It has been over four months since I have been out to my farm, this was due both to my Parachuting Accident whist doing Search and Rescue work and also the floods, not been actually able to get into my farm after I was released from hospital.

To say the place has changed is an understatement. Trees seem to have shot up metres of new growth branches, those that seemed totally doomed from the drought have re-shot all over and beneath them all is rolling acres of 3 feet of grass in every direction. I have never seen the property I have called home my whole life look so incredibly full of life...and its not all good.

Thanks to the destruction of over 90% of our crops, which incidently is our greatest loss ever, and yes even greater than any drought year, most of our arable land rather than being stubble and cultivation is a sea of fallen over wheat which covers a very scary mass of new arrivals..... Mice. 

Literally the ground moves. With the story the same on the thousands of wheat growing properties in Queensland and New South Wales the food supply for bush mice has never been so great and they are making the most of it. When I arrived home my parents had been out a few days before to put out mice baits so my cottage wouldn't be full of the little rodents...and I spent the first hour of clean up filling buckets of dead mice. Every surface was covered in their rice like droppings, it was as though they were everywhere and there was nothing I could do about this mouse army.

I gave up after waking up with mice all in my bed and getting a terrible rash and bites from what I can only assume is the mites that have ballooned thanks to their dropping, I left the cottage to them and spent my time out on the farm sleeping back at my parents Homestead where there is a few kilometers of bush from the nearest failed wheat crop or should I say 'free mouse restaurant'.

There is not much that can be done about the mouse population accept wait for winter which will really dampen their numbers. Some of my neighbours were able get on their country and plough in the failed crops...however the hungry mice just waited around and when these farmers planted their new crops the mice just dug up all the new seeds and enjoyed their next free meal.

Its all about balance I suppose and not getting too upset with the population explosions, however what I am most afraid of is when the mice numbers return to normal and the consequences of the corresponding rises in fox, feral cat and snake numbers are left hungry.