South Australian Premier Mike Rann has declared it a national crisis and the Treasurer has announced a “rural recession.”  It’s official, agrees the PM — Australia is struggling through the worst drought on record.

But while this might be headline news for the papers and pollies this morning, there’s nothing new about it for farmers. Crikey’s friend, farmer Pete Howe, sent us these photos this morning to give us a glimpse of “what the real world looks like.”

According to Pete, “these lambs are some of the 90 orphan lambs because of the drought, their mothers are too weak to look after them so we feed them to keep them alive.”