The River Murray floods may have been and gone, but for many the recovery period is only just getting started as they look to restore their properties.
After having his buffalo farm of about 141 hectares engulfed in flood water, Corey Jones, Mypolonga said his attention had now shifted to the recovery process.
"We're at the end of the flood, but we're starting the recovery part and there's going to be a lot of things to do before it'll be a operating dairy farm again," he said.
"Once we get to the end of winter and we want to start irrigating again in spring we're going to have to check our irrigation channels are up to scratch again.
"Lets hope something good comes out of the flood and the grass grows like it's never grown before."
Together with his wife Molly, Mr Jones said they have had to reset, after the levee bank on their property broke on December 26 and their lucerne and rye grass paddocks were flooded.
"We've only just had access to this farm from three weeks ago, in terms of getting to the dairy," Mr Jones said.
"We started pumping water out about six weeks ago and that's pretty much complete now.
"It's just a matter of waiting for the paddocks to dry out enough to hopefully be able to seed."
Prior to the flood, Mr Jones said he acted quickly to protect his 400 head of buffalo, by moving them to a nearby property on December 10, where they were moved to highland paddocks and fed hay.
"I made the decision in November last year by looking at flow rates coming down the river, I knew we were in trouble, so I made the call to start moving," he said.
"I got on the front foot and met with another farmer 10 minutes up the road who shut his dairy down three years ago.
"He was very helpful and let me get his dairy going and the buffalos have been there ever since."
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Moving the heard of buffalos was a significant challenge, Mr Jones said.
"One of the hardest things I've ever done is move all 400 head of buffalo that we have here," he said.
"There's a couple 100 younger stock and about 200 milking stock."
When he reflected on his decision to move his buffalos, Mr Jones said he was content with his choice.
"If I got all of them off and then come January there was no flood, I would've been happy to come and not have that stress of hurrying to move them and not being in control, cause there's a flood coming," he said.
Being one of the few farmers in SA to milk buffalos, Mr Jones said he planned to move the milking herd back to the dairy in August.
"It may just be moving them home to feedlot, then hay near the dairy until the pastures are ready to be grazed," he said.
Despite having had the majority of water pumped out from his property, Mr Jones said it had been a challenging task.
"We couldn't start pumping the water out till the river dropped low enough, to the break in the bank," he said.
"Then we still couldn't start pumping, because that break in the bank was quite low, so we had to have that fixed before we could pump out the water, otherwise the water would've just kept coming in."
If there was another flood Mr Jones said there was only so much he could do to prepare.
"I'm pretty unique, because I'm in the middle of the flood plain, up on a hill," he said.
"If a flood happens the only preparation I can do is to do what I did and have all the stock off and be ready for it."
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