Moulamein Notes with China Gibson January 7

I GOT a phone call on Christmas Day.

Evidently, a mate’s partner’s dog got under the house early in the day. It barked for a few hours, then it went silent.

My mate, who wished to remain anonymous, let’s just call him Robbo for now, because he does not want too many people to know about this.

I got a call off his partner, Annie, to tell me that they needed the fire brigade because the dog went under the house and Robbo followed it.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I told Annie that I was not in the fire brigade at the moment and I was also out of town.

Ring the fire brigade I told her.

“I do not know the number,” she said. “Ring 000,” I said.

Please, remember to ring 000 to get onto our local fire brigade or any other service that you may need.

Getting back to the story about Winnie the Pooh, or Robbo, to keep him anonymous.

The man we have nicknamed Robbo went under the house to rescue this dog after it stopped barking.

Now this man may be well over 70, about my build and been in more tight situations than most of us can imagine.

But he could not go forward, he could not go backward. He was stuck.

After 000 was rung, the police, the ambos and the fire brigade were called.

Our local brigade was stood down.

Jess, our local police officer, guided the man, that we will call Robbo, out with her torch.

And our ambos assessed that he was OK.

Knowing this mate, I called Robbo.

I am sure the air would have been a bit blue language going on while he was stuck under there.

Please, I keep saying this, but please ring 000 if you need help.

Then ring your neighbours, me or someone you know on a fire brigade.

By the way, the dog was fine. The man I called Robbo was very sore next day and took quite a few beers to kill the pain of being under a very low house for a couple of hours.

Please remember to ring 000 if you have an emergency. They will not bite. They are there to help.

New club champions

WE have had our Moulamein A grade championship decided.

The ladies champion is Dorean Weaver. Dorean has taken out this many times before.

We had a dark horse take out our A grade men’s competition. William Wilson got up to take out the men’s A grade.

Well done to Dorean and William for getting there. They play off in the Champions of Champions next week.

Well done to our champions and we all wish you the best of luck.

For those of you who do not know who Wiliam Wilson is, he is better known as Hooker Wilson.

Gallery open

OUR girls at our Moulamein Gallery are open again this week.

They are a mob of volunteers that cook the best cakes, serve good coffee and do the odd bit of artwork that is always for sale.

They are open Thursdays and Fridays, from around 10am until 4pm.

That piece of art that we all should have bought 40 or so years ago may be there and within your budget.

Bowls

WE almost got to Manangatang this weekend but the heat prediction had the tournament called off.

I still owe this mob a feed of yabbies, so I was a bit disappointed about not going over there.

It was a dirty job, but someone had to eat the yabbies that I was going to bring.

I took one for the team with a bit of help from Hooker. I am a man of my word. The feed will eventually come to you.

Rain coming

BUGGER, I just started to notice burrs dying.

This is always a sign that it is going to rain.

All summer rain does is wreck good dry feed and grow s***.

If you own a bit of dry grazing country, the summer grasses and the bush country will grow you a bit of good feed.

With Roundup estimated to hit around $14 a litre, I am not looking forward to firing up the boom spray for our irrigation country.

Rice growing

THIS is the time of year when rice growers can relax just for a bait and wait for PI.

This is Pinacol Initiation, which means that the head of the rice is starting to develop and this is when we do the test to work out how much urea to drop onto the crop to boost the yields.

With the price of urea tripping in the past 12 months, we will have to do some serious sums before we throw fertiliser at our crop to gain a little bit of yield.

River levels

THE Edward is still around 3400 megalitres at Moulamein and is dropping as there is only just over 800ML below Stevens Weir.

Our Edward in town should stay at a good level as our Billabong Creek is still running at well over 2000ML a day and will stay that way for a couple of weeks or so. Fishing is a bit hot and cold. Plenty of subway cod at the right time of the day.

Some big carp because if they are not big the cod eat them.

The odd yeller and some grunters.

Fishermen will keep coming back because the cod fishing has been over the top.

Next year they may be big enough to eat. Bring it on.