Hey everybody it's been a while since I've been on here just wanted to check in I trust everybody is going well. Been having a look around lots of interesting things been put up in the last year I've been away. I roared laughing at someone's comment on Aussie outback operators yep u gotta b keen. Hey scrub or anybody else who might b interested have u ever seen the country this dry have been pulling timer out Mitchell morven way and then went up to the curry through long reach then back across to townsville and I gotta say I'm very warried about the dry there is no stock to mention and the am out of drovers on the road is well overwhelming. Even been back in the saddle myself this year trying to keep cattle alive and most of them are so poor they have the smell of death on them u know that pussy smell. Tractor work has been hard to get and an offsider that knows how to thin timber with a chain even harder to get. Was also wondering if u have struck pammerlier b4 was running a couple of nines down stgeorge way a couple of months back and watching the stock drop from the pammerlier it's the first time I've come across it. I reckon it's gotta b a wild plant because not even the goats will stand it do u know wat it does to em. The worst thing is there doesent seem to b any rain in sight. Cheers cam 85
Global warming is making a more pronounced appearance each year, it seems. With California suffering droughts of increasing severity each passing year, one cannot but wonder how many more years existing water supplies can sustain the USA West Coast, UNLESS some major investments are made in sea water desalination. The brown landscape down under in Australia looks so similar to the parched hills of Southern California, so the drought this year really is hitting most continents hard. Hope y'all get some rain soon. Can't imagine what it would be like to watch crops and livestock withering away due to water getting so scarce.
We here in the midwest USA have had one of the rainiest years on record, its amazing how the weather patterns can change!
The northern UK is taking a major drenching at the moment, for sure. There may be some validity to the opinion often expressed, that current extreme weather trends are not necessarily consequences of man-made global warming, but rather may be due to Mother Nature's own eons-old cycles of climate variation that would still occur regardless of whether or not zero-emissions energy generation technology is adopted worldwide in the next few years.
Are you getting your information from the current occupant in the White House? No offense, but it's called weather and it's been happening for about 4 billion years now. Some years are dry, some are wet, and some are in between those extremes.
I'll go ahead and blame CNN for bombarding me with programs about the melting polar caps and such. Sure hope the scientists are wrong, what with all their bleak forecasts regarding the increasingly frequent droughts being recorded in places like California and Australia.
Not I, I'm not thinking about newcomers to the subject how about this guy: http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/06/20010611-2.html Any way you look at it there are problems for many places that will suffer no matter the cause.
Al Gore was preaching global warming in the 90's, just a way of the political machine to make money off the hard working taxable folks here in the great US of A. :cussing The rules say no politics so I better stop there.
Yair . . . Gotcha Cam85 Just saw your post. Hard dry times indeed . . . I'm heading off and running late will catch up in a day or so. Cheers.
Where I am sitting right now was under three thousand feet of ice about sixteen thousand years ago. I think global warming might predate the SUV and Al Gore.
Brian, you know what they say it's like only a hundred miles down? hotter than hell, or a minute sitting between Gore and Hillary in the back of a Geo. While we're on the subject, has anybody seen any reference to the nitrogen cycle in any global warming projections or models? I've googled occasionally and it seems kinda odd that something so basic doesn't seem to be taken into account. Extremely locally we had an unusually dry summer but it was also cool so I haven't heard of how bad the corn yields were down, it looked pretty good. Texas had some dramatic rainfalls, I assume they're back to average for soil moisture for the most part. California has plenty of water for agriculture and cities, they just have to conserve a little when the courts say half of it has to go down the drain to keep the fish happy. Growing alfalfa in the desert doesn't help either...
Actually in the late 80s and early 90s the same bloodsuckers on government income was saying that if the weather kept cooling off we would have a unrecoverable ice age. Lots of published college and government papers in the system from then. Some predicted complete chaos and starvation by the year 2,000. The same ones are still on the take and now preaching globel warming. All working with data that only goes back with any accuracy about 200 years. This earth has been hot and cold for millions of years and will continue to do the same.
