The only way David Duff can describe the road to recovery from the bushfires that scorched his land was that they "went from hell to paradise in six weeks".
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But as Mr Duff and his wife Carolyn survey the farmland at Toorooka west of Kempsey that has been in their family for four generations, they will never forget what happened on November 8.
And they are thankful they have each other and their family after the "ferocity and fierceness' they witnessed.
While they manged to save the house, the fire destroyed the steel machinery sheds that contained most of their equipment, it claimed about 80 head of cattle from their Brahman/Santa Gertrudis herd and sadly the lives of six of their working dogs.
In that first 10 weeks after the fire, they spent close to $100,000 feeding cattle in containment paddocks.
Related reading: Upper Macleay family rallies for rebuild after Kempsey bushfires
They usually rely on water from the river, but with no boundary fences, the Duffs had to install infrastructure to pump the water from the river to a tank through one kilometre of polypipe to a series of troughs in their containment paddocks.
At the same time they had to wait months before bushfire grants and loans were approved.
"We needed the money to keep going, we got a little from our insurance, but it wasn't enough to cover what we lost," he said.
But today their land is a far cry from burned paddocks.
"If it hadn't rained, it would have been a very different story," Mrs Duff said.
There is an abundance of grass after 600mm of rain replenished the once parched paddocks from drought and fire.
"We went from famine to feast," he said.
"The way the country responded after the rain was tremendous, I've never seen grass grow like it."
It rained so much they didn't get to plant forage sorghum. Instead they cut grass country, producing 270 round bales.
Mr Duff said they were also halfway through fencing 18km of boundary and 40km of internal fencing that was destroyed by fire.
It not only rained but generosity poured in with people donating dogs while contractors and BlaizeAid arrived to help with the clean-up and fencing.
Now they have given themselves a target to be back in business by November.
"It will have been a year by then, it's not an option not to be at our goal," Mr Duff said.
Down the river
Mark Argue cut a lone figure on his horse as he walked through his property west of Kempsey surveying what was left after the same bushfires.
But today there is feed up to his knees and they are now recovering with high cattle prices and winter crops planted.
"It's amazing the amount of native grasses that have come back, we haven't seen for seven years," Mark's wife Suzanna said.
Related reading: Act of kindness amid bushfire crisis at Kempsey
Slow recovery for north-east producers
Tim Dougherty, Tabulam, experienced the fires in February 2019, at a time when Tenterfield and Tingha were also affected - on top of drought.
He had no choice but to sell half his cattle herd to the meatworks, as there was no market for restockers and zero agistment at the time.
"Once you start buying hay in February you know you are in for a long haul."
As it turned out rain fell within three weeks and Mr Dougherty took the opportunity to plant 40 hectares of oats for winter feed, but as there was no follow up rain the crop wasn't overly successful.
"We had one good graze on it and that was it. By July and August our country was chip dry."
Now, after good summer rain the flats have come back very well, but the hard burnt ridges will take long time to recover.
"A fire in the summer compared to winter burns so much hotter," he said.
"It killed out a lot of pasture and what grew back wasn't so good - like Coolatai grass, and Bahia grass. You're better off with blady grass."
In the meantime, Mr Dougherty - who hasn't qualified for government assistance - has started to oversow with 12ha of Rhodes grass with some more oats.
"The rebuild will be long, slow and costly," he said.
Seven kilometres of fencing were lost in the fires and a bit more than half the distance has been resurrected. Replacement breeders are still only unjoined heifers, so the sale of a calf is a couple years away.
"The price for restockers has been white hot and I can't afford to buy cows in calf."
