Floods in the South West of Qld

 

That’s the Flood truck in the middle of the picture right near the Bulloo River

 

We have not had a mail at Kilcowera since just after Christmas and I had a heap of mail to go too as, I have been selling some stuff on ebay.  Also our fruit and vegetable supply was running low.  Ran out of salad stuff 10 days ago but I did find a little cabbage lurking in a corner of the coldroom so we have been eating a fair bit of coleslaw and tinned vegetables.  Still had an ample supply of potatoes, onions, pumpkin and the other necessities of life (beer and wine)! 

So off to town we went and the drive in was delightful – so green and swamps full of water, birds everywhere but no stock to be seen as nearly everyone has either sold their animals or have them on agistment. 

The Bulloo river has been flooding since the first of January and the Council uses a flood truck to ferry people, supplies and cars across the river until it gets to 1 metre over the bridge then they have to start using a boat.  Greg drove the Station Wagon onto the back of the truck and off we went through about half a kilometre of flood water.  It’s a very good service and we are lucky to have it.  I don’t think many other towns do such a thing.  It allows you to drive around town and get your supplies without double handling everything as it all gets transported back over the river in your own car.  Even though it does cost $40 for a round trip, it used to be free.

The townspeople often put their cars over the river when they know there is a flood coming.  They can still get away easily if they have their car on the Brisbane side of the flood.  A good few years ago we  wanted  to truck cattle out to a sale, the truck driver arrived at the turnoff onto our road at about 10 o’clock at night and there were about 40 cars and trucks parked haphazardly on the eastern side of the river. He (and we) were very lucky that he was able to skilfully weave his roadtrain through the parked vehicles and continue on his way.

It appears there is a loophole in the mail contractors’ contract which says that the mail is not to be carried over floodwaters unless they have Marine Insurance and that’s why we haven’t had a mail delivery for some time.  Evidently the Council used to pay for this insurance but doesn’t anymore.  Been very little mail in or out of town during this flood. We were told a couple of deliveries had been flown in but that is very unusual.  The mail people are not very popular at the moment as they continue bringing freight in and out of the town but not the mail.

We had a very big storm go past Kilcowera a week or so ago and it knocked out a transformer on a neighbours electricity supply. He had no back up generator to supply his own power which is really stupid and like living in the dim dark ages.  Anyway Ergon Energy had to fly one in for him in 2 helicopters.  He would have been a happy man – visitors!  It was the only way anyone would have been visiting during that wet period.

A wet, wet Christmas at Kilcowera

Box Creek way out of it’s banks, between the quarters and the house.

 Well I got my wish!  It started raining early on Christmas morning and rained all day till about 4 o’clock!!!!  It was the bestest Christmas for a long time.  We ended up with 97 mls.  Kilcowera creek ran all over the place and the Box creek did too, so we had water every where, even a big flood through the campground at the quarters.  The lagoon is full and every other swamp that we have been able to get to is also full, some of them have not had water in them this decade. 

We have not been able to get out to our Lake paddock much yet so we don’t know if all those creeks ran ( 2 did  and took a couple of hundred metres of boundary fence with them ).  At this stage we don’t know how much water went into Lake Wyara.  It was bone dry so it will take a lot of water to fill it.  

The birds are back and it looks like a lot of them are going to nest here, you can see some flying around with sticks and bits of wool in their beaks and parrots and budgerigars in and out of hollows in the trees.

Then we had another 16 mls at the house on the 31^st with storms to the north and west, much more rain than the 16 we measured.  The creeks are up again and we can’t go far at all unless it’s on foot or motorbike on the road.  I might be able to get across Box creek tomorrow on the 4 wheeler to see if the campground was flooded again and check out the lagoon.

The country has responded so quickly to the rain and the grass and herbage is looking fantastic.  We haven’t had good summer rain since about 1996.  A person forgets how beautiful the place can be. I just hope that it keeps up and we get some more rain soon, being wet is a good problem to have.  Oh and I haven’t put a sprinkler on since December 24.  What a break from watering!

24th December @ Kilcowera

Auctioneers selling the Kilcowera cattle at Moree Saleyards

 Well our cattle sold at the Moree Saleyards on the 10^th ( all but 4,  that nobody wanted ), we did not get good money for them nor did we expect to.  That’s Beetle in the shorts in the photo, he was the agent commissioned to sell them.  I also met Frog and Puss!   At the time Moree was very dry and the graziers and farmers had mostly run out of water.  We did pick out 50 or so cows and sent them to a friends place on agistment so we still own a few.

Came home to a dust storm and 1 broken down water.  But the caretaker had done a great job, the garden was better than when I left and all dogs in fine form too.  Lucy was pleased to see us.  We had 11 very surprising mls of rain a week ago and that has greened the place up a bit and put some water in a few swamps.