Several reputable scientists recently have published articles damning NASA for altering the base data on temperatures, the true raw data shows a slight cooling for the last few years with a flat line for a decade before that. One article stated we are coming off a double high energy cycle for the sun and we will have another ten or fifteen years of cooling from today. The Artic ice sheet is no smaller than it has been during previously recorded melt offs, Antartica however is at an all time high for ice and is growing every year.
I think something weird is going on with the weather. I was putting up Christmas lights this year in a t-shirt, and not chilly at all. I am only about 30 miles south of where I grew up. I remember helping Dad put them up when I was a kid, wearing all the winter clothes I had and still freezing. I don't think I toughened up that much since then, lol.
The weather has been weird as long as I been alive. Some warm, some cold, we had 3 freezing springs in a row until June until this past spring was normal. We have had snow in every month of the year at some time or another in the last 60 years. Only thing normal about the weather is that it is inconsistent.
Amen! We've spent a few christmases in shorts, and even had 1 in the single digits!!!!
I don't know, I'm not all that old and I can remember plowing snow on Thanksgiving a few times, other thanksgiving's it has been 65* outside. It's all cyclical imo.
Yair . . . In reply to Cam85 upthread. Climate change, natural or man made, or just a natural cycle in the great scheme of creation things are desperate in Western Queensland and this big dry is heading into regions we have never been. Millions of acres have been destocked and the only things surviving in some parts are snakes, lizards, crows and dingoes that are feeding well on drought weakened kangaroos. I am told the highway into Longreach in places is lined with road kills and the stink is overpowering . . . as Cam85 mentions there are not good prospects in the future for any decent rain. It is truly a desperate situation for folks in those far flung droughted areas, for some this will be the fifth year with no rain . . . can you imagine a five year old child who has never seen a puddle? The pimelea Cam85 mentions is a native plant that tends to take over drought stressed country . . . it is an early germinator with a little bit of rain. We used to call the poisoning "St George" disease and it is characterised by cattle scouring, loosing condition and, in the later stages swelling of the under jaw and brisket. Apparently the plant causes constriction of blood vessels in the lungs and I remember I was amazed when as a young bloke seeing it for the first time I could actually hear the heartbeats of the poor bloody cattle before I shot them. Cheers.
Thanks scrub so in effect it attacks the lungs. For as long as I can remember people or land holders have been griping about drought and I alwase said it is mostly man made from overstocking and poor infistructure and no matience. But I gota say this time round it is truly heartbreaking and I don't own the land. Fair enough I went into dozer work everything from gas,mining,council work,subdivision work and cow cocky work but my roots have alwase been on the land and I really believed the backbone of Qld was is and alwase will b the man on the land But man oh man what the hell,s going on the Chinese are buying up land there is men families and sutch walking of there blocks banks tacking the land back men swallowing bullets and no end in sight. Even when the seasons do change how the hell are the cockys meant to restock. One bloke I was working for tryin to keep a 155 komatsu open cab direct drive piece of junk going had me on the dozer pulling mulguar one day and in the saddle the next the sorry minding stock on the road the sorry mob of cattle he was trying to keep alive really got to me I've seen cattle on the march b4 I've seen drought stock b4 and pulled em but I've never wanted to shoot em all out of mercy b4! It was woeful and it's unnerving to c the land that has been so very good to me in sutch peril
Jeepers, Scrub Puller, that made for the sort of unsettling read that one wishes could have been confined to the world of science fiction. Drastic changes in the course of human history, brought about directly by climate change and prolonged drought, are manifesting right now in our time, and the Apocalyptic scenes you describe are straight from one of the most drought ravaged locations on the planet. Five years without rain is a sobering statistic to contemplate. In the near term, by harnessing the abundant wind-power available along most coastlines, so as to meet the energy needs of desalination plants the world over, the human race will buy itself much more time than there may be at present, before crunch time. Solar power is going mainstream finally, and dedicated shoreline solar panel farms could also contribute to the vast amounts of the energy needed to extract fresh water from sea water, that truly limitless resource. / rant over
Hey marsh that's all well n good but we still gotta eat I for one like beef but with no stock it's gotta run out no matter wat u grow it all needs water. The road kill is not bad at all just bones left barky and blackall look good but from there north just dirt there is no animals left to hit just a few sheep n goats that obvisually being fed. Even the mills I drove past most had the tails pulled in. For those of u that don't know if the tail of the windmill is wound in it is to stop it pumping water well it slowes it down a lot anyway
Last thing I will say on this "environment" thing is what a neighbor of mine who passed away several years ago said. "The environment is like a swimming pool. If one little boy pisses in your pool you will never know it. But there comes a point that if enough little boys are pissing in the pool you are going to be swimming in ****!"
