I’ve got a case of the grizzlies this month, as due to circumstances mostly beyond our control the wheels have come off.
With all the wet weather we are all having, production is well down, costs are well up, the cows and the farm workers are just fed up – and the boss is grumpy.
Last month I said I was quietly confident the Kerang farm would not get flooded.
Which just proves, like Winnie the Pooh, I am a bear with little brain.
In the end it was a no contest and we got smashed, 95 per cent of the farm went under water and a lot of it still is.
We lost all of the hay and silage that was ready to cut, plus three months’ worth of milk cheques but still have to wear all the costs.
I am determined not be grumpy, it’s not as though the sky has fallen in.
The Lake Boga farm is also in disarray, with 300mm of rain since the end of August, leaving most of the farm laneways unusable and our feed-pad area is just a big sloppy mush pit.
The cows’ hooves have got soft from standing in mud and water for so long.
And we cannot expect the cows to milk well when they only have terrible flood water to drink, we swapped them onto a 250,000 litre rainwater tank and it lasted four days, so they are back to the disgusting river water.
In my 30 years of farming I cannot remember conditions as tough as the past two months.
Yes, I am still struggling not be grumpy, but lots have had it tougher than us, so we will just have to grin, bear it and try to be grateful.
The road from our house to civilisation has been impassable, except with a 4WD for the past two months, making it an adventure getting the kids to and from school.
There’s no such thing as visitors and our bookkeeper can’t get to the office to work, but really, focus on the big stuff Paul, not a lot of point in being grumpy about a little thing like a road is there?
I haven’t had time to be in the factory for two months and in truth I am very pleased about that – being inside all day in a room with all white walls, is a bit like wearing long pants. You shouldn’t have to, except in an emergency. Nothing to have a frown about there.
I have been riding 20km of levee banks each day checking for problems – they’re mostly inaccessible except on a two-wheeler and most days I see 18 kangaroos, three wallabies, four turtles, three fox cubs (I don’t like foxes), hundreds of birds, four snakes, 30 stick snakes (a very dangerous species) and 18,000 mosquitoes.
Just work that through, as a grown man, I have to, as part of my job, ride a motorbike through bush and along an amazing river in flood for up to two hours per day.
How cool is that, really, I should be smiling like a Cheshire cat.
Despite the difficulties there is also always good news, we have also been lucky enough to buy some adjoining land.
It took me 18 months from first enquiry to get a signature on the dotted line, but we take over on December 15.
It will double the size of our enterprise (most likely it will send me broke or give me a heart attack) but it’s going to be one heck of an adventure.
There is no question I have one of the best jobs going round.
