Drought hits early in North West Victoria

For Woosang sheep and grain farmer Mal Burge this season is looking to be the driest in living memory on his North West Victorian property.
In some places, the cracks will swallow a finger. In others they are so deep and wide that they will comfortably swallow the hand of a man, all the way down to the wrist.
The big dry makes it relatively easy to walk across the bottom of the dry dams on Mal Burge's farm but it is impossible not to step on the cracks. The floor of the dams have cracked so much that they resemble giant jigsaw puzzles.
Shortage acute: Farmer Mal Burge at his sheep and crops property near Wedderburn, where he is carting water to his sheep for the first time in years.
Shortage acute: Farmer Mal Burge at his sheep and crops property near Wedderburn, where he is carting water to his sheep for the first time in years. Photo: Angela Wylie
There are 25 dams on Mr Burge's farm at Woosang, near Charlton in north-west Victoria.Though summer hasn't started, 24 are bone dry. The 25th, near the farmhouse, contains just half a metre or so of water.
The big dry means that Mr Burge is carting more than 50,000 litres of water around his farm each week to keep his flock of 1600 sheep alive. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday he climbs into the cab of his old Bedford and, with two large tanks on the tray behind, he rumbles slowly along the local dirt roads and farm tracks distributing water pumped from the Wimmera-Mallee Pipeline into strategically located tanks in the paddocks. The tanks then automatically re-fill large plastic troughs for the sheep to drink from.
With eight mobs of sheep spread around his 1100-hectare farm there is a lot of driving and pumping - plus, of course, rising fuel and water bills.
Mr Burge is one of a growing number of farmers in the districts around Wedderburn and Woosang carting water. He has been doing it for more than two months. "This year we've only had about  seven inches of rain. In 2013, it was around nine inches and the same for 2012. We normally have 15 to 16 inches in this area," he says.
The 57 year old has farmed on the wide plains beside the Calder Highway for nearly 40 years and has never seen the farm so dry.
"It really is unprecedented, what we're experiencing at the moment. The fact that we've had no run-off for over three years - and we really rely on our run-off for our dams," he says. "I'm expecting that [last dam] to probably go dry early next year some time. I've never seen that in my lifetime."

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Wedderburn is just up the road from Inglewood, and we've got the same dry conditions.  Our "grass" is now bleached, and looks just like straw. We need rain, and I wonder how our friends in Kingower are faring, as they just have tank water, town water doesn't go that far. 
In the garden, most of my fruit trees are still looking good, especially the little cherry tree which was now full of ripe cherries

bountiful cherry tree


In fact, once I picked them there were actually "countless" cherries. Justin disputed this, saying that they weren't "countless".  I countered this (pun intended) saying that if there were too many to count, that meant that they were countless...I think I won that one
Countless cherries #1

Countless cherries #2
The jacaranda, which Justin had once again over Winter thought was dead was now in (meagre) flower
trust me there are some flowers

Given that I was only watering, I didn't even change into my overalls. In fact I didn't wear my old overalls all weekend....
I dropped by David's to buy some eggs, and he kindly gave me some watermelon, rock melon and tomato seedlings.  I just hope they survive with minimal watering.  Oh, and by the way the side tank is dry, as Justin had fixed up the automatic watering on the vegie garden, and this had used it all up. 

seedlings from David

We decided to stay in for dinner, and made pizzas.  I did the dough in the bread maker as per usual, and the kids and Justin did the toppings






making pizzas #1

making pizzas #2

making pizzas #3

making pizzas #4 - and looking a bit grim

As always they turned out rather well
a couple of the cooked pizzas

Madeleine insisted on lots of photos whilst eating the pizzas
the kids posing

Mad & I posing #1

Mad & I posing #2


Mad & I posing #3 - not sure about that knife...

Mad solo #1

Mad solo #2 

Mad solo #3

Mad solo #4
Mad solo #5

After dinner, we watched Grand Hotel Budapest in the dining room.  Mad insisted on taking a photo of me with a blanket around me, although it certainly wasn't cold

nice and snuggly

Grand Hotel Budapest dvd


As per almost always, I fell asleep before the end of the film, and then woke up just before it finished....However, I ended up watching it all again the next morning in bed on the portable dvd player.
We were thrilled that it rained overnight.  There were 27 mls of rain overnight in Bendigo, so presumably something similar for Inglewood
Sunday, and we had a big bacon, egg, and hash brown breakfast - delicious!  And we didn't need any lunch
Given that it was my birthday a few days before hand, the kids were being accommodating towards me, and so Fraser agreed to come on a bike ride with me.
But first we had to pump up the tyres of both bikes.  Easier said than done, as the pump was a bit tricky to negotiate.  We ended up buying another one from the IGA
Justin has now taken over the tyre pumping

