With more heavy rain predicted from this afternoon onwards you really do have to wonder what the rain gods are playing at. Okay so we had ten years of drought during which time most of us bush bound inhabitants retreated to daily prayers and the shooting of crowing roosters (bad luck in a dry time) on sight. We carted silage in tip trucks to cattle, fed them molasses and grain and then sent them west, east and south-one mob to within one hundred kilometres of Sydney in the Southern Highlands. The crops withered and died, sheep muscled on with a bit of corn and fortitude and those of the two legged variety suffered hairloss and worse. Fast forward and we’re now at the uneviable two floods in eleven months scenario. Of course things could be worse. We have our humour and it goes quite a long way when dealing with a crisis (we discovered last night we had  bottle of gin-no scurvy problems in this household). Yesterday the local river water began to drop. Although our access bridge is still covered it means by lunch today I will be able to leave my place and head over to the main homestead to help there. The MacIntyre River at Goondiwindi peaked yesterday morning and with the lead of the water expected here in a couple of days the boys are preparing to hunker down for the long haul within the levee bank. If it doesn’t rain they have the logistical nightmare of dragging fuel to pumps through flood water so they can irrigate the cotton. If it does, well it’s the same drama except they will be rushing to get water off fields, trying to blow it back into already filled systems so the cotton doesn’t drown. We joke about the plants having to put a snorkel up! So I’m back to being a cotton widow as I ready to brace the water and head over to the main homestead. Apart from one muddy spot here and the covered bridge-which really gives me the heebies crossing, there’s only 400 metres of water to get through at Dad’s end and with this particular swamp dropping now is the time to move. By tommorrow we expect all the ground depressions and natural waterways to be bulging gain and so we head into a little more worrying time. The joy of living west of floodwater is that you know what’s coming. The Whalan Creek is justing starting to rise again and within a couple of days I’ll be doing alot of checking of water levels and esuring livestock have stayed were they were put. So it’s back to homecooked dinners and stories of floodboats, scotch whisky air drops and flailing land lines. The joy…