Out of the Drought

Well here, we are..... but still not so fortunate in other parts of the country.
Not so far north of here, 50km as the crow flies, things look absolutely dire. From SH1, Taihape and Hunterville hills looked grey and grim under an overcast sky, in a late afternoon drive-through last Sunday. Quite rightly they're worried about the onset of frosts stopping autumn growth in its tracks, whatever of that they could expect from 9mm rain through April reported by one source.

Compare this kitchen-window shot with the March one

Down here, a stone's throw from the coast, we've had 141mm through April, and with heaps of latent heat in the soil, daily PGR's have been cranking along at 50 kg/ha since middle of the month. That's on the hills, the flats do 5kg better than that.
Actually, its hard to call it a bad summer and autumn for here. The extraordinary lower rainfall Sep through Dec, about half historical average, certainly set things up bad with no surplus feed carry-over, but rainfall Jan through Mar was actually above average each month.
The summer feed crops have been a boon, and I can now use the buffer hill-sidling feed reserve to build the cows up, while the back hills recover.
Its great to see the replacement ewe lambs putting some meat on. Although they've been on crop all through, I have pushed them to clean up the stubble, and lets face it, there hasn't been much feed off it.
Till now....

Hire cherry picker fixing woolshed spouting

To be honest, I've enjoyed the long summer days, it hasnt been too hot but working in loose clothing has been order of the day from sunup to sundown, not being rained off all those satisfying repair jobs, and stock work, no holdups getting the shearing done.
The last few summers have been pretty crappy short affairs, its almost like a cycle of return to the long summers we enjoyed years ago, when drought was an annual distant plaintive from somewhere over Hawkes Bay way.
The bees must have enjoyed it too going by reports from apiarists about this seasons honey crop being a bumper. Makes you wonder if the poor summer weather has been the cause of bee population decline rather than the anthropogenic wailing.
When seasons are wet, flowering's poor, and bees cant fly, its OUR FAULT.
And when we get a drought, its still OUR FAULT.
FFS, some people need to get real jobs.