What happens when you have recycled timber, an old motorbike and a dam full of water? You build your own boat.
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That's what George Smith from Scarsdale Station, east of Broken Hill in outback NSW, did when the lake on his property filled after a deluge of rain.
"We have a small lake on our property, known as The Basin, which has filled - the last time was in 2011," his mother Jane Smith said.
"With more water around than we would normally have, it makes sense to build boats.
"In George's opinion you can never have too many particularly with warm weather approaching."
So the 13-year-old built his boat using an old platform, formerly used to float a solar pump on a dam, and an overhead gear previously used in their woolshed, with home-made wooden paddles and his motorbike.
The back wheel of the motorbike powers the paddles as it spins around. Then George controls the speed of the motorbike wheel using the throttle.
"George is learning to weld and cut metal and loves to build machines, mostly using recycled material from around our property," Mrs Smith said.
The Smiths have recorded 380mm since the start of the year, above the annual average of 230mm.
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George's father Terry Smith said their first decent rain fell in November last year but prior to that there was three years where they didn't get 100mm for the year.
"This rainfall has set us up with 12 months of feed in front of us, it now makes it easier to buy back stock with the current prices," Mr Smith said.
"It's as good as anyone can recall even the old fellows are saying it's as good as they can remember."
Prior to November the Smiths held onto 30 per cent of their breeding ewes but since then they have purchased 1500 ewes and 100 head of cattle.
"It's putting us back towards where we should be ... we are getting back into the business of being in business," he said.
"We are still looking for more stock at some stage but we will wait and see what happens."
With the road closures due to rain, Mr Smith said there were a few people who had not been able to get their lambs out for sale.
