sold three, worth up to$300 each, with the money raised going to assist her uncle and local farmer, Bill, who is battling the drought. While visiting her uncles 670-hectare grazing property,Ranger, west of Oberon,during the Christmas period,Mrs Smith became concerned about how the property appeared, particularly how empty the hay shed was, and started thinking of ways she could help.
While fashion parades and other more traditional fundraising events first sprang to mind, Mrs Smith wanted a better way to get the city tothe bush.Thats when the idea of selling photos came to mind. Armed with her trusty camera, Mrs Smith set about taking a range of photos of daily life on thefarm (such as the onebelow), and the impact the drought was having.
These were then posted onthe Internet shopping site, eBay, and before she knew it,Mrs Smith had several hits. So far shes sold about 24 pictures and raised about$1200. Purchasers of the photos have come from the UK, as well as West Australia and Tasmania, while people from across Australia have been contacting Mrs Smith with support for her efforts . about 523messages to date.
Mrs Smith said her target was to reach $15,000 to help buy some hay and oats for her uncle, a fifth generation farmer on the property. In the not to distant future she also hopes to establish a State-wide drought fundraising campaign involving arubber wrist band, which would be sold through banks and supermarkets. Depending if she can reach her target¡ Contact Alice Smith, alicewsmith@bigpond.com

4 generations in one photo. My grandmother, mum, me and my beautiful kids

I have sold 100 photos!

So been very busy going to post office, camera house and listing etc has become a busy routine as im doing it all myself but very worth it. My husband has been terrific around the house while i been flat chat he reminds me to eat, which for me is huge normally i dont stop eating.

My sister is coming home on the weekend she will be minding the kids so i can go and take more wonderful pictures, so if there is any requests email me before next weekend. alicewsmith@bigpond.com

Count Tally on pictures sold

I have sold 57 pictures, so only 443 to go, oh my goodness! Luckily some people have paid more then the $30 so that means i wont have to sell over 500 to cover all my costs.
Im so excited, that i have sold this many.
I was in the Newcastle herald, Canberra times and the Oberon Paper.
Im a little flat chat today so no time to write.
Regards Alice

An Email i received off a complete stranger. WOW

Hi Alice,

Hope you don't mind, but I sent this email to some colleagues and friends yesterday:

06/02/2007 12:26 PM
To
cc
Subject
Help a Farmer helping themselvesHi Guys, As everyone knows our farmers are doing it very hard, with the drought/bushfires. One enterprising young farmer has found an out of the box way to help out her family and farm, she has taken photos of her families farm and stock, and has listed them for sale on Ebay. They're hoping to sell about 300 photos for at least $30 each, to help meet the $15,000 bill they will have coming up soon for stock feed to ensure their cattle and sheep can make it through the next months of drought. I had a look last night and one photo (of an old rusted out dodge ute), was up to $150, a couple are up over $50. She's not a professional photographer, but the photos are pretty good, and really show the differences, in a couple of photos, of what their farm looked like pre drought and how hard the conditions are now. There are some cute photos there of some calves & puppies, and some nice landscape shots at dusk & dawn. If you buy one of the photos, you get the one you bought, and usually a few smaller shots thrown in for free, plus a certificate to say you helped out a farmer in drought. If you search Ebay for 'farm pictures' or 'farm photos', you'll bring up all the photos available. (I think Ebay is blocked here at ARL, but check when you get home) Feel free to pass on the email to anyone, the more who know about this innovative young farmer the better. I'm not connected to the farm in any way, but am a country girl, and was wrapt to see someone thinking outside the square to try and save their family farm, so many farmers are leaving the land, and sadly some, who can't see any other way out, are taking the ultimate out (suicide). So help out a farmer, some of the photos are starting at 99 cents (plus $2-3 postage), and even if you don't win one, every cent that the price goes up will help. Ok, I'm getting off my soapbox now. :-) And to management who read this, I'm writing it in my lunchbreak :-) Thanks, Melissa.

