READY TO TALK

A KEY stakeholder is waiting for talks with the State Government on site selection for the Loddon’s first child care centre.

Wedderburn College community has been pushing for young mothers to access child care for two years.

But while Loddon Shire last week confirmed the Government had held talks with council,

King’s Birthday pops with rare vintage

CORKS were popping at Kingower when the first King’s Birthday holiday in 70 years was celebrated at the weekend.

Local wineries Old Kingower and Both Banks released their latest vintages.

And for Old Kingower’s Arleen and David Reimers, wines from the drought years of 2014 and 2015 were also released and toasted.

The museum drops were blended from cabernet and shiraz grapes grown at the Kingower vineyard.

Gold detectorists and campers also descended on the Loddon for the long weekend for the official birthday holiday of King Charles.

The weekend had been the Queen’s birthday since 1952 when Queen Elizabeth took the throne.

A TEAL YEAR - PAGE 13

Wedderburn mothers and college principal Danny Forrest say they are still to be contacted.

Tammy Martin, who is also president of the town’s development committee said: “We need to know one way or the other whether we will have a child care centre.

“The Government needs to talk with us so we can explain the situation here,” she said.

Loddon is the only total child care desert in Victoria and has been earmarked to receive one of 50 government centres to open over the next four years.

Principal Danny Forrest said his school had land available that would allow an immediate start to construction of a centre.

“Young mothers have spent the past two years documenting the impact on families, businesses and careers as a result of no child care facilities and will continue until action is taken,” he said.

“We all want to sit down now to give the Government a complete picture of what is needed.”

Renewed advocacy by the Wedderburn community comes as businessman Mark Klose confirmed he had withdrawn from plans to open a private centre in Boort.

Mr Klose had proposed a centre in Godfrey Street but has now sold the building. “There was limited support from the shire and government and I don’t see it possibly working.”

WATCHING AND WAITING - PAGE 17 floor.

N GETTING back to Woke Farm on Tuesday night the Good Doc told OTF he had no doubt that we were in for a big rain when he saw a spider on the front door. Says the Doc: “The late Jack Penny of Serpentine told me that a sure sign of rain was a good sized Huntsman spider inside your house facing with his head towards the floor - 37ml next day franked the wisdom of that advice. Ours’ is a decent specimen, about the size of a saucer, and probably would have produced another 10ml if he wasn’t missing a leg. A spider with such solid rainproducing form is hard to come by; we’re encouraging him to hang around and do the job again come spring. I’ve been told that some of the farmers around Fenton’s Creek and Woosang reckon they’ve had enough precipitation for the moment and have put their rain gauges in the garage for a while to let things dry out. This is known as The Gary Stephenson Method Of Climate Control.” surfaces and creates the distinctive smell of rain, or the distinctive smells of rain — the smell will differ depending on what the rain hits. This scent may spread as a heads-up to people nearby. Rain on pavement smells different from rain on trees, but the collective term for the resulting odour is petrichor.

S

PIDERS are not the only creepy crawly to have been trusted as pre-technological guides to the climate - at one time crickets were little six-legged weather apps. According to lore, crickets can tell you the temperature. It works like this: Count the number of chirps in 15 seconds, then add 37 (some say add 40). That should give you a rough idea. And weirdly enough, it works. It’s not the most precise way to get a temperature reading, but you’ll usually land within a few degrees either way. Because crickets are cold-blooded, their activity levels — hence the movement that creates the chirping sound — increase with warm temperatures and decrease with cold. This only works between around 55 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit, though. Hotter or cooler than that and crickets don’t make sounds. You’ll just hear … crickets. We’ll leave it the bookkeepers and accountants reading OTF for a Celsius scale conversion.

Next time someone tells you they can smell the end of a drought or an oncoming storm, don’t scoff. They just might be able to. Just before a storm hits, ozone fills the air. When the rain finally arrives and hits the dirt and pavement or trees and grass, it knocks loose molecules on these

OUR research prompted by the Good Doc has also discovered that if you have bees near your home or crops you can watch them - If they fly home and do not return, it is a sign of coming rain. If horses are restless and shake their heads a lot, it means rain is on the way. Nothing is proven by any of these events. They are just old wives’ tales. But they are the tales that have helped feed a nation. And owls will hoot more at night if rain is on the way, so they say.

METEOROLOGY can be fickle ... just ask two chief forecasters in Hungary, given the sack last year. What had been billed “Europe’s biggest fireworks display” had been organised for the Saturday evening to celebrate St Stephen’s Day - the national holiday, But seven hours before the scheduled start, the government postponed the event, citing extreme weather warnings. The weather, however, stayed calm - leading to the sackings of the head and deputy head of the weather service.

THE Good Doc should go into breeding his spider. A potential export business in the making!

Longest algae warning finally lifted

A BLUE-GREEN algae warning at Laanecoorie Reservoir was lifted last Friday, 135 days after the alert was issued by Goulburn Murray Water.

It the longest active warning Laanecoorie Reservoir has had since detailed records began in

2003, according to the water authority.

GMW will continue to undertake water quality monitoring and if blue-green algae reach levels deemed unsafe by national health guidelines, a warning will be issued.