Done So Much in Just One Day – Flood Impacted Homeowner Matt

Disaster Relief Australia | May 2021

The NSW floods have been a total disaster for us. We are usually up at 3am each day doing the milking and then we milk again later in the day. It is so exhausting keeping things going when you live on a farm. We don’t get weekends and holidays, the work is constant.

When it flooded it was something that we just couldn’t believe was happening. Even the cows didn’t think that the water would get that high. They came up the hill to get away from the water and I was watching them just stand there in the mud. The water kept on coming up and I was standing here near the house and I saw a whole heap of them get washed down stream. It was the most heartbreaking thing to just stand there and not be able to do anything.

I am so sick of the mud, sick of the rain, I am sick of cows, I am sick of them being sick and dying, I am just so over it. There is no break. 

We put the cows up in the top paddock and they have stayed there, in the mud. There is no feed. They couldn’t get moved into the paddock with the good feed because it wasn’t safe with all the trees that had fallen in the paddock and no fences anywhere.

Thank you so much for coming to help us. We have been working on fixing things every single day since this happened. We haven’t had water, we have had to milk cows by hand when we didn’t have power. Do you know how long it takes to milk every cow by hand twice a day?

Even if you had just come out and lifted a few branches that would have been good. You came out and it all helps. You have done so much in just one day. Helping us herd the cows as well, it isn’t what you came here to do but we just haven’t been able to do it ourselves. Getting them down the road without them running off into another owner’s place when there is no fence was just impossible.

If you hadn’t helped us move the cows they would still be up there, in the mud and still starving. So thank you, thank you, thank you.