When Mother Nature visits…

To say it’s been pretty dry in our corner of the country this year would be an understatement. Like the rest of northern Australia, the Summer months are usually our ‘wet season’ – when the majority of our annual rainfall arrives. While December saw one decent fall (and a whole lot of damage)…

… January and February brought us a LOT of hot weather (regularly over 40C) but only one (slightly disastrous) storm in the way of ‘wet stuff’.

When we had almost given up hope of any relief, last week, this happened…

https://www.facebook.com/BushBabeofOz/videos/353590371919600/

It took us a little by surprise, as all previous ‘isolated storms’ had managed to successfully avoid us. And after a couple of months of anticipation, then disappointment, we had stopped believing our forecasts. We began selling our younger cattle to ‘lighten the load’ on our precious grass (some of which we had lost due to fire, started by lightning in the single storm we did get).

As you can see, lots of small branches and leaves fell around the house paddock, but it was such a small weather cell that our neighbours (just 2km away) received only 3mm (compared to our 14mm) and our top paddocks measured nothing at all.

Then, last Friday, while I was away visiting kids at school, we somehow managed to get under another 40mm (at the house) with over 60mm falling where we had previously missed out. (If I had known Mother Nature was waiting for me to go away to deliver the good stuff, I would have vamoosed sooner!). It is the closest thing to ‘widespread’ rain our district has seen for many months…

There were SMILES… of enormous relief! The cattle will have sweet fresh grass to bolster them, the calves will pick up too (as they also graze and ease the load on their mamas). Our joy is off course tempered: we still need some follow-up rain and continuing warm weather to help the grass grow before winter hits, to hold us through the dry colder months. But it’s a beginning!

Our inspection tour through the paddocks after last weekend (during which there were a couple more soft drizzles of perfect ‘grass rain’ across the property) showed the new growth bursting through the dry matter…

And it also uncovered what appears to be a mini-tornado through the middle of the place!

Never a continent to do things by halves, Australia has TWO cyclones on the prowl in our northern waters at present (named somewhat unintimidatingly Trevor and Veronica). Farmers across the northern half of Oz will be watching them with trepidation (closer to the landfall regions) and hope (further inland). Of course no-one wants either system to wreak the kind of horror that took place in north and north-west Queensland in early February (if you have missed it, a heartrending photo series done by Jacqueline Curley is worth seeing)…

Currently, Cyclone Trevor is threatening big things up in the Gulf of Carpentaria … if its current forecast path holds true, we (in Central Queensland) may get some follow-up rain that could provide enough consistent growth and water reserves to hold us (and hundreds of other farmers of stock and crops) through winter.

We are careful what we hope (and pray) for out here… enough but not too much. We’d love to see that grass grow, but keep our cattle safe, most of all…