What a difference rain makes!

Over the past 5 to 6 weeks we have been  fortunate in the amount of rain that has fallen in our local area. You sometimes hear people make the comment "Oh no! Not rain again!" Living on a farm we never ever say "Oh no! Not rain again!" Even if it has been raining non stop for weeks on end and the dairy is as muddy and boggy as anything. We never forget how bad it is when we don't have enough rain. Being on a dry farm ( meaning no irrigation) we totally rely on rain to grow our pastures for all our cattle and also provide fresh water for our cattle to drink.

One of our largest dams almost dry in December 2014.

As you can see from the photos above last year was a year with little rain. We only had 818 mls (approximately 32 inches) in 2014 of which 263 mls fell in the month of December. Our yearly average is around 40 inches or 1000 mls. We had dams which were completely dry or so boggy with mud that we had to do a dam check every day to make sure our cattle were not getting bogged in the mud. Last July we had a lot of our dams excavated whilst they were so low in the hope that they would soon be full.  The amount of silt and mud removed was huge. With recent rain and storms some but not all of our dams are now full. It is a sigh of relief ! The cattle now have fresh water and plenty of grass to feed on. They are looking much  stronger and more contented! And so is DH Farmer!

The same dam as above only 6 weeks later!

Natural pastures everywhere now.

The next big job on farm will be making all that lovely natural pasture into silage. We just have to have a window of no rain for a few days to do this! Did I just say we don't want any rain??? Oh the life on the land....
Until next time
Carol