Newspaper article

HOw's this Al
Brian Wood
SNAPPER: Local mum Alice Smith has hit on a novel idea of selling pictures of her uncle's farm on Ebay to help support his fight against the lingering drought.0131palice
DON'T sell the farm. Don't sell the sheep and cattle. Sell photos of them.A Bathurst mum has come up with an ingenious way of helping her drought-stricken family survive the worst drought in living memory.Alice Winwood-Smith's uncle Bill Bell runs the "Rangers" property near Oberon, the 810 hectare (2000 acres) farm having been in the family for five generations.However, the big dry has had a crippling effect on the enterprise and with hand-feeding a daily routine, acre the feed bills soon start to mount.Wanting to help out, Mrs Winwood-Smith launched a campaign to raise drought funds to pay for the oats and hay.Over the past week she started selling photographs she took at the farm on Ebay with bids started at $30 each.Mrs Winwood-Smith, who describes herself as "just a housewife", came up with her idea while lying in bed one night the her kids asleep and husband Mick out on the farm helping Bill."We were there over Christmas and it was so depressing," she said. "I was thinking of all sorts of things, like fashion parades and other events."Then I thought 'how could we get people to come out and have a look?' (at the farm). Suddenly the idea of taking photos popped up."Mrs Winwood-Smith said her idea has been an instant success."The bids for one picture are up to $88 at the moment," she said. "Now people are asking how much things are they have noticed in the photos. They want to buy them too."In fact, people from all over Australia have been contacting me congratulating me for my efforts. I'm getting new emails every day."Now my aim is to sell 500 pictures at $30 each. That should raise enough money to keep Uncle Bill going for a while."Hopefully until this drought ends, but you can never rely on Mother Nature."

Wow what an adventure i think i went to bed last night at 2am in all the excitment of more people actually bidding. Being on the news certainly has helped the farm. I did a radio interivew with 2UE with Stuart he was really nice and i enjoyed talking to him. Prob the fact i didnt have a big camera in front of me helped.
Go Annie i know have had someone follow your lead and buy a little lamb and a calf for $300 as Presents. I cannot believe the generosity.
Australia is such a kind country always willing to help a good cause. Better get back to the deliverys

View the vide clip of me on the news!

http://ninemsn.video.msn.com/v/en-au/v.htm?g=ccc53701-39bf-43d6-8816-69b1a872ad8d&f=39&fg=copy Or just go to ninemsn and check it out under news-National

National Nine News

What a day i didnt get much sleep as i was having nightmares, that i forgot to get out of my PJS for the News interview! So i woke up this morning very tired and my stomach was churning with Nerves. and i quicly showered and dressed so i knew my nightmare wouldnt come true.

I met the news crew. Dale and Greg were great.

do you know i didnt think it was going to happen, i thought this has to be a hoax as if the news will come to the farm.

But they Met me at Oberon and sure enough it was going ahead whether i was ready or not. On arrival at the farm. We hoped out and started straight away i had no preperation into what to say and everything i wanted to say did not come out very embarrasing. I have no idea what i said but i know i only just figured out i forgot to tell them where to go to look at the pictures. Thats right i forgot the main bit. It was very hot today and the guys didnt cope real well in the sun. they interviewed me and Uncle Bill and my loving husband hid. He is very supportive but from the backlines.

They took a shot off us feeding the animals and looking at my pictures. They told me to go home and list a few more pictures so i think im going to be very busy.

Big Thanks to Annie who paid $300 for a lamb picture yesterday, she stated she was happy to keep one lamb going for a year. I really appreciate that.

The helicopter came and took the footage ready for tonight at 6pm. Be kind everyone the guys didnt give me time to check out my hair etc. I didnt dress up as i never have at the farm but i didnt wear my daggys i came up with a casual outfit. Mind you i did put on a bit of foundation to hide the black circles under my eyes. That is a first wearing makeup at the farm.

I think i might hide for a while actually i prob be sitting at the computer hopefully.

Monday 29th January

My son and i at the farm 2 years ago when it was green my how things have changed. It is such a great environment to grow up on a farm and all farms need to be protected without the hardworking dedicated farmers there would be no Meat, Dairy or Veges So why isnt there more money going towards keeping good farmers on there land who know what they are doing and not making them sell?

