Archive for the 'Drought' Category

Green Drought Doubt

At last we’ve had over two inches of rain — it’s greened the grass up beautifully, but arrived too late to grow us any pasture to cut hay.

The good news is the remaining handful of cows that we have hung onto are doing well as are their big babies.

During drought you come to doubt the decisions you make — whether to sell or to hang on to animals.

In this case our management decision to de-stock over three years has paid off as the animals we do have are healthy and aren’t needing any drought assistance fodder.

Calving time

Our first two calves are on the ground this year. It’s a cold bleak winter to be born in, but I was thrilled to see a new heifer hidden from the wind in the sag bushes, with her mum licking her.

John and I had locked up a paddock for them so it’s nice and fresh with a bit of green pick so we moved them on yesterday, with baby calves in tow.

Happier Heifers

The cold of winter has really kicked in and with almost no rainfall to speak of and barely any hay reserves, we were starting to see our young heifers go backwards in condition.

It is really heartbreaking to see your animals go hungry but luckily we quickly found agistment in the north.

My brilliant truffle harvest gals have bailed me out and our heifers are now happy gorging themselves on green grass. They are in heifer heaven!

Winter worries

It still hasn’t rained here on our farm! The Autumn season has failed again and because we haven’t cut hay for two years we have opted to buy some in to keep our cattle going when winter really bites.

Always the optimist, I’m not too worried. Why worry about the things you can’t change?

John and I have become part of the KLR Marketing group after doing the Low Stress Livestock handling course.

KLR teaches you how to trade your way out of trouble. We spent two days in Launceston learning the basics and now we’re being coached on line.

It’s eliminated a lot of the stress that a drought can bring, just knowing their principals. If you’d like to find out more, go to their web site. 

Canberra, here I come!

I’m off to Canberra today for the Australian Institute of Company Director’s Course as part of my 2007 Rural Women’s Award.

I’m not sure how I’ll handle Canberra and sitting inside for 10 days straight. If only I can smuggle a Kelpie under my desk, I’ll be right!

I know I’ll be craving having the soil under my feet, but it’ll be a great chance to network with other rural women from across the Nation.

Word’s out we have a black tie dinner at the end of the course where many of the government and departmental leaders will attend (maybe even Kevin 08).

I’ll be making sure our rural voices are heard loud and clear.

With threatened school closures in rural areas during drought times, we’ll be asking for some flexibility from our city-based leaders to allow us to develop new ways of farming in a new climate and a chance to re-build rural infrastructure which is key to our nation’s vibrancy.

(I’ll also be able to tell them some yarns about what it’s like here on the farm during the worst drought we’ve ever experienced! We’ve been carting water to some paddocks for a year now! Yesterday thirsty rats chewed through a water pipe under our house! It’s lucky we didn’t lose all our tank water! These sorts of daily stresses along with the stress of encountering a public service that doesn’t seem to understand has pushed many of us to breaking point.)

I’m sure Canberra will be just the ticket the rural women need to getting some positive change happening in rural areas!

Spreading cheer

Former farmer Brian Eagan has brought his Aussie Helpers Charity to Tassie to help farmers in drought times.

Brian, has taken on a mission to deliver everything from dog food to sheep pellets to Weetbix in a bid to assist farm families.

You can get more information at the Aussie helpers web site.

Thank you Lee and Lucy!

Here we are! John and I with the very generous and inspirational Australian of the Year, Lee Kernaghan in the Woodsdale Footy Clubrooms last weekend.

Thanks to our friend Lucy and her husband, Darren Byers (our shearer!), they invited Brian Egan from Aussie Helpers and Lee K. to bring some drought relief to the farmers of the Southern Midlands of Tasmania.

Lee sung a few songs and spent hours talking to locals.

I was also able to deliver a ‘love letter’ to Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon regarding the impact of tree plantations and drought in our district and outline some positive action he can take to help local community recover from these distressing and depressing days that we find ourselves in.

Lee truly is a generous, wonderful person and a great ambassador for all of us in rural Australia.

Let’s hope the pollies sit up and take some notice and put some policy in place so we farmers can keep supplying good clean food to our nation.

We can’t eat bloody gum trees!

Water play!

Rain at last! The autumn showers have been enough to put a puddle in our brand new dam and Diamond and her son Lumpy enjoyed a swim paddle for the first time in months.

We are hoping for a strong autumn break so we can begin to recover from a run of &&*(*house seasons.

We sold 900 head of stock in the past financial year alone and have been de-stocking now for two years, cutting our numbers by more than half.

It’s meant our country is healthy and the remaining animals are coping well, but our potential income from the farm has been severely cut.

No wonder John and I work two part-time jobs each off-farm to keep it all going strong! Better get to and write some more!

Dam fine day for a ride

Our newly cleaned out dam is finished and as Roger drove his ute away, the rain began to fall.

We took the kids down to the dam to check out the dozer, muck about on the ponies and see what a great job Roger’s done! Stupendous!

It was lovely to ride in the rain and it’s still falling now as I type. It’s just a shower but some is better than none! 

Dam Drought!

It’s a stinking hot day to be on a dozer in Tassie, but Roger from Tunnack is on the job today, digging out another of our dams.

He’s got a string of jobs in the area lined up.

Never, in living memory has this district seen it so dry and hot. We’ve never had a problem with water supply until now.

Times are a changing! Look out for higher food prices coming to a supermarket near you!

Our curious horses have enjoyed getting in the way of the dozer today. Young Whipcrack, the Waler, enjoys a drink of bore water which we are carting daily.