"So this was a bit unexpected."
He had sent some stock away for grazing and had brought in some hay because "it's hard to farm without grass".
What was needed was a good autumn and he said the ideal situation, and solution to the potential of an extreme drought, was good rain in the first week of March - to kick the autumn off.
"We'd like to see about 100mls in three days - that would be very good."
While there had been a couple of sprinkling showers over the past fortnight it was "nothing measurable" and had done nothing to ease things.
The bottom line, at meteorologically uncertain times like this, is that "you have got to adapt".
"We all have to change our farming systems - we have to work around it."
Mention the word "drought" and Central Hawke's Bay farmer Tim Gilbertson says the region needs two things.
In the long term it needs to create an "oasis" effect - and in the short term a good 10-day easterly "with rain".
"Things are getting serious out there," Mr Gilbertson said, adding that regarding what the region was now experiencing as just a normal Hawke's Bay summer did not stack up.
"That is a real danger to think that and there is a Kiwi 'she'll be right' attitude out there - if you think that way then you're in dreamland."
He has no doubts the driver of the extreme dry had been climate change, which had created searing temperatures in Australia, which were being sent this way by westerly systems.
And for eastern regions, tucked behind the curtain of mountains running down the country, that meant dry days ... and plenty of them.
About a decade ago he said the situation was that Hawke's Bay could expect a real searing drought every 20 years - but that it could end up being every five years.
"That would be catastrophic," he said.
January, February and March were traditionally dry months and for them to arrive in a situation where it was already "extremely" dry in many areas was not good.
"There is nothing (in the way of rain) on the horizon," he said, adding that at this stage he put the chances of a full-on drought occurring at around 75 to 80 percent.
"Excuse the cliche but we could be looking down the barrel of a gun."
He farms down Patangata way and last Monday they got about 7 mls of rain across the brown fields.
"It was virtually nothing so, in the medium term, it's not looking that flash."
A 10-day moist easterly would be like winning Lotto for farmers across the region but the way NIWA was predicting the situation that was unlikely to front up before April or May ... and even that it may not have the impact needed to start getting some growth under way for winter.
In the long term there needed to be an "oasis" affect, Mr Gilbertson said.
That could be achieved by the "massive" plantings of trees and native bush and the creation of storage dams and wetlands.
A long-term plan for what he said could be long-term gain given the way the climate was changing.
At this stage farmers were effectively hanging in there - as they had in the past, they had been prepared the best they could be should the meteorological forecasts for a big dry come to fruition.
While there was good baleage and silage still out there, when that was gone, it was gone.
There had been de-stocking before the summer and that had taken some heat off in terms of feed supply but a lot of farmers were doing it tough, and for many there were thoughts of giving it up.
"I'm 63 and my contemporaries are around the same age," he said.
In days passed the children would grow into the position of taking on the farm but that had changed - most young people moved either to the cities or overseas where they installed themselves in jobs they were comfortable with.
"A lot of kids don't want to go back on to the farms."
Events like potential droughts did not help.
"There will be a lot of psychological stress on a lot of people as this goes on ... day after day," Mr Gilbertson said.