It's hard to know what is global climate change and what is a local issue. The US had it's dust bowl due to poor farming practices over a wide area followed by low rainfall years. Sometimes if you strip too much vegetation and lose the ability to retain the water and release some back into the air to help keep humidity up and somewhat cool the land, a drought can become self sustaining. Of course several years of natural drought can cause the same effect I think.
Bottom line is there is so much water on this earth. It evaporates and falls somewhere. If an area is dry some where else it is wet. Except for a couple weeks we have been almost to wet all year and it is still raining, another inch yesterday in December. Ocean currents (El Nino, La Nina)have a big effect on our central US weather patterns. I believe as Lan said, a prolonged drought can be self sustaining to an effect because of exceedingly dry land not evaporing moisture into the air. It will take a big globel push moves to move more water laden air in to the area.
The warming theory called for California to get more rain, but when it started getting dry it all gets blamed on warming. Nothing but politics.
In the last five years most of Qld. has seen record breaking floods as well as the current drought. Wether influenced by man or not, the climate does seem to be producing more extreme weather events. Here, we are in the grip of an el-niño at the moment and Iam hoping it will break in the Autumn, as they often do.
So far in Central and Southern California we're calling it " el nada" as nothing has happened yet. Hope I don't have to eat those words later.
missus an I took a drive nth to do a bit of fossicking late june (we're in s/e qld), yeah worst we've ever seen not even dead grass for 100 kl in some areas around hughy. fresh water crocs were even dying in scarce waterholes up further, 3rd failed wet season going into 4th. saw 1 jaberoo, no other water birds. called in at family who bought 85000 acre block from great granpa 100 yrs ago, down to their last 7000 ewes an waterhole below homestead was gonna dry up by august (never been dry in 2 families history) tey were gona shear an sell them an move to town(longreach) as it supplied house too. could drive 200ks an count cattle sawn on 2 hands in paddocks. don't believe in global warming, the sun an it's different cycals drives ALL our weather, tides/gravity effects an it ALL interacts more than a super computer can predict. dad reckons that the more mankind rebels against his Creator ,the madder the weather will get.(shore borne out in the old testament history of the isralites). I keep praying for them up nth to get rain but maybe repentence comes first.
I have been wondering lately if the powers that be have a strategy to counter global warming with a nuclear winter, courtesy of our new Iranian Mullah friends.
I believe that the idea that man has no effect on global conditions is narrow minded, and the idea that man can affect a desired change is just plain preposterous. I remember growing up hearing that by now we would be in an ice age. Studying every aspect of climate is great in my mind, but predicting what is to come is foolish. One large volcanic eruption in a magnitude much greater than Mt. St. Helens, that spews ash across an entire continent, will change conditions for decades to come instantly. As mentioned earlier in this thread, variables in the output received from the sun are beyond our control. I read one opinion that the sun has had two warmer areas that have been situated recently so that we have received greater impact, and that those two areas are beginning to migrate to portions of the sun that will provide less heat in our direction, and that we may be in the beginning stages of a mini ice age over the next 30 years or so. I should stop now before I stray into the political arena.
