Jess Gilmour is exhausted.
Warning: this story contains an image some readers might find distressing.
At this time of year she and her fiance Matthew Russ should have headers bringing in a harvest from the fields of their farm in Moulamein, in south-west New South Wales.
But many of her fields have been cut off for months, and instead they have operating excavators around the clock.
It's all part of what's become a months-long battle to hold back unprecedented floodwaters spilling over the Edward River and Billabong Creek.
"Everybody's spending 15-plus hours a day on heavy machinery to keep levee banks up and keep roads moving, to try and just keep everything protected," she said.
Never seen 'in living memory'
The Bureau of Meteorology said the Edward River level at Moulamein was at record flood levels, and the SES placed the town under evacuation, then shelter-in-place orders this week.
The levee banks on both farms are registered with WaterNSW and the farmers are reinforcing the existing structures and managing leaks.
WaterNSW said any changes to the height of levees needed to be registered, but exemptions existed for embankments built to protect farm structures.
Farmer Jeremy Morton, whose family has farmed the land for generations, said it was the highest flood in living memory.
Mr Morton said that meant no levee on his property had ever been tested by waters this high, and it had become a full-time job to keep them standing.
He said if the banks did not hold, they stood to lose everything.
"It's really unfortunate. We've seen some of our neighbours lose levee banks and everything just goes under and that's it, it all just gets wiped out," he said.
"If they don't hold, basically everything just goes under water and you get nothing."
No end in sight
The Russ family have been working on their own levees and pitching in on neighbours' for six weeks, and the peak isn't expected until late November or early December.
Now, the SES are warning major flooding will likely continue into 2023.
"That's a long time considering how long we've been doing this already," Ms Gilmour said.
"It's reaching a level of exhaustion."
Just weeks before the harvest should be finished, the farmers haven't managed to bring in any crops.
"We have been cut off from 1,000 acres of peas since August," Ms Gilmour said.
"We were going to put a header over them on a hill but that hill is underwater now."
Land rapidly disappearing under water is also posing a very real danger to stock. One cow was found washed up against a levee bank after becoming trapped in floodwaters.
Swan Hill stock and station agent Matt Rowlands said demand for agistment from Moulamein producers was enormous but it was a struggle to find any dry land.
"If it's New South Wales or South Australia we're just crying out for a bit of urgent help," Mr Rowlands said.
Ms Gilmour said their fate depended entirely on whether the levee banks held, and they were contemplating losses in "the millions".
She wants governments to step up with more support than the one-off relief payments being offered by the state government.
"I think the government needs to assess it on an individual circumstance, I don't know if you can just over all say $75,000 for disaster relief when people are losing millions," she said.
