The sky isn’t falling, it just feels as though it is.

I’ve got a case of the grizzlies this month, as due to circumstances mostly beyond my control the wheels have come off. With all the wet weather we are having, production is well down, costs are well up and the farm workers are fed up. It’s no wonder the boss is grumpy.

Last month, I said I was quietly confident that the Kerang farm would not get flooded. Which just proves that, like Winnie the Pooh, I am a bear with a little brain. In the end there was no contest and we got smashed, 95 per cent of the farm went under water and a lot of it still is. We lost all of the hay and silage that was ready to cut, plus three months’ worth of milk cheques but still have to wear all the costs. I am determined not to be grumpy, it’s not as though the sky has fallen in.

The Lake Boga farm is also in disarray, with 300 mm of rain since the end of August, leaving most of the laneways unusable and our feed pad area is a big, sloppy mud pit. The cows’ hooves have gotten soft from standing in mud and water for so long. Milk production has dropped- we cannot expect the cows to milk well when they only have terrible flood water to drink. We swapped them onto a 250,000 litre rainwater tank and it lasted a whole of four days, so they are back to drinking the disgusting river water.

In my 30 years of farming, I cannot remember conditions as tough as the past two months. Yes, I am still struggling to contain my grumpiness though lots have had it tougher so I must try to grin, bear it and try to be grateful.

The road from our house to civilisation has been accessible by 4WD only for the past two months, making it quite the adventure getting the kids to and from school. There’s no such things as visitors, even our bookkeeper can’t get to the office to work. It’s time like these I really need to focus on the big things only- there’s not a lot of point being grumpy over a road is there?

I haven’t had time to be in the factory for two months and in truth I am very pleased about that-being inside a room of white walls for the better part of a day is a bit like wearing long pants- you shouldn’t have to, except in an emergency. Nothing to frown about there. Instead, I have been riding 20 kms of levee banks each day checking for problems- they’re mostly inaccessible except on a two wheeler and most days I see 18 kangaroos, three wallabies, four turtles, three fox cubs (I don’t like foxes), hundreds of birds, four snakes, 30 stick snakes (a very dangerous species) and 18,000 mosquitoes. Just work that through for a minute… as a grown man, it is my job to ride a motorbike through bush and along an amazing river in flood for up to two hours per day. How cool is that? I should be grinning like the Cheshire Cat!.

Despite the difficulties there is always good news and we have also been lucky enough to buy some adjoining land. It took me 18 months from from first enquiry to get a signature on the dotted line, but we take over on December 15. It will double the size of our enterprise, most likely send me broke or give me a heart attack but it will be one heck of an adventure. There is no question I have one of the best jobs going around.