Oxbow, I read something similar about the sun, as I recall this scientist pointed out that there were two overlapping hot/cold cycles, one of fairly short duration and another cycle of much longer duration. Apparently we have had a rare synchronization of the two as of late, where the short cycle peaked just about the same time the longer cycle went over it's peak high, thus a double whammy of sun output. As an aside, I still think the hole in the ozone over the Southern Sea was caused by billions of barrels of oil spilled or lost when the tankers went down off the horn of Africa. The lighter elements come to the surface and are carried forever in a circle around Antarctica where the sunlight oxidizes them and the resulting chemicals rise and deplete the ozone. The companies that stood to make a profit claimed it was the propellant in aerosol cans and the refrigerant in your car, but why would that not affect the Northern hemisphere, since that's where literally all of those gasses were being released? As always, follow the money!
So, nearly one month later, how are you faring OM? We read about record flooding in large areas of the U.S. and U.K. The El Niño here is showing signs of cracking, with some of the most desperate areas of Qld. receiving their first useful rain in three years. I'am still hopefull we will see a good general break in the season in the next month or so.
So far we have received a dribble of rain on the Central Coast. In spit of all the "weather liars" it's just not happening. At this point I don't know what to expect but we are a long ways from recovery and any significant filling of reservoirs. Meanwhile well pumping keeps going deeper and land subsidence is a concern. On the brighter side the Sierras are getting a decent snow pack.
St. Louis, Missouri here in the U.S. got 12 inches of rain for the month of december, previous record was 7.5 inches in 1982, there was quite a bit of flooding, stretches of interstate under water for a while from what I heard. I'm upstream on the Mississippi river quite a ways in Illinois, we also had a record rainfall month of december. I hope you guys get some good rainfall! I can't imagine going that long without much rain.
Boy, I wish we could share with you guys, we got 26" in 40 hrs the first week of Oct. and it was wet when that happened. We've had rain one or two days out of every week since.
The reason I asked OM how he was getting on, is that that our statewide newspaper said, amongst other things when discussing El Niño, "a steady convoy of storms slammed most of California" Gotta love journalists, eh?
You got that right. As I am typing we are actually getting a nice gentle rain. What you'd expect for a normal winter here. Coarse the news heads directly for the biggest puddle, fallen tree or flowing stream of water to declare a national emergency. It's called winter and every rain cloud is not a "storm". Does come with the usual assortment of man made disasters like mud flows and landslides etc, mostly due to poor development planning. I really do sympathize with our South East and Midwest folks and others that are getting hammered with all that water.
In what may be a world record, a group from southern NSW has put together a convoy of 130 trucks carrying 5000 bales of hay some 1800 km into drought stricken central western Qld. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-09/burrumbuttock-hay-runners-deliver-to-western-queensland-graziers/7078526 With everything donated, I think the following quote some sums up their attitude nicely. ''We are not a registered charity, I am just a bloke with a truck and can get a **** load of hay." Brendan Farrell, Burrumbuttock Hay Runners founder
Very impressive. Can't see that happening here in money grubbing California. They would rather war over water rights.
If that wasn't enough, they're doing it again as I type. This time with some 390 trailers of hay and donated goods. Someone should give these people a medal.
That many trucks ,, the DOT would have a field day here.
It being Australia they'll probably have been given a police escort ....... good on 'em. Amazing that on a Google search all you need to do is start typing burrum..... and long before you get to the end of the word the top of the list is The Burrumbuttock Hay Runners .... http://www.9news.com.au/national/20...nation-to-help-drought-stricken-queenslanders
This needs to be seen by more people. Looking through some of the articles and video it's amazing how one truck driver started it off a couple of years ago with a single load of hay and yet the latest run is 400 trailer loads .......
A man I know asked the question of a local old gent born in 1904 (he has now passed on) "When should I plant potatoes?" His response; "Gawd I don't know any more. For years we just did it by the weather, 'till them God Damned fools went over to Japan, and set off them bombs. After that we followed the moon 'till they went up there, and walked all over it."
Yair . . . Well said Nige. Folks (me included) can get emotional over this . . .over half a million bucks in fuel and they did twelve tyres yesterday. Cheers.
