This is a huge piece of machinery isn’t it?! It’s a D9 bulldozer and it’s about to dig a great big dam for us.
Last year was a terrible year, east of Esperance, season wise. We hadn’t had run off rain for nearly 18 months (that’s rain that will put water into the dams) and our two key dams were dry.
We sent nearly all of cows and calves away on agistment because we’d run out hay and didn’t have enough water for the cattle. We hoped that if we off-loaded them, we would have enough for the sheep.
We made the most of having dry dams and had four cleaned out of mud that had clustered in the bottom, stopping the dams from holding as much as they could.
We hope never to have a year like that again, but it’s unlikely with the forecasters predicting our part of the world is going to get drier over the next decade or so. We’re don’t want to get caught out again, so we’re doing something about it.
Once the dam has been finished and it’s full, it’ll hold more water than I could possible imagine and I’m looking forward to that!
Them D9’s are impressive aren’t they? Do you rely on direct rainfall into the dams or have you got scour lines or pumping opportunities? My place is steep without many good places to put a dam, but at least I can direct run-off from the hillside into it. And it only has to water yabbies and snakes and birds etc. ‘Hope it does rain for you. Trev.
Hi Trev
Yep, completely reliant on rainfall! Out on this farm anyway – we do have another one that’s got underground water. We direct water into the dams by putting a catchment area onto them when they’re built and then send the water where it needs to go, by windmills to tanks and tanks to troughs.
Good news is we had over an inch of rain on Friday night!
Hi I found this site by mistake i was searching Google web application info when I came upon your site, I must say your site is quite cool I really like the theme, its spiffy. I haven’t really got the the time at the mo to fully read your site but I hit bookmarked it and also signed up for your RSS feeds. I will be back in a day or two. thanks for a enthusiastic site.
Hi Bleach Episode! Pleased you found me and to know you will be visiting again! I hope you like the site, more, when you get time to have a look around!