The weather bureau has been predicting rain for a large part of western NSW and QLD for the last week and our local radio station is really ramping things up today.  Not a drop of rain has fallen anywhere ,yet they are putting out flood warnings for all the rivers in the district!  May be they are getting in early cause we have Xmas, Boxing day and the weekend coming up?  Oh and probably a public holiday on Monday and maybe even Tuesday?  Not sure about that.  Well it is cloudy and the wind is right, but the unbeliever here still has all sprinklers going, not sitting around waiting for rain to water my garden.

Well a Happy, safe and peaceful Christmas to all and please God may it be a wet one for us too.  Cheers me

Cattle to go under the hammer 9th December.

Cattle in the yard at Kilcowera Station.

 

We have had some rain in the last 2 months but all after we sent our cattle away and it wasn’t enough to promote sufficient pasture growth to bring them back here.  So next week they will be auctioned off at the Moree Saleyards.  I hope someone is willing to pay reasonable money for them.  The Drover has been asked to have them all back at the Moree yards on the evening of the 7 th so we can sort them out on the 8 th.  They should look a bit different than when they left here anyway. 

We have a local man coming to mind the place for a week so we can go and see the demise of our herd…….hmm maybe I won’t go to the auction, Greg can just tell me about it.  Then I am going to see my Mom in Brisbane, then we go to Toowoomba for some shopping then home.  We are going to have to leave Lucy behind as we will have to stay in Motels.  I do like to get away but I worry about the dog and the gardens and whether the caretaker is keeping the doors shut to keep the snakes out, so we won’t be away long.  Will let you all know how the cattle sell after we get back.  Cheers, Toni

What else can you say about rubbish dumps?

Handy little treasures at the useful dump at Kilcowera Station

 

I guess city people never give  a thought as to how we get rid of our rubbish ?  The ways are many and varied.  And you know what really annoys me?  Some mail days I empty the mail bag and go through the mail only to find that 75 % of it goes straight in the bin.  And packaging of some products produces more rubbish than useable product and we have to get rid of it somehow.  

Our rubbish get sorted up 2 ways – what we can burn and what we can’t.  Of the household rubbish the only stuff that doesn’t get burnt is soft drink cans, beer cans and bottles and wine bottles.  All other tins like baked beans and food tins and plastics need to be burnt to take the foody smell out of them so the stock don’t sniff them out and get them stuck on their jaws.  A very sad sight to see a beast or sheep with a tin stuck to it’s lower jaw as they can’t eat or drink and usually die because we would probably not see the animal unless it’s happens to hang around a stock water.  Even if we do see the poor thing it may be too far from a yard to get it to.  So please don’t throw your rubbish out when you are camping in the outback.  I have seen a brown snake slithering along blindly with a VB can stuck over its head. 

We have 5 dumps on Kilcowera – just as well we’ve got plenty of room!  Greg digs a big pit with the dozer for the afore mentioned beer cans and harmless rubbish to be put into.  The only problem with this is birds pick up some of the cans and fly around with them and drop them all over the place or whirly winds come along and scatter the cans too!

This is a picture of Greg’s wire dump where all reusable wire and steel posts are lined up.  Depending on how financial we are there is always a supply of new plain and barbed wire, posts, weldmesh, droppers and steel cable here too and it all has to be kept off the ground as steel rusts fairly quickly when it is in contact with our soil.

The most interesting dump is the one where anything that might be handy for something gets put.  There is a line up of old washing machines, dog kennels, batteries, tyres, interesting pieces of steel, old bottles, chains, fish tanks, old rain water tanks and wooden fence posts.  About every 10 years or so someone comes along and wants to buy stuff out of the dump………….batteries, copper wire, bits and pieces off old cars, aluminium cans. 

The previous owners had a dump like this too, some of the stuff there is pretty old but not so old as to be valuable.  There are tractor seats, horse floats, beds, engines, woolpresses, wheel barrows, old toys, horseshoes and a dazzling array of little bits of steel like chains, nuts and bolts, locks etc.  They also had another dump right near the shearers quarters where they lived.  Unfortunately though they did not dig a pit but simply and with gay abandon threw everything onto this ever expanding pile.  The pile is basically in the creek so whenever the creek runs so does the rubbish, pilsener stubbies and longnecks mainly – straight down toward our lagoon.

The next door place sold to a new owner 10 or so years ago and we went to the  clearing sale and the very last thing to be auctioned was the contents of the dump!  It really brings new meaning to “One mans rubbish is another’s treasure”. 

Driving to town one day I was sailing past Yakara Station when out of the corner of my eye I noticed something big and new on their dump.  A great big white Toyota trayback on it’s roof!  It had been rolled and the owners had dragged it there and just left it, along with quite a few other old cars.  The dump is very close to the road and a bit of an eyesore. 

Another neighbour to the south has his main dump right along side the road that you drive on to get to the house.  The dump goes on and on and on.  I would love to have a scrounge around there ( I suspect Greg would too! ).  Bad form to go sticky beaking around though if there’s any chance you’ll get sprung!