This year's hay and silage season has been a mixed bag but one element that was a constant for everyone was the wet weather.
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Contractors in grazing hill country have been busier than ever, cutting two times as much hay and silage than a normal year.
Craig Plum, Plum Contracting, Tarcutta falls into the first category and has been busy helping graziers fill up their sheds and silage pits after two years of drought.
"We would normally do 8000 to 10,000 bales in a year and that might span right through from silage in September to Lucerne hay in January," Mr Plum said.
"This year, in the first week of December, we've pressed 18,000 bales so far."
Mr Plum said all their work was in a 50 kilometre radius of Tarcutta.
"This year there was a lot of emphasis on long-term silage, storage underground," he said.
"I've never baled so much silage where the earth moving contractor is there digging the pit at the same time as we're baling it.
"You go there and think we might get 300 bales, then all of a sudden we're at 500 and we need another pit."
During the recent drier years it was common to see crops sowed for grain end up being cut for hay if the season didn't eventuate, but this year Mr Plum said it had been the opposite - with crops originally planted for hay having to be harvested for grain.
In some cases this meant graziers had to bring in a header for the first time.
"The tricky part to this season is the crops matured very quickly so the window was very small and we were dealing with wet weather.
"We might have missed 2000 to 3000 bales in paddocks which got too mature to be made into quality product, they were left and will now be harvested for grain".
Forced to plan on getting hay wet
Rain events roughly every seven days for weeks during September and October had meant contractors had to plan on getting the hay wet.
"Our strategy was to cut two days before a rainfall event, let it rain on it and then give it around a week to dry out", Mr Plum said.
"I think at every hay job bar one the hay got wet, that was just the way it was, but unfortunately it's had an impact on quality".
The weather also dictated when they could bale, with moisture levels rising quickly overnight.
"In the morning you can literally wring the hay out around here and get a drink of water, that's how much dew there is". Mr Plum said.
Luckily Plum Contracting bought a new baler this year and kept their old one. Both machines have done roughly the same number of bales this year, illustrating just how tight the season has been.
Qld hay contractors locked out of NSW
Unfortunately for Goondiwindi-based contractor, Peter Barkla, Barkla Ag, it was a tight window that he missed out on due to the Queensland border closures.
"We couldn't travel backwards and forwards to move gear, that was our biggest problem". Mr Barkla said.
"The borders are all open now but it's been too late, most of our work has finished".
Mr Barkla has been able to get a few jobs in the Wagga Wagga region and is headed to a straw job at Forbes next.
He said while last year they had skipped NSW altogether, moving from Clermont in central Queensland straight to Victoria, this year most of the work had been in NSW.
"It's very hot and dry near home and in Victoria some of them aren't doing hay because the markets have completely collapsed".
It's a situation that hay trader John Power of Tarcutta knows well.
"The market is virtually non-existent at the moment, but during the last two years of drought we sold and transported millions of dollars worth of hay", he said.
"It was always going to happen and I'm pleased for the farmers, at least they can put it away in the sheds".
Baling fallen over oat crops
But, there is not only work in southern NSW to be found. Anthony Kurtz has been a hay contractor at Coolah for more than 40 years.
Mr Kurtz said they had been flat out cutting oat crops which had fallen over.
"We had such a good spring, everything got way out of hand", Mr Kurtz said.
"The crops got too high, they couldn't eat it down and they were starting to fall over so people have decided to make hay out of it".
He said some of the new oat varieties were still growing even after the paddocks had been cut.
"We're trying to get it baled and the stuff's nearly 18 inches high again. That's being picked up by the baler and is increasing moisture so we're having a hell of a time trying to get it baled".