Well i will not lose this farm and if you want to help you can donate by paypal putting in the address mickws@bigpond.com or alternatively to

Save the farm

suite 157

Locked Bag 7000

bathurst NSW 2795

Then my mission is to help out other farms by selling wristbands at banks etc but i need to save our farm before i can save others.

It costs $6000 for Hay and $9000 for Oats and so i need to sell 500 photos at $30 each to make this happen. But every little cent counts.

So contact me with what photo you would like and i will get it for you making sure it is great quality. i will include a thankyou certificate which says ' I HELPED SAVE A FARM IN DROUGHT' They have a picture of Bob on it and if i must say very cute.

I have National Nine News doing a story on me tomorrow so bit scared.

I went and stayed at the farm after putting a few more listings on Ebay and i was getting withdrawals of knowing what was going on as the day before i had to answer 20 questions in regards to my listings. All of which i answered personally. My husband was at the farm helping out for a couple weeks so i went out to take more pictures. Iended up cutting the visit short and came home the next day. My husband stayed at the farm. When i got back to my computer i was amazed i had that much mail. i had to get my grandmother in to watch the kids while i got stuck into working. I then had Channel Seven Sunrise contact me and wanted me to go on there show. I nearly dropped off the chair it was sunday 28th January at 7pm and i was in middle of putting the kids to bed so it was very busy. At first i thought it was a joke but Paul Richards the producer rang back after i thought he was someone being silly. I ran around and quickly put the kids to bed a bit embarrassed. And he said he wanted me to go on his show and that he would ring back tom.. AHHhhh

I had Daily Telegraph contact me through my Ebay messages and said they wanted to do a story on me and to give my phone number to them. I freaked out and replied maybe in a couple days im busy. I ran around the house shrieking like a school girl giggling that the Daily Telegraph wanted to talk to me! I told my husband and his reply was ' Wow it would only happen to you that you try sell a picture and become famous'. I had to ring my Uncle bill straight away as i was going to hand him a check to surprise him with the money as he keeps the family farm going. and he thought it was unreal that people were buying my pictures( that doesnt sound real good, but he didnt understand Ebay and he meant it in the nice possible way).
I rang my mum and sisters and they went straight on to Ebay to have a look. I went to the Ebay discussion forum and said Help the media wants to do a story on what im selling i need advice. I wanted to make sure that in regards to Ebay there were no rules in that regards i found some really great people on that site.
Daily Telegraph also suggested i contact Michael Kiely he came up with an idea also to help his farm out, he chatted to me and suggested i make a blogsite and to speak to the media. that they would help my cause. So a big thanks to him and his family. I will tell you all about him in a couple posts just want to get my story out first.

Raising money for feeding the stock

After spending time at the property over xmas and New Year it was just so depressing how dry it was. I had my faithful camera with me as i always do (No i am not a professional) I just love taking pictures and so i took a picture and said to my Uncle we can look back at this picture and remember this drought and how lucky we were to pull through it. My uncle repled 'Who knows when the drought will end' I thought about this and realised goss his right, how do we know? So i began a plan to Save our family Farm as it has been in our family for five generations. I did not want to become a statistic of losing a farm
To cut along story short i decided to sell pictures of the farm, and i had a look on www.ebay.com.au to see who was buying what. I was amazed at people buying pictures/paintings for thousands of dollars and i thought i wonder if they would pay $30 to help our farm survive the drought? I stayed up till one am and listed my first photo which was of BOB the Kelpie with the heading. BUY A FARM PICTURE TO HELP FEED THE SHEEP IN DROUGHT. I wasnt sure if anyone would buy it but i got up the next morning with BIDS i was so excited i listed a couple more. And on Thursday the 25th January i sold my first picture.
HOW EXCITING i then had media contact me and i was a bit scared as i hadnt dealt with them before. But wiht encouragement i decided that it would help get the awareness out there. I didnt want to be famous i just wanted to feed our animals.