The big wet. There is no other term I could use for these past four months.
It’s been horrible.
Other regions have had heavy destructive flooding, which we’ve fortunately missed. It’s the constant persistence of rainfall and no drying that has been difficult here.
We have already had our annual average rainfall of 850mm with three months to go, but it feels like much more than this. That’s because on the few days when it hasn’t rained, there has been no wind or sun and just no drying of the sodden ground.
This has made it difficult for everyone involved with the land.
It’s the worst winter I can recall in my nearly 40 years’ farming here. Others are saying it hasn’t been this sodden since the extremely wet winters in the late 1970s.
Ironically, I write this the day after the nicest sunny day of what feels like my lifetime, but surely of the past few months. It dawned clear, the sun rose and shone all day without a hint of any cloud or precipitation.
It was warm and, though it was calm with no wind, it dried things out a bit.
Spirits lifted everywhere and flesh was exposed to soak up a dose of ultraviolet B so that the vitamin D receptor cells could work their magic and manufacture a decent dose of the vitamin.
However, it was a brief respite as a cold snap is forecast bringing more rain before it hopefully clears again.
The previous two autumns were droughts. Nasty ones.
Last autumn and winter I waited for moisture so that I could get a bit of nitrogen on to try and grow some feed.
It remained dry, dusty even, right through June and finally I had a fertiliser truck driving around on my heavy clay soils in the middle of July without leaving a mark.
This July I couldn’t even get my two wheelers around much of the farm.
Pushing them up hills as the back wheel spun, I cried out my new favourite catchphrase: “I’m getting too bloody old for this!”
I’d even gone as far as inquiring about the availability of side by sides in June, but my motorbike dealer told me given the supply chain was depleted I could have a new or secondhand one at Christmas if I was lucky.
Good thing I didn’t get one as I’ve heard stories that, given their weight over four-wheelers, there have had to be quite a few helicopter retrievals of side by sides in hill country as no tractors could get to them. The story goes that one fellow had to hire a chopper on three separate occasions.
Four-wheelers have proven their worth this winter, but we have had to be careful as even they have limitations and there has been a lot of potential danger out there.
Not only have people found it tough but stock haven’t enjoyed it and it hasn’t been an easy start for lambs and calves with growth rates well behind.
Cropping farmers have spent six weeks waiting to work up paddocks to get crops in and now the window for various cropping options has begun to close. Some have already had to cancel pea contracts.
My brassica paddocks will take a long time to be dry enough to get worked and then I’ll likely have to wait for the contractor, so a summer fallow option is looking likely.
Ag contractors have had little opportunity to get any work done so they and their staff have had it tough.
Of course, there are few usable airstrips, so the planes haven’t been flying and there is no way that the ground spreaders have been able to do much.
The poor shearers and shed hands have had a lean time of it and must be struggling to pay bills.
Quite a few farmers have had to postpone their ewe hogget shearing as they are now lambing, and plan to do them with lambs at foot.
Getting lambs docked has been a major challenge as it’s been impossible to drag docking yards around farms.
I’ve heard reports of farmers bringing mobs into the woolshed for the night and docking them inside the next morning once they have dried.
A lot of terminal lambs are now permanently attached to their tails, and kids on holiday will be lifting big lambs next week if conditions allow.
I’m even selling a few store two-year-old bulls at the beginning of October as I’ve run out of shift options. This is at a time when I’m usually fretting I don’t have enough cattle to control the flush of feed.
However, day length and more warmth does mean that when it decides to stop raining ground conditions will dry out quickly and the feed will bolt.
That day is a day closer every day that passes.
