The rain has certainly limited the tasks that we are able to do. The ground is feeling pretty water logged and we have created mud tracks in a few places but are lucky that we are not feeding out and creating more mud.
The week has revolved around necessary stock work, fencing and a bit of maintenance.
Mal headed off farm on Tuesday and left us to do the lambing beat. His last words were "don't bring home any lambs". It was my intention not too but that is not how things turned out.
After we had put Alice on the school bus, we headed to the other block to check things out, mainly from ridge tops with a pair of binnoculars. Not far in along the track we had to lamb a ewe, unfortunately the lamb was dead. Heading further along the track, over a small slip, we spied a ewe with a bearing but decided she could wait until our trip back. Negotiating the few newborns on the track, we entered the pine trees. Then sitting by the fence in the trees was a lone ewe lamb (Dora). Then I parked up and went for a stroll to check on a ewe and happened to stumble across a new born lamb left on the track and no mum in sight (Deigo). Whilst I headed out in one direction, I looked to the hillside and saw a ewe who I thought had triplets, and told Katja to look. But alas I was mistaken, it was quads. In her haste to depart the area, she left one behind, who I decided could come home with us (Kleiner Boots). So with our hands ful, we headed back.
 |
| Katja, Dora, Kleiner Boots and Deigo by the pines |
On the way back we tried to catch the bearing, but with my dog not playing ball, we went on a goose hunt with no success. In the meantime, I came across another ewe trying to lamb, but unfortunately not a good ending for either party with the lamb obviously being stuck for a while. Managed to get it out but no-one survived (and I had to escape for the dry-reaching). The next we returned to get what colostrum we could from the ewe (nearly a litre) which is now frozen in cubes.
 |
| The team at home - Pearl, Dora, Kleiner Boots, Katja and Deigo |
Kleiner Boots is rather small, coming to the top of my redbands. We should have weighed him but hopefully you get a glimpse of how small he was. Unfortunately Dora's story is not so good either. Managing to give her a feed, by mid-afternoon she had gone down hill (possibly no colostrum) and my evening had passed away. In the meantime, Deigo had picked up and Kleiner Boots (who was a day or two old) was doing rather well.
On the weekend we decided to venture to Raglan, the cheesemaking for the day had to go on hold.
We collected some sausages and chips and headed to the beach for lunch.
 |
| Having lunch at the beach |
Raