Grow rice they said, it will be fun they said
I WAS thinking the other morning, while I was stoking the fire so I could warm my coat and gloves up so I could get on the motorbike to go around the water in the rain and freezing conditions, that rice loves hot weather.
This week would have been considered cold in the middle of bloody winter.
At the time of writing there is only one day this week forecast to be above 30.
Then it goes back to cold crap again.
And there are a few more ducks starting to turn up – still not many.
Good thing too, at the growth rate of the rice in this cold weather.
We only need a week or two of warm weather and most of our rice will be past the duck stage.
Must have something to do with global warming.
It is a good thing we did not demolish those ski resorts like the experts said we should, as it was never going to snow again.
Over 20cm of snow this week in the middle of November and expecting more.
Yep, Greta was right after she sailed her carbon fibre yacht half way around the world.
(Then flew home and flew a couple of fellers in to sail it back again).
“Global warming will get us all and all us old fellers should all be ashamed of ourselves,” she said.
Sorry, now it’s ‘climate change’ because global warming does not work anymore.
When I was a young feller, we were heading for another ice age.
Looking forward to what is next.
Fish in our town lake
WE had the professors back out in our town lake setting their bait nets to see how our small-bodied fish populations are going, and they were very impressed with what they pulled out.
I got there just as they were pulling their four nets out.
The first net had a 13cm Cod, about a hundred Gudgeons, and dozens of Hardyheads.
The second net really impressed them – hundreds of Gudgeons, dozens of Hardyheads, one Australian Smelt and a 42cm catfish.
A good breeder size, they said.
They were over the moon with this haul.
The other two nets still had Gudgeons and Hardyheads but not that many.
They were very impressed that there were no Mosquito Fish caught.
These are another small-bodied fish, but they are introduced, and nothing eats them.
Our native small-bodied fish only get to a few centimetres long, but they are a very important part of the food chain.
They are very keen to use our town lake as a breeding ground to restock the rivers with these small fish.
One of the best sites they have seen, they told me – let’s hope those in charge of the water on our Murray River Council read my notes.
They have an icon in our district and with the very healthy population of Southern Bell Frogs we have up there, it should be listed as a Ramsar site.
If the lower lakes can be listed as a Ramsar site, so can our Moulamein Lake, it is just as natural.
Moulamein Footy-Netball Club
THE mighty Swans are up and going for another year, and Tim Jhonson has stepped up for the big one of president.
Nevel Willox is his vice president.
Our secretary is our recently returned local Ron Doran.
Ron used to travel many miles every week to watch our games and put the scores on ‘Sh*tbook’ for all our expats to see.
He finally got back to his home town last year, and our season got cancelled – Ron did the hard yards, then missed out on the easy games.
Our ever-reliable Debbie Polkinghorne is still in charge of the finances.
Thank you to all those that stepped up for our mighty Swans this year.
Our team has already started pre-season training so look out this year – it could be the season of the mighty Swans.
Pennant bowls
AFTER two weeks Division 4 remains undefeated after going two rinks up on Saturday.
Division 1 managed one rink up, two down this week, but is down overall.
Division 1 is home to Murray Downs this week.
Division 4 get a bye.
Murray Downs are usually top of the table, so we will need all the support we can get on Saturday.
Come over for a beer and cheer Moula on – do not forget your smoko team.
River levels
THE Edward is around 2800 megs at Moulamein at the time of writing.
The Edward should start to rise any day as there is over 3300 megs down stream of Stevens Weir.
They are doing air space releases again on the Murrumbidgee system as at the time of writing – the weirs are over 99 per cent and 97 per cent.
On one forecast I have seen over 100ml could fall this week up there.
If so, they will be sh*tting themselves as there is no room left for flood mitigation.
What comes in, must go out.
The way it is looking, South Australia may be washed out to sea.
You rippa – it would save a load of water in the future.
The only disadvantage is there will be more crows, as they always eat the excess.