God bless 'em. I know it's hard to look at something like this from a cold hearted logic point of view, but after this many years of it, I think we would say here that someone's beating a dead horse? There must be some alternatives that would bring in more water or move the herds off and let the land recover when/if the weather cycles back around? I'm just throwing that out there trying to understand a bit better the situation.
lantraxco, Civil engineer Dr. John Bradfield designed a scheme, whereby the rivers of the tropical north could be diverted into Western Qld., many decades ago. Arguments for and against have raged ever since... in any case there has never been a govt. with the money or courage to give it a go. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradfield_Scheme Huge areas of the worst affected country were largely destocked years ago, most of this hay will be used to keep smaller numbers of core breeder herds going. Cheers, Greg
Thanks for that. Yeah, California has been robbing water for over a century now and has run out of places to steal it from. They wanted some Columbia river (flows down the border between Washington and Oregon) water but somehow they couldn't think of a single benefit to anybody but large California Corporations, so NO. The problem with bringing in more water, then the users grow until once again you hit the limit, and then there's a drought cycle that maybe affect the new water sources as well. This is where California is, something has to give. I don't know anything about the geology, is it possible there are good underground water flows that could be tapped with deep wells?
Yair . . . . lantraxco. These may be of interest . . . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Artesian_Basin http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=993&page=0 Many of the places that hay is going have access to artesian stock water . . . lack of rain to grow feed is the problem. The underground aquifer could not support irrigation and much of the resource has been wasted over the years by allowing the bores to run feeding thousands of miles of open drains. The last decade has seen some effort to cap bores and run the pipe through poly to troughs but as usual it is probably too little too late. Picture of a bore drain that has been flowing since 1901 . . . . And showing a horse drawn "delver" used every year or so to keep them flowing . . . this was a fairly big business with contractors in most districts and horse teams were common enough up until (say) the mid fifties. Cheers.
Interesting stuff. Very much in line with the history here of overuse of aquifer water, though it seems from skimming through some of that the strata is different there, a vertically narrower and slower recharging aquifer. As the aboriginals here and there I'm sure would say, you have to learn to live in harmony with nature, not try to control it. Here we mowed down huge forest for farm land and then pushing westward tried to plow and crop land that had previously only supported buffalo grass. The dust bowl was the result. Not making comparisons, just noting that it seems every time we try to improve on nature we really screw things up. As a side note, I just read an article where they said that Saudi Arabian cattle companies are buying land in the American Southwest among other places to grow feed crops for their beef cattle. I guess if you have more or less unlimited petrodollars you can eat steak and roast beef as much as you want. No ham of course.
I'm not a expert, but isn't there some sort of way that you could cheaply and efficiently treat salt water to make it drinkable for California?
Desalination and filtration is neither cheap nor efficient, though it is being done, as well as waste water recycling for irrigation and industrial uses. The water shortage though comes down to overpopulation and the competition between people and business. The citrus farms as an example are huge consumers of water, many of the crops grown in Cali because of the warm climate and lots of sun require lots of water. Evaporation from ponds and canals along with irrigation is also an issue. Hell, they're still bottling water there and shipping it out of state, because they can. One issue I recall from working down there in the 90's which may have been partially addressed in the interim, when it rained in L.A. it all ran straight to the Ocean. All their drinking water came from many miles away via pipeline and canal, no storage for rainwater, and of course a million square miles of asphalt and concrete so no replenishing of groundwater. Making more of any resource simply brings more useage/people. The most obvious example of this is adding lanes and bypasses to major highways. Some stretches of roadway in California the last time I drove down to Long Beach to ride a tugboat were eight lanes in each direction, and still had traffic jams during peak traffic. It's just human nature, if everybody want's it and supply increases, demand increases to use up available supply.
