At first Mrs Matthewson, who lives at Ben Lomond near Glenn Innes, thought the neighbour must be on holidays and had left the dog food out for whoever was to feed the dogs while they were away.

But as she travelled further down the road and the bags of dog biscuits were at every mailbox she become inquisitive as to why this was the case.

“My son lives down the road from our home and at his mailbox I got out of the car to investigate and not only was there a bag of dog food leaning against the mailbox, in the mailbox were chocolates,” she said.

“Only later did we find out these wonderful gifts had been donated by a group of kind and generous people from Singleton.

“It was a total surprise, we had absolutely no idea what they were planning before we saw the dog biscuits and found the chocolates on Sunday morning – we have helped people before in a similar way but you never expect to receive gifts like this, it really put a smile on everyone’s face.”

In last Thursday’s Singleton Argus we reported a story about the donations of hay, dog biscuits and chocolates to farmers along Maybole Road, Ben Lomond in the state’s Northern Tablelands, an area hit badly by drought conditions this year.

Singleton resident Malcolm Causley with assistance from John Lamb delivered the goodies which they hoped would provide the community with a lift.

Mr Causley knew the area was badly affected by the drought after he spent time caretaking his brother-in-law’s property located in the district earlier this year.

Mrs Matthewson said despite four inches of rain in late March the situation remains pretty grim with stock water still in very short supply.

“It was at the beginning of last winter when we had our last decent fall of rain that topped up our on-farm water supplies,” she said.

“And with winters here being extreme with temperatures dropping to minus 13 degrees we desperately need some follow-up rain.

“But everyone in the district wants to say a big thank you for the gifts from Singleton they certainly lifted our spirits.”