Lindsay Carruthers doesn't use a rain gauge when it comes to measuring rainfall on his Middlemarch farm.
"I know by the puddles and they've been empty a long time," he said yesterday, surrounded by parched and barren paddocks, with the sun beating down.
Mr Carruthers, 58, has farmed in the area all his life and encountered other dry spells, but he reckoned the current dry conditions would probably have the most far-reaching effect on the area for 50 years.
When it came to yesterday's declaration of drought conditions on the east coast of the South Island, which included the Strath Taieri, as a medium-scale adverse event, Mr Carruthers said: "I suppose the fact they recognise we are in tough times is something." On his own 540ha sheep and beef property, he had cut stock back to a "skeleton number" because of the lack of feed.
He had been unable to get any crops sown and had already bought baleage. The cost of buying feed and paying for grazing was going to be significant, but it had to be done.
