Lantanaland has woken up. After months of baking heat that dried off grass that was already too short, last weekend we got rain, in flood proportions. We always get flooded in here, the bridge down the hill, despite being 6M above the little stream that is normally the Albert River usually goes under once a year. This year it really went under, the river went up 10M, transformed into this brown wide beast. I'm never that worried, as long as we don't lose power I always have milk and bread (I buy flour in 20kg bags) and there is usually eggs and something in the freezer. It'd have to be a good couple of weeks before we went hungry.
The rain was like a match thrown by a bogan on a car doused in petrol. It has come roaring out of the ground. The small paddock above the house is fenced because its too much of a slope to get the ride on mower in there, so the cows get to do the work. It is higher than belly high on Dolores already and the difference is startling. 9L in a late milking this morning and the cream content has shot up. She is even happier than I am to see the green grass.
The big wet and wind did do some damage and make me consider some things. The bales were slapped together when I first got the cows and have had a selection of tarp covers over the years. The latest one had a bamboo frame and had been doing a sterling job until the wind shattered the bamboo and tore the tarp to shreds. The bales are also in a bit of hollow that gets very boggy with a big bit of rain. Rather than just fix them up, it might be time to build a proper milking shed, with yards that has a through line so I can milk more than one cow if I need to. A lot of my farm design happens this way, slowly learning the lessons from the mistakes I've made then refining my design. Adding in skills like welding also make a difference to your thinking, because you can work in different materials and design different bits.
So at the moment I have no cows on the main block. Laf and her calf are trapped in the neighbours yard, ready for a small bit of attitude adjustment for the calf and a Contiki Cruise for Laf. (A short journey, followed by sex with a stranger). It's good to let that's grass get a bit of recovery. Dolores will shuffle between the three small paddocks I have round the house. The fruit trees are thriving. Nothing has broken into my veg patch and destroyed it, this week anyway. All in all, it's just so damn uplifting to see a bit of green around the place.
