THE clean-up and recovery from the storm that hit the majority of the grainbelt at the end of last month is still underway and the effects for some farmers will be felt for a long time.
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From May 23-25 wind and rain lashed the State, but for those in the northern agricultural region, the gusts of more than 100 kilometres per hour came long before there was any moisture, causing huge dust storms and damage to crops and property.
Irwin mixed livestock and cropping farmer Sally O'Brien said on the Sunday, they got belted by the wind for 11 hours straight.
"The whole time it was blowing, we couldn't believe how strong it was and the amount of soil in the air, the visibility was down to less than 100 metres from the house at times," Ms O'Brien said.
"The weather models predicted we would start getting some rain around 9am and we thought that rain would have settled the dust, but we didn't get any rain until almost 6pm.
"By the next morning, the wind had gone and there was only seven millimetres of rain in the gauge at the west end of the property, we've got about six gauges spread over the place and they ranged between 10mm and 17mm."
Damage was done to pasture paddocks, fences and troughs, with the clean up still taking place and livestock still being hand fed.
"The wind gusts were so strong that it ripped any residual dry feed out of the ground and blew it up against the fences which then gave the sand something to pile up against," Ms O'Brien said.
"We've got extensive damage to fences, some were completely flattened, while others just piled up and built a ramp of sand.
"Some of the water troughs were completely buried, you knew where it was and just had to start digging it out, but all of them were full of sand, so the sheep and cattle couldn't get any water."
The day after the storm, the O'Briens had two front end loaders going around digging out fences because some were well beyond being able to get to with a shovel.
Almost three weeks later, they still have a loader and a grader going around full time trying to clear fence lines and gates.
Ms O'Brien said the wind destroyed any residual feed they had, so it's now a full time job to feed stock.
"We had a very light year up here last year, so we knew at the end of last season it was going to be a difficult summer for feed," she said.
"The sheep are getting a combination of straw and hay, we're also spreading lupins out and feeding them a little bit of barley, you can hand feed them all you like, but there's no substitute to green grass.
"The sheep and cattle were in good order but they've hit a wall because there just isn't the feed available, we're in the middle of lambing, so hypercalcemia and pregnancy toxicity becomes an issue when you've got stock in good condition and the feed suddenly disappears."
Feeding of the 8000 breeding ewes at the property is made even harder as the O'Briens pregnancy scan all their sheep, so they're broken up into singles and twinning mobs and they try and break them down into small mobs at lambing time.
Those mobs range from 60 to 250 ewes, so there's a lot of paddocks from them to cover and get to.
While the livestock side of things is shaky, the crops weren't as badly affected as initially thought.
"We dry sowed canola and there was a lot of furrow fill, but it came up from a couple of inches down and we seem to have really good plant numbers," Ms O'Brien said.
"The cropping side has really surprised us, we've got lupins coming up, so the germination is there and we just need a really good rain to get it away.
"There's going to be a big cost long-term in terms of the labour and machine hours to fix it (wind damage), but the hardest part has been the emotional challenge of seeing your stock suffering."
