Northland has been declared a drought area by the Government after farmers representatives pushed for them to have it declared. We've seen no rainfall for weeks. My dam is just about dried up and we have about 2 feet of water in our house tank. The animals are having to drink out of the creek, but we're going to have to shut them out soon and start using the back up water supply tanks to give them water out of the trough. You learn one thing when you rely on nature for your water supply - don't take it for granted. I'm watering the vegetable garden from an an old wey tank water supply. At least it's better than nothing! The forecast is hopeless. More dry weather for at least another two weeks perhaps more. If it goes on many farmers in Northland will be in serious trouble. We had a tiny bit of rain today but that was it.
One farmer on Twitter through the #AgchatNZ network said he couldn't tell which was the grazed pasture and which was the ungrazed areas it's that bad. Waikato area is also very dry. Dairy herds are dropping in production. Several of my dairy farming friends are down to once a day, and in some cases are drying off their herds early. Without the grass producing cows can't maintain their condition. You can see from the photos I took today of a neighbouring farm just how dry it really is. The clouds look promising but all we got was a few brief showers and that was all. I've never seen it so bad as I have this year. Still we have to stay positive and carry on. So below there's a few photos I've done of our crazy lot of animals. And talking about animals....
We had got some hay in and I had put in temporarily in the carport so I could move it into the shed. I had my back turned for just half and hour and the Terrorist did a raid! One whole bale destroyed the little jersey toad had a field day. In the end I threw it out of the carport and let them all eat it. The cows decided in the end it wasn't good enough for them - so I know they are certainly not hungry! And here's some more photos of the horses.
PS I forgot about the Cat Troll stalking me everywhere. She found me...oh noes! I've still got to blog about the Paparoa Show. I have so many photos! While I was out on Thursday with my Mum I stopped in Matakana Valley Road at what is normally a picturesque waterfall..not this time. It's so dry the water is now down to a tiny trickle.
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