Bore Success!

BY AYESHA JOY CLIFFORD©

WE hit the water jackpot in a couple of ways this week.

While the Amazing Husband has been Walking For Water (see previous post) we also hit our own water jackpot on The Pretty Farm.

This summer has been dry for the Northern Rivers of New South Wales..

Up to March 17, we had only just passed 100mls of rain for the year to date.

Just for comparison, here are the previous few year's totals for the same time:

• 2013 - 578mls
• 2012 - 428
• 2011 - 507
• 2010 - 368

 Records we have going back to 1905 testify to varying rainfall over the years. This year’s summer rainfall was low by any comparison for this part of the Northern Rivers on data available.  

Thanks to much fencing, a planned grazing regime and the past few wet years, we have good pasture residuals going into winter.

We have been wanting to sink a bore at our place for the past few years and had a site located by a local legend "Snow" last year.

Snow walked all over our place looking for water and I joked to the Amazing Husband that the site would be right in front of our house and guess what?

 BORE SUCCESS: The drillers thought we hit the jackpot with our new bore.

This was the outlook from the office this week: A rain shower coming in from the south-west and water flowing from the drilling rig - not far down!

Now I'm no expert on bores but that's pretty unusual according to the experts. 

"You should buy a Lotto ticket," they joked. We are already winners.

We struck a great flow, looks like lovely water (yet to be officially tested) at less than half the depth we were expecting (and about half the price!). Happy customers but I did feel a tad for the contractors. Ouch! Not to worry – they are busy at the moment.

So on that watery note, we're feeling pretty blessed here on The Pretty Farm.

We had 22.5mls of lovely, gentle soaking rain this week and a "really good" water bore drilled.

Now the “really” fun part: working out who gets to sit on the tractor and who gets to walk behind juggling that giant roll of pipe into the pipe layer to get lovely bore water around to all our paddocks.

The girls are going to be so happy!

Walk for Water

 

IMAGE from http://www.walk4water.com.au/.

BY AYESHA JOY CLIFFORD©

ALL excitement at our little farm here in the Northern Rivers this week - and it's all about water.

The amazing husband has been a man on a mission - WaterAid's Walk for Water fundraising challenge. 

He has been walking 10,000 steps a day to fulfill funding pledges to raise money to provide access to safe drinking water for people in 27 of the world's poorest countries.

With all the talk in Australia about dry times, it really put things in perspective to read about people - often very young girls and women - who really have no choice but to walk a long way -  up to 20km every day - carting heavy containers of drinking water.

Worldwide it is estimated 750 million people still do not have access to safe water.

I'm delighted that the Amazing Husband joined  Walk For Water and we're both delighted with the local generosity.

So far from the tiny community of Kyogle,  he has raised enough money to fund the building of at least one and probably two wells for drinking water. 

Kyogle is a small town (population 4000) known for its big heart.

The generosity of the community and businesses comes at a time when many are also donating to charities for Australian farmers as well as experiencing their own dry summer here in the Northern Rivers.

Congratulations to the team and thanks to generous Kyogle for helping others less fortunate.

Congratulations also to the Amazing Husband who has diligently spend this week clocking up the 10,000 steps every day and even doing a practice run on his birthday last week. 

More information is at www.walk4water.com.au.

Rivalry in the Afternoon

Joy Boosters in Boots

JOY boosters - Bartie is a fan of the bright new additions.

BY AYESHA JOY CLIFFORD ©

I'VE got big feet! 

Actually, for a lady, they're huge - nudging size 11.5. I've often thought of the Cinderella wannabees trying to squash their feet into dainty slippers.

Perhaps that's why boots have became a staple of my wardrobe.

Long before they were trendy and as a busy journo working in the Beef Capital, I would seek out boots in all shapes, sizes and colours that could comfortably accommodate my good grip on the earth, all day long.

I've had steel caps, gum boots, meatworks ankle whites, platforms, dance boots - an eclectic variety that has taken me from press conferences to dusty military fly-ins, to power stations, kill floors, floods and fancy nights out.

When I worked in Tokyo, my boots announced my origins as much as the Claybourn and blonde hair. They also opened many a conversation that ensured a solo traveller was rarely alone in a foreign country captivated by our wild spaces and wild places, and maybe not a little by our wild people. 

Boots add that something extra that is hard to define. The artistry and expression, the combination of creativity and practicality appeals to me.

When the Amazing Husband and I first began working together on his 24,000 acre property at Marlborough, he proudly presented me with a pair of steel caps.

A couple of months old now and these gumboots are yet to meet mud in the Northern Rivers.

Fast forward to our farm in the Northern Rivers and ankle-gracing boots lose all appeal walking through thick grass with docile red-bellied snakes often a little tardy in getting out of the way. 

Knee-high gum boots have become my farm fashion statement of choice through several years of consecutive flood and wet.

It's dry here now so perhaps it was time for a boot update too - a little joy boost in my day.

The Amazing Husband presented me not with roses on Valentine's Day but with something far more precious - candy-pink boots!

It is dry. We're culling cows. We're calculating herbage mass and DSE in our sleep. These shiny pink beauties are a shot of pure, frivolous joy in my day.

A reminder to daily look for the bright shots of  joy in the dust of life.