It has always rained when desperation set in - until now

SMALL farmer reckons it has always rained just as things were getting really desperate - time will tell if the needed rain comes this weekend.

DROUGHT: A beast eats the little available grass in a paddock on the Southern Downs. Picture: Marian Faa

DRY AS A BONE column in Bush Telegraph by Gerard Walsh - A lighter look at rural life

DOWN the years, I have often said to myself that it always rained when things were getting really desperate.

I was in that situation a month ago that we could be saved by rain but I now believe in four decades of farming, this is the worst I have experienced.

I have put some of my Daily News wage into building a lot more dams and cleaning out the existing ones over the years so we don't have a water problem this time.

Suspect we have up to two years of dam water.

I recall the bad times with a shortage of water.

We had someone in to clean out two wells.

One wasn't too successful 50 years earlier and didn't come up trumps in the 1980s.

You can't get water where there is none.

Other times we had a excavator or dozer in to clean out holes in the creeks to find spring water and that did help us to some extent and then the rain came just as the water was deteriorating again.

The other problem with muddy dams or creeks is weak cattle and sheep getting stuck in the mud.

Luckily, I can count on one hand the number of our cattle bogged down the years but know it is a really serious problem for many producers.

This time, our problem at Greymare is feed, including a lack of roughage.

Supplementary feeding works well but you need the roughage to go with it.

We have sold some extra cattle and have lucerne hay and corn stubble but probably only enough for six weeks.

It is good there is some additional government support to help those relying principally on farm income to put food on the table.

I hope people apply for what they are entitled to.

Wet in the west

GOOD to hear from one of the organisers of the Swan Valley National Polocrosse Championships in early October that the Perth area has had its best winter since the 1970s.

That means at least someone is growing grain, making hay and providing prime livestock off crop for sale.

Talking polocrosse, the Queensland State Championships are coming to the Bony Mountain Recreation Reserve.

The Cunningham Polocrosse Club (Bony Mountain) and the former Greymare Cricket Club were the first two clubs I heard about as a kid growing up.

Cunningham is expected to attract 80 odd teams from Friday, August 31 to Sunday, September 2, and Greymare has a cricket reunion on Saturday, October 6.