for years we've been hearing "there's not enough rain" and now this

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.as...ontentID=88646

They will be after rain goes again soon

Its the wrong type of rain though.

You can't be a farmer unless you can moan - it's the law Not sure there is perfect weather for farmers, mother nature always stuffs up at some point.

And do they give money back in times of plenty?

They certainly seem to be always on the look out for subsidies in times of famine.

Why should they? Do you?

Not subsidies: drought relief. There's a world of difference. And who would begrudge them that?

UK farmers have their snouts and both feet in the Brussels gravy train, but I don't see them giving any money back "in times of plenty".

i feel sorry for them farming must be hard work.

Well, let's see:
I didn't find any moaning there, did you? Quite the reverse, in fact.

It's bloody hard work.

I have friends with a farm in the heart of the WA wheatbelt, and just one weekend up there is enough to bring home the reality of rural life.

It's not all cows and buttercups.

the drought and rain has been an issue in australia for a long time. it's not new.

this peom by aussie poet Dorothea Mackellar was written in 1904. it could've been written just yesterday!

My Country

The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies
I know, but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of rugged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!

The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze…

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.


and yes!..aussie love the rain!!!!

I found it hard to find a quote worthy of Vash, so just picked the last one I saw.

Vash, you are so defendant of all things Australian and all "Battlers", why don't you come home son, and help us all here. It's great to see your posts on this website, but since you are so far away it's only words. If you were a true blue Australian you wouldn't be living in a country you have no love for and would be here defending the Australian way of life.

He's coming back next year I think - can't make it any earlier because he's enjoying England too much.

..ahhh, but is England enjoying him?

Answers on an Australian postcard (made using proudly owned and grown Australian trees) using an Australian pen (made using proudly owned and produced Australian plastics) filled with Australian ink (made using the testicles of a proudly owned and proudly nurtured Australian octopus)...oh and don't forget to use an Australian stamp.

Stop complaining farmboy

I remember a Bank Manager commentating to a farmer that had had a good year with a record crop, the farmer without hesitation replied "aye but it takes it out of the soil".