Feel a bit guilty

[mynameiscd (Andy)]

Here I am complaining about rain and cloud.
Too wet to be working outside and looks like i need more sheep to keep our 10 acres down.
Just over 100 kms away its a barren dry land and lambs are being born and there's no food for the ewes to keep the milk up!!
This outlook is spread over a fair amount of our country.
I think id better put up and shut up about the cloud and be grateful that water is flowing all the lakes are filling up.

Thinking of the stuggling farmers in drought
Andy

[eddiedunlop (Martin)]

I was in Perth this week and like where you are the weather is as it should be in winter - cold and wet.
Back in Sydney now. For an astronomer and cyclist the weather is...no I can't say it. Bring on the rain!

[leon]

Andy let it rain mate I am not a farmer from the outback but i have seen it i feel so bad that i cant help it saddens me to here of the tragic circumstances and i feel so bad for the children.

I know money cant make it rain for them but it may help to truck in some feed, and although I don't have much i did buy a bale for them

Leon

[mynameiscd (Andy)]

Hi Leon,
It must be hard to see years of work producing and breeding livestock and then having a bad year not being able to feed them.
I had an orphan lamb dropped off to me on Saturday and he's only just ok. Bit of work but normally they make it.
I can only imagine up north how many ewes wont make it and these crying little lambs lying next their dead or dying mums and the extra work keep these little guys going.
The only positive out of this is the prices which at least aren't too bad at the moment but it means destocking which will take years to get back.
I suppose if climate change is happening then this may be our future and some places will become not viable for farming but the tranistion will be hard.
It does look that way, are we warming up or tipping point to a an ice age, or its just a normal cycle?
Whatever it is there seems like some sort of climate change is happening world wide and we probably will have to adapt sometime just like mankind has in the past.
A bit deep for the morning but if we like eating food we have to look after our farmers esp dairy at the moment.
Cheers
Andy

[spiezzy]

my brother in law and father in law have a sheep station up North West NSW near Lightning Ridge and have not had good rain for 7 years it is as dry as a chip up there and has been so for years and yes lamb prices are good at the moment but it is not helping farmers much as when you sell what sheep you have it all pretty much goes back into feeding what you have left at $480 a tone for cotton seed or any other food for them its eating into what they can make for them selves to live .
my brother in law is not eligible for the government had out at the land value and machinery is over the 5mill threshold as is with a lot of farmers plus you need 2 weeks to fill out the forms to apply for it which these guys don't have time to do as they get up at 5am each morning to feed and don't get home till 10pm totally exhausted then you have the feral animal issue and when they get home at 10 ish pm it does not stop there there is things do do before you even get dinner let alone go to bed .
the best thing would be for it to rain steady for a couple of weeks but we all know that won't happen as records tell after a big dry you get flooding rain and that is another big headache on another scale
cheers Pete

[Lee]

I just dusted out my observatory after 4yr.... so the Hunter Valley drought should be over pretty soon I suspect!

[ngcles]

Hi All,

It's good to know that those that live in the cities and suburbia are at least contemplating and considering rural areas in NSW.

I live in the central west of NSW about 250-odd km west of Sydney and the drought is pretty bad here though other areas are worse off than we are.

I live on just over 10 acres and there currently ageist just four heifers in my back paddock that has three dams. Two of those are bone dry and have been for almost 12 months. The third has some water in it only because a neighbour with a water allocation (who owns the stock) put some in there a few months ago. Nearly all the small farm dams here are dry -- the larger ones are well down. We have had just a little bit of rain over the last couple of months but all up it is less than 30mm. All the grass is either dead or bitten right down to the ground. When the wind blows, we get dust storms (starting to become frequent). The last 12 months have been extremely dry -- less than 200mm of rain here where the average is just over 600mm.

I'm not a primary producer and am in no way *directly* affected, but when drought hits, it hits nearly everyone in the area in the end, not just the farmers (though they are in the worst predicament by some margin). If there's no crops or stock being sold (ie money being made), primary producers can't keep staff on and the money-go-round slows down -- after a while dramatically. As a result, the whole economy slows and goes into a local recession. Retailers feel the pinch and either go out of business or put people off increasing the problem. All the industries associated directly with servicing primary production suffer the same problems. Even if it started raining now, it would probably take two or three years before substantial recovery takes place.

I've done my bit: I bought a new telescope so it would rain but it didn't work.

More seriously, there's not much individuals are even charities can do given the scale and wide-spread nature of this drought. Government has the resources and the organisational capability to make a substantial difference with direct financial assistance to keep the whole money-go-round going but the action taken thus far has been pretty trifling -- I guess there just aren't enough votes in it.

We're all hoping for 3 or 4 big (+50mm) dumps over the next month or so before the weather warms up. If it doesn't happen, things are going to get worse -- for all of us.

Best,

L.