We've been told our place floods every 20 years. A couple of years back everything around here was under water, but not us.

Its very close to flooding again now. Its primed to go. The ground is waterlogged, any flat surface is under water. Last night we went down to the river to check the level there, and walked through knee-high water pooling in the bottom paddock. But its rained on and off for the last six weeks, always just under the critical level needed to flood. But maybe today....?

There's more water on the property than I have ever seen. The goose pond is as full as it's ever been, and the other mining pit is a lake. The endless rain is coming this way, but looking at the BOM radar map it looks like it will skim round and past us and we'll miss the catastrophic main dump of water.

Instant lake

Just bordering on flood level

We are lucky in that the BOM has a flood level measure somewhere on the Ovens river very close to us. As a result, its very accurate to our specific circumstances, so I can sit inside and monitor the river for flooding, which is great. But I still like to see it for myself. Its an impressive sight to see the usually gentle Ovens River as a roaring torrent. If you sit and watch it for a few minutes you see whole trees wash past. A couple of years back my up-river inlaws had a massive, heavy redgum picnic table wash away. It must have weighed more than 200 kg, but it disappeared in the flood without a trace.

The good news that comes with this weather is that our olive trees are about three weeks from blossoming. This rain at blossom time would be a harvest disaster, with the blossom less likely to pollinate, and even rotting on the tree….its happened before! But rain at this point is beneficial. The pre-blossom we are seeing is incredibly thick, and all being well we should have an impressive crop next year.

Coupled with the heavy rain now is an extended dry period. No rain on the long range forecast for the next month. Ideal. That's the good news. (Having said that, the long range forecast has been recalibrated twice. We now have rain days predicted past Nov 26, which is when the trees started flowering last year. )

The other down side of so much rain for the olives is that quite a lot of trees are literally under water. Not the whole tree, but some are still standing in a metre of water after a week. Not good for olive trees. There are gaps in the grove where trees have died, and most of them are in the dips.

The downside for the rest of the farm is my very healthy looking hay paddock has been crushed by the relentless rain. Unless we have a few dry days very soon it will stay down and rot. Good for the paddock, but I won't get hay this year. (We'll probably be fine. We had such a bumper year last year I probably still have enough hay for next winter.) And even if the paddock rights itself, getting the contractors here will be the usual race against time. They can't have been baling anywhere around here for the last 6 weeks, so there is going to be the usual logjam if everyone needing their hay done at the same time….in soggy, wet paddocks. We are small fry in the scheme of hay harvests, and of course the contractors will have to prioritize their larger customers.

Its hard to know if we'll flood though. There is still more rain possibly coming. Its breaking up now, and in smaller, intense clouds, and its really luck now whether those cloudbursts land on us or our catchment or not. But the hints are there…the Great Alpine Road has been under water three times overnight near us, and there are a few road closures within 20 km of us. Around the corner something has burst on the hill above the Great Alpine Road. I suspect an underground spring has been ripped open, and water has cascaded down the hill and across the road. For weeks now.

When it changes like this I can see our property is a different perspective. with the two mining pits, you can see how there was a water channel connecting them. The place was dredged, so a lot of water was pushed through to blast away the soil. Those channels have been adapted over time to a narrow, quite scenic road, but all of a sudden it’s a water channel again and not driveable.

In the far paddock its now obvious how the water travels through. Of course, that's why there's a line of juncus/rush….they grow in the hidden water course. Now that you can see the water above the ground it's so obvious.

My sheep are struggling with the wet. The lambs, born 6 weeks ago, have a few skin issues from the constant damp. Some of them are looking a bit thin...and my sheep are always fat. The adult sheep are no longer sparkling and clean, washed by the rain. They are muddy and grey, and tired, trudging through the wet paddocks. It doesn't do their feet any good, and I carry shears with me so I can grab a limping straggler and clean up their sodden, splitting hooves.

The big disappointment was that I did a lot of work planting small trees this year. I located them near the edge of the water holes, so they could drill down and keep in touch with water even when its late summer and the ground is apparently bone dry. But with all this water the groundwater level has changed, and most of them are under the new high-tide line, and will be for another few weeks. They'll drown by then I expect.

The locations are probably ok, once it dries out, and I can re-use the spot. The heavy duty cage that protects them from grazing damage is re-usable with a new sapling, but it was a lot of work and just disappointing to have to redo them all.