Is Electricity an essential service in Australia?

I think the people of Eyre Peninsula SA are now asking ourselves this question after the closure of the Port Augusta power station has seen our region left without enough power!

Regardless of stormy weather, the power has always randomly gone off at our place, even before Pt Augusta closed. But what we are experiencing now is totally different. Long periods without power. Power flicking on and off, yesterday evening ours flicked off and on 6 times in a period of 40 minutes. My oven blew up (mid-Pavlova!), which I can only assume was due to the constant power outages of the previous 24 hours. At least we still HAD power some of the time, the Western Coast of EP had none, and over the Christmas period at that!

Are we expecting too much that our Adelaide based politicians might include our region in their Electricity plans for the state? 

Was there a government analysis undertaken of the ramifications of Pt Augusta closing? Or were the Whetherill government too excited about boasting to their greeny mates about closing another coal power station?

Certainly, the word around EP was Pt Augusta's closure would affect our power supply...... and whadaya know... it has! Go figure!!

So instead of the usual praying for mobile signal, we are now praying for a reliable Electricity supply. Even Afghanistan has 3 hours of electricity per day.

Is it really too much to ask that a region that contributes several billion dollars to this state's economy each year in Agriculture, Aquaculture and Mining, is considered worthy enough to receive a reliable power supply?

Is Electricity an essential service for all Australians? It would appear not to the people of Eyre Peninsula, South Australia.

We accept that bad weather can cause interruptions, we've always accepted that. We are always grateful to those technicians that help restore our power as quickly as they can. But this current arrangement is so unacceptable for a first world country and a region that is already isolated from the mainstream of the state.

You can no longer do business or even live on Eyre Peninsula unless you get yourself a generator, you just have to have one. So to all the greenies I say, 'suck it up sunshine', we are churning so much toxic fuel through those suckers it'd make your head spin, so Bravo people, what a great outcome for the ozone layer!!!

I'm not anti renewable's by any means, but what we work towards for the future health of the planet MUST be kept within 'sensible' parameters so as not to ruin our economy and the livelihoods and wellbeing of our communities.

Basically, I don't care who's fault this is, I don't care what is state or federal responsibility, I don't give a shit about the political blame game blah blah, I just want our elected government to get off their arse and fix it!

p.s. the power went off twice while trying to write this post!

Waterlogged Barley

Water damaged Barley crop seems to be ticking along nicely now with a bit of sunshine over the last 2 days.

Bald patches where water sat

Natural water course that I had never seen so full, some seed did survive the flooding and has come up

There are several bald patches across the farm like this

Flooding on the farm in June 2014

The road to our house was almost totally covered with water, it was an amazing site.

Prior to this event, we had had 90.5mm during the last week of May

Then on June 12th & 13th we had another 40mm, so that was 130.5mm in 3 weeks, which is about 43% or our standard annual rainfall.

Obviously seasons vary, but generally we get about 300mm per year, sometimes up to 350mm if we're lucky.

 This rain event was really rare, hubby certainly had never seen it this wet.

Errr!! So this was our newly sown Barley paddock on June 13th

There were rapids in our driveway!! And Ducks!

This barley paddock dried out reasonably quickly, but some other paddocks still have water sitting in them

Cross slot barley rows

I've been a bit slack at 'floggin my blog' lately so will endeavour to get you some more crop pictures soon.

Harvest is draggin' the chain!

OMG! We are still reaping Barley and we won't finish until a couple of days after New Years.

You would think this is a good complaint; that we have a huge crop; but no, it's just an average crop but we've had several weather interruptions.

Thunder storms this year have meant several breaks of several days to a week where we couldn't reap. When you deliver grain to the silo's, it must be a certain moisture level (which varies for each grain/legume), so when we have rain, we can't reap the crop until it's dry enough.

Our Barley yield this harvest has been very good, but the quality of the grain has not, we've been delivering Feed 2 and Feed 3 (F2 & F3), but the price hasn't been much lower than the Feed 1 grade, so it's not all bad.

Dust coming up over the hill. This is how I know where hubby is working, from the dust

Windrowed Barley on the ground takes longer to dry out after rain than standing crop

 Header box is almost full, you can see the gold coloured grain up on top

Always make sure you stand on the right side of the wind, otherwise you will be covered in grain dust, which is quite itchy, especially Buloke Barley - that's some itchy shit!!!

The 'pick up' is attached to the front of the header. It's like a conveyor belt that picks up the rows of Barley and feeds them into the header.

 If you look closely, you'll see 'Farmer 5' in the cab with Dad

 'Farmer 5' learning his '3 points of contact' while disembarking

 'Farmer 5' has had enough for today, lunchbox is empty too

Hubby nearly stepped on this snake when he got out of the header. Luckily Farmer 5 was not there then. It swiftly met with a shovel and went to greener pastures.

$50k Gamble on Weather Forecast

We've had some lovely rain in the last few weeks, and as we are dryland farmers (we don't irrigate) it's been perfect for our crops, it's the best start to a season that I can remember (which is only the past 10 years!). Last year we didn't even manage 300mm for the year, hopefully this year will be better.

I thought I'd explain some of the reasons farmers watch the weather forecast so intently at certain times of the year.

We wanted to spread Urea (fertiliser) on the Canola and the Barley. In order for the Urea to do its job, it needs several millimeters of rain (preferably 10) to wash it into the soil after the granules are spread, otherwise it goes through a process called volitization, which basically means it evaporates.

You might wonder 'whats the big deal?' - Well for us (a small farm of 6000 acres) it would be $50k worth of Urea down the tube! Gone! Wasted!


Luckily for us, the predicted rain did eventuate, although the boys did have to pull an 'all nighter' to get Urea spread in time. 

Grain farming is an expensive game, it is gambling. To purchase a Header (Harvester) in Australia with no 'trade in', you're looking at around $650k! (Depending on exhange rates etc). 


With the rain comes the mud!

Our roads have held up well over this last period. But the wetter they get, the mudder they become. 

It's sometimes like 'running the gauntlet' on dirt roads. You just hang on and ride with it if you start to slide. 

But, our roads are nothing compared to the dirt roads in the northern areas of Australia. Ours are great compared to that.

Needless to say, we don't wash the car very often during rain events, it's a waste of time until the roads dry out a bit.

A Rare Sound

A couple of months ago my husband said he had heard a Kookaburra near the house. 

I thought "nah! he's just never heard one before, goose!!! Wouldn't be a Kookaburra"!

But, oops...... I was wrong! We do indeed have a new bird in the camp.

How cool to have a Kookaburra. My husband has never known of one before in our area, it's bizarre. 

He proved to be very allusive when it came to getting some good pics! Took several attempts of hearing him laughing hysterically, running outside with the camera and trying to locate him in the trees. Persistence paid off.

  Our driveway is looking really gorgeous at the moment after some nice rain.

Bit of a Novelty

We've had another 23mm of rain over the last week or so which has been great for our crops. Prior to that we had received about 22mm over the end of May, beginning of June.

As we are broadacre dryland croppers, we don't irrigate in any way, we have to rely on mother nature to water and grow our crops.

With the extra rain comes puddles. And man does the farm boy love puddles!