Old boys had a day out
THE Moulamein Football Netball Club invited all past and present players of our Mighty Swans to the Old Boys’ Day Out.
This great event happened last weekend when we played Ultima at home. The word got out and plenty of old footy players turned up for their free feed, and what a feed it was. They were pretty quiet on the cheering side for a while but they eventual fired up to cheer our Mighty Swans home.
When one of our teams would win, they would come over to the old fellers’ marquee to sing the club song. This would have made the day even better for our past players.
There were plenty of stories getting told and I thought at one stage I might have to bring the backhoe in to try and stop the bulls..t running onto our oval.
There were a few of the old fellers that stayed for a while after the game. There was one past player who decided he just wanted to kick one more goal on the Moulamein Oval.
He would probably want to remain nameless so let’s just call him Smed. He found a ball and took to the field with the Evans brothers. I made sure I had the ambo on speed dial as anything could happen. Smed got his last goal as did the Evans brothers and they all walked back off the field without a limp.
That was the surprising bit as it was well past their bed time when they tried this.
Thank you to Jody and Trav and all of their helpers for organising this great day. I am sure they all enjoyed it and one of them did not have to die for them to get together.
On the footy side, our colts, Mighty Magoos and our seniors all had a win so that was three times the old fellers could enjoy the song.
We get a week off this week, then it is away to Wandella.
Two-day bowls tournament this weekend
WITH no footy on, if you are looking for something to do, we have a two-day triples bowls tournament at the Moulamein Bowling Club.
As much as I would love to play, we have kidnapped the grandkids for the weekend. So that will keep us busy for a couple of days and give their parents a bit of downtime.
For more information about the bowls, ring Kerryn on 0407 800 111. For those local bowlers that also cannot make it, a donation of a bit of smoko would be much appreciated.
I will have to get the rug rats onto it, we are sure to be able to come up with something that may be edible, as long as Grandma helps.OJD night
THE Local Land Service ran a very informative meeting at the Moulamein Bowling Club this week about the dreaded Ovine Johne’s Disease (OJD).
So far there are only a handful of local properties affected and only one suspected case that came back negative.
This day was relatively well-attended. I thought there would have been more. It was a pretty good offer.
Smoko before you start and the meeting finished about beer o’clock.
We found out how this disease affects our sheep, how it can spread and how to stop it.
OJD cannot be cured, it can only be prevented. Once they get it, the sheep will probably die and there is nothing we can do about it.
Down south, it used to get up to 20 per cent of their mob. One thing about living up here where it gets bloody hot, then hotter for weeks at a time.
Stinking hot summers keep it under control as the virus can only live in moist, cool places and sheep and maybe goats.
The vaccine that we use is not user-friendly and they showed us the gun that is designed especially for this product. It has three safety features on it. You have to pull the white trigger for the safety shield to go back to insert the needle. Only after the safety shield is back and the needle is in the sheep can you inject the vaccine. This stuff has a flesh-eating oil in it that can cause you a bit of trouble if things go wrong. For more information, get in touch with your local retailer or go to www.zoetis.com.au or heidi.sutherland@zoetis.com . Heidi is the senior sales rep for Central Victoria but she does not mind jumping our border.
New bridges
IF we drive around the district, there are a few new bridges around. The big one is at Echuca and there is one at Maude.
The Gee Gee has been renewed on the back road from Moulamein to Swan Hill. I think I had better organise a bus trip for my anti-bridge mob so they can see what can be accomplished if we all go for the chosen Moulamein bridge site at Swan Hill.
The old bridge seems to have been put back onto the heritage listing so we just cannot build a temporary one and go where the old one was. I went over a bridge somewhere the other day. Did not take any notice, but after we got up the road, I realised that it had a curve in it like a boomerang. That would work, I’m sure. Let’s hope the memory of where this bridge was comes back to me.
More rain
SOMEONE asked me the other day if I had too much rain yet. “Never”, I replied. Not in this district. It has a bad habit of drying out just when you relax.
There is no money in dust. There is always money in mud. You just have to dig a bit deeper sometimes. I was talking to one mate. His comment was, “If this is climate change, bring it on”. All the doom and gloomers said it was going to get dryer. Yep. That is happening. “Push the weirs out”, they said. “They will never fill again”. “Close the snow fields down, it will never snow again”, they said.
As I look across our green paddocks and see all of our weirs at over 90 per cent at the start of the filling season. With a wet year, we may be able to wash those crow eaters out to sea yet.
River Levels
THE Edward at Moulamein has continued to rise this week. Our Edward is now at around 2800 megalitres a day and almost 2.5 metres.
Our mighty Billabong has plenty of water on the way with over 2000ML at the top and still rising. There is no such thing as a flash flood in our Billabong Creek, though.
It takes a month to get here so our Edward will stay up just because of our Billabong for at least a month or more.
No flash flood, but our Edward will be rising for the next week or so.
Please check your boats as well as anything else you may have in the water. The fish should be going but it has been a bit cold and wet for anyone to go out. We will find out this long weekend.