The tyres were finally pumped, and Fraser and I set off down Verdon Street
Soon turned off left down a dirt road that led to a dirt track...We didn't know where we were going, and it didn't really matter.  I figured we couldn't really get lost, and after all I had my mobile with its gps etc.  Luckily there wasn't much traffic, I think we saw 2 cars while on the unmade roads/tracks and they gave us a wide berth.  We also saw lots of kangaroos and were most impressed at them jumping over the fences.
And we saw lots of sheep, with Fraser displaying a previously unknown skill of being a sheep whisperer.  Well actually he baaed at them first and they raced over to him by the fence - interested in this strange helmet wearing new sheep.  We also came across a kangaroo skeleton which was pretty much just skin and bone.  The bone bleached very white. 

Road to .....?

another unknown road

kangaroo skeleton

Fraser looking at the skeleton

close up of a paw

about to get back onto a made road

Fraser sheep whispering #1

Fraser sheep whispering #2

Call and they will come #1



Call and they will come #2

finished whispering

strange cuts out of the bark - don't really look canoe shaped

random landscape while riding

some puddles from last night's rain
So, as I said we turned left off Verdon Street, and rode straight for however long, and then turned right, when we came to the next T intersection Fraser thought we should turn left, as he thought Inglewood was that way.  I told him that if we went that way it was the exact wrong direction and we could end up in Bridgewater, or even miss Bridgewater if we were too far down, and hit Tarnagulla.  We were actually turning onto the Inglewood Arnold Road, so of course turned right, and then right again once we hit the Inglewood Rheola Road/Verdon Street.  Unfortunately I didn't measure how far we actually rode.  I did think of turning left and riding up to Kingower, but I thought Justin might get annoyed if we were gone too long, so we rode on home.
Once home,  we all agreed that we weren't really all that hungry for lunch, given our large/late breakfast.  I thought it might be fun to have a look at Mt Koorong as I'd been told that it's nice there, so we drove up there. And no it wasn't some macabre interest to see the area where that body had been dumped last year
Mt Koorong (photo from the internet)

We weren't exactly sure of the turn off, I thought it might have been a small signed road  that we passed.  Justin thought it was a larger road.... We continued on and we passed Mt Koorong, so it looked like I was right and Justin wrong, but turns out we were both right.  There was a "larger" road that went to Mt Koorong and we ended up intersecting the smaller one  that I had seen.
So, we were at Mt Koorong, but where was the parking lot, where were the paths?? We didn't see any.  We drove around the base, and saw a stumpy tailed lizard which took fright at our approach, and an echidna which burrowed back into a hole.  The "road" we were on was obviously unmade and full of ruts and potholes, not ideal for a town sedan.  There was also no where to turn around so we had to continue going forward.  At one stage Madeleine wanted to stop and  climb up the rocks.  So we just stopped in the middle of the road.  There was no "traffic" so it was ok.  Further along we found a flat stretch to pull off the road and turn around also.
Mt Koorong  had many granite boulders and was similar to Melvilles Caves.  We enjoyed ourselves scrambling around, and climbing up for the view.  But were also wary of long grass and snakes.  No, we didn't see any.  We actually didn't see anyone at all.
Now, I have a lot of photos taken here at Mt Koorong, Justin Madeleine and I all took photos.  Unfortunately the photos are in the order that they were saved on picasa.  I could have ordered them a bit better, but fell back on laziness.  Sorry! 
Mt Korong

The kids way up the hill

The kids way up the hill, and Justin following

Justin taking a photo

the kids waiting for me to take a photo

and now posing for a photo

Mad mirroring the rock


Mad conquering the rock

Mad astride the rock

strange bouffant trees #1

strange bouffant trees #2

Mad and Fraser vying for rock supremacy

Mad solo on rock (again)

Mad dismounting rock?
  

Mad relaxed on rock




dry view

Mad in dry view #1


Mad in dry view #2


Mad in dry view #3

one of us up there

echidna burrowing in 



Mad checking out echidna

what is she doing ?

Mad and her echidna selfie

another view from the road around Mt Koorong

me -walking purposely

a curvy panorama


me half way up

another panorama

another view of the surrounding countryside

Mad #1

Mad #2

Mad #3

a lovely panorama

nice composition

more panoramas

panorama and me 

boulders



more boulders

big sky #1

big sky #2

me in the distance

me and Fraser in the distance #1

me and Fraser in the distance #2

looking

yellow and blue #1

yellow and blue #2

yellow and blue #3

yellow and blue #4

yellow and blue #5

yellow and blue #6

panorama

me on a rock


Mad's cactus

Fraser having taken Mad's sun visor #1

Fraser having taken Mad's sun visor #2

So, all in all it was a successful family weekend.  The kids enjoyed themselves, as did Justin and I, and we look forward to them coming up with us again soon