Expect the Unexpected - 20/09/2011

Living life on the farm, we are always expecting the unexpected. But we didn't expect the events of January and February this year.

The day started well, but by lunch it was a hot sunny day. We decided to call it quits about 2pm as it was the last day of Trevor's holiday before returning to work. We had one last cut of the timber to do so we could finish the day's project. The cut was made and due to a number of unrelated circumstances Trevor managed to sever the thumb on his left hand with the drop saw.

We were both shocked into calmness and called the ambulance, made it to hospital and by midnight it has been re-attached. Trev lost the knuckle closest to the hand, so except for being a bit shorter and not quite as moveable all is going well.

Then 2 days later while visiting Trev in hospital we had a massive wind storm that came through our valley from a totally different direction to our normal winds. I arrived home to branches, bark and leaves all over the place. A large 150ft mountain ash was over the drive and another 10 had fallen over the rest of the property. I was thankful that the SES was able to come and cut the tree from the driveway into pieces, but they then left me with my mess to assist other residents.
We have wonderful neighbours and they all arrived for a working bee a few days before Trevor came home from hospital. The area around the house was totally cleaned, swept, chain sawed and burnt into a liveable state.

We had to get the tree loppers in to cut up the other trees that had fallen and spent the next couple of months splitting wood. I was ever so grateful that we purchased a good quality log splitter.
Due to this event we now have lots of firewood and have purchased a Lucas Mill to cut the large trees into building material for our purpose built shed for the Alpacas. We will keep you informed of the progress.

The next event happened in February. It was the rain that came all at once. Our driveway that has been in place for over 30 years was washed away with rivers up to 10cm deep running through it, over it and across it.

All the creeks flooded, paddocks were water logged for a number of weeks and we had the most miserable wet Alpacas you could meet. Trevor was able to get his toy out (a track dozer) and spent days playing or should I say working to get things back in order.

During this time we had to keep a close eye on the Alpacas feet as they can develop a fungus growth between the toes from the wet and heat. Luckily we had only a couple of cases and we were able to treat them in the early stages with great results.
We have now decided to install a permanent foot bath in our new shed so we can walk the Alpacas through on a monthly basis as a preventative which we hope will eliminate the problem before it gets started.