Hey scrub that horse drawn contraption cleaning out that bore drain wouldn't oxen have been better ? Long b4 my time I am interested in how things where done b4 machinery took over. God bless the people delivering hay. I start griping about the decline of society and then then I see something like this it just goes to show the Aussie ideal lives on. Thank god Kidman is still Aussie owned
Yair . . . Gotcha Cam85 Good to hear from you again! They were before my time too, I only ever saw one horse drawn delving plant working near St George. As I understand it most delving was done with horse teams. Bullocks were used but I imagine horses were probably a little quicker? The camps were interesting with growing vegetables on platforms and laying hens in cages swinging underneath the wagons. On some drains they lived on yabbies. I have seen old black and white photos of kids with buckets harvesting as they were flipped out by the delver . . . a hard life in a dry land. When tractors took over one particular model of Nuffield was the machine of choice because it had more adjustment of the track so it could in fact straddle some of the smaller drain instead of pulling from the side. There are a few references on the net to delving. One contractor at Moree had over fifty draught horses . . . this is the only other picture I could find . . . . Cheers.
I'm not a Trump fan. He's a terrible human being. He's a bully, swindler, con man, and his comb over looks silly. In his BS there is a grain of logic. We allow wholesale violation of our own immigration laws so wealthy people can get new roofs, and maids cheaply. This constant stream of people only adds to a multitude of problems in an overcrowded state. Perhaps Donald should build a tunnel from Mexico to Washington State. Those people need roofs more than the people in drought prone California. Maybe he could use the tunnels now carrying people to California to pump water to California. Waste not, want not.
What's a yabby?
Crawdad, had to google it myself.
Ahh, mudbug.
Willie B I'm going to remind you of our Forum Rules here on HEF - It can be found here for future reference - HeavyEquipmentForums Take notice of this particular part - Your post above clearly violates those rules and will not be tolerated here on HEF. We Mods strive to keep HEF a place on the net to discuss heavy equipment and related issues in an environment that welcomes all who want to participate. There are plenty of places on the WWW to discuss politics, societal issues and anything else under the sun but HEF is soley here for heavy equipment discussions. You've been warned.
Sorry about that. It was meant more as humor than politics. In reality, I don't prefer any of the major candidates. Willie
Thanks scrub wow it almost sounds like a tale from the cowboys and Indian days from the states. A yabbie is a freshwater prawn a few different varieties are around they can get pretty big and are a good feed.
Imagine trying to keep an even pull with the horses. I have heard of a small scoop or bowle behind horses. I find it hard to believe this was b4 your time scrub ( ha ha ha )
Central America has large freshwater prawns similar to that are delicious with a few cold barley beverages They are similar to the crawfish we have here but do not have pinchers, just long front legs and much larger. Which reminds me it's crawfish season!:yup
Did I read that right you are saying Scrub is older than horses? Maybe he used dinosaurs to pull the scoops!
Scrub is that old? Maybe he can answer my question. I have always wondered what color dirt was when it was still clean. LOL
Did you try taking some home and washing it?
It seems as though scrub isn't gunna bite
Scrub seems to have dropped off the radar, mid thread, about a fortnight ago. I'am sure he's OK, I seem to recall him having issues with connectivity in the past.
And his internet was spotty as well... :tong
LOL, I'am not sure that connectivity was even a word ten years ago.
Yair it was, but it was spoken in bars about lasses with nice a**es :tong
Yair . . . . Gotcha fellers, back again, computer issues, connectivity issues, and, some how, I chewed up all my data allocation . . . we'll see if its sorted this time. Cheers.
Good to see you back Scrub, the internet version of "connectivity" seems to be an issue for most of us living in regional areas. Have you looked into the satellite NBN they are about to roll out? Installations were supposed to start this month but I reckon there will be huge demand. I was over in your neck of the woods last weekend, for a wedding at 1770. A beautiful part of the world, the country looks a picture at the moment. Cheers, Greg
Yair . . . Gotcha Queenslander. It's good to be back too. If I didn't have the manuscript I'm working on to keep me occupied I would have gone stir crazy. For all the bull$hite on the internet it's a great resource if you can sort the seed from the chaff . . . this site in particular. I'm always trying to get some of my old retired friends on here but not much luck I'm sorry to say. Haven't looked into the NBN . . . in truth this Optus Wireless hasn't been too bad. There were compatibility issues when we had a forced upgrade to Windows 10 which meant we had to go to a different modem which came with Wi-Fi which somehow went through our allocation of data . . . it gets expensive if you go over. A good grass season around here alright. It is patchy though for run off and there are dams around that didn't fill. To change the subject . . . that picture in my #54 post, nothing remarkable these days with drones and all but I wonder how it was taken? That's open downs country and unlikely to have tall trees to get that overhead shot. I thought the two parallelish lines on the far side of the drain were a set of vehicle wheel tracks through burnt country but maybe they are telegraph lines and it was taken from a pole? . . . dunno, it's got me beat. Cheers.
i remember my dad using a mule and a scoop behind it to move dirt compared to now it seemed to take forever.
