Well, I went to water the garden the day before yesterday and the pump wouldn’t work. I walked down to the water race and it was completely dry. Oh….!

I took a trip down to the gates and there was just a trickle going into the start of the race. Not enough to cover the leakage rate! After that I went to the first gate and found that the water level in the river only just covered the opening. There just wasn’t enough water in the river. The only thing I figured I could do was to increase the area of the opening by removing rocks a debris from the bottom. That would require tools so I planned to return the following day.

So, the next day arrived and I headed of with a shovel, rake, ladder and waders accompanied by my son Ben.

We got to the first gate to find to fisheries blokes working on it. They had dug out the area we’d fixed previously and were filling it with sandbags. They also said it was a temporary measure as they were soon going to bring in an excavator, dig up the whole affected area and re-pack it all with heavy clay. Magic!

After that we got to the river gate and found that the level had dropped again and it was now under the level of the gate. No good! Even less water flowing in and after having a better look found that we couldn’t lower the level of the bottom as it was concrete! Darn! That’s that then. Just have to wait for rain!

We started to head back and met the 2 fisheries guys who’d finished what they were doing and had come down for a look.

They told us not to go to the first gate as they had seen a massive snake sunning itself draped across the top of a blackberry bush! They said it was the biggest they’d ever seen and was thicker than the bigger guys forearm.

Oookaaay…. won’t go there then!

That’s about it for now. Anyone know how to do a rain dance?