Windmill perhaps, when delving do you go with or against the flow? I have an old Comet catalogue that lists big diameter pumps to lift large flows with short heads into bore drains. We are arsy enough to pick up some Telstra mobile reception, with the help of a directional aerial, despite our remote location. Recently, we've had huge chunks of data disappearing into the nether regions as well. The NBN satellite service, or Skymuster, promises to deliver at least three times the data at much the same price we are paying now.
Yair . . . Yes Queenslander it will be interesting to see how this satellite NBN pans out, I thought about a mill too but there seems no logical reason for one to be there. . . interesting about the pumps. I have never heard of lifting into bore drains. In some places there has been some interesting engineering to design cuttings to take a drain through hilly country. Running as they do for miles across the contour heavy rains could be a disaster as the drain would pick up all the cross country flow. I used to dread storm season as it often resulted in days of heavy muddy shovel work repairing blowouts. They were delved in either direction depending on where the delver ended up and generally the station or the bore-drain Cooperative owned the delver. If anyone is interested there is a picture on this site . . . http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=30436 . . . of (I think) eighteen bullocks pulling a crude delver fashioned from round timber and ballasted with bags of dirt or rocks . . . the site works well on my computer and allows good zoom and manipulation of the image. I am going on about drains but I can't stress enough the significance of the recourse to the early development of the arid regions . . . millions of acres of once waterless country was opened up with the miracle of flowing water it was quite remarkable. Cheers.
Could be that the bore is a non flower and they are using the mill to lift water into the drain. If the water doesn't quite make it to the surface, it would be possible to place a mill beside the bore, drop a suction line down and use a big syphon pump. Best performance on the Comet pumping table I have, is a 24ft mill with an 18inch pump, lifting 183000 imp.gallons daily over a 22ft head. Bigger mills show reduced output with larger heads. I'am not sure if such a humungous pump was ever made, but it does sound very optimistic.
I cannot see any Linfox or Toll trucks in the picture
That's for sure.... mostly just those "unsafe" owner operators that some are trying to put out of business at the moment.
Yair . . . Spot on comments fellers. (shakes head) Cheers.
Weather gurus tell us that el Nino has collapsed here in recent weeks and is being replaced with a la Niña situation. Most of the driest parts of the country have received their best rainfall in three years. We have largely missed out so far, but are expecting good rain in the next couple of hours. Fingers crossed.
Yair . . . Were watching it too Queenslander. Best of luck with it. Cheers.
Wound up with 140 pts, not as much as some but greatly appreciated nonetheless. These old photos were posted on FB, apparently the driver pulled over after the road became slippery and was then hit with a 13"(?) storm, near Wilcania in NW New South Wales.
Yair . . . Gotcha Queenslander. Thought you might have done better than that . . . thirty three mm over here. Cheers.
Had about 6 inches out morven way 1 dam I built is full got one half built and it's half full on a ripped floor and I can't move the dozer good to see some rain about out tambo way lookes good and I c steers getting 385 cent a kg wow!!!
Yair . . . Good one Cam85. Nice to see a post from you occasionally. Notice how a bit of rain on top of decent prices seems to change the whole mood and feeling in a district . . . not just the cockies, every one seems to be in a better frame of mind. And oh dear, you got caught with a ripped floor? (grins) Cheers.
Ha ha yea mate good hear from u to. Been fighting hard the last 18 mounths or so and even my heart is starting to fail not much work around the competition is thick and no one wants to pay. Considering getting out of machinery and go b a yardy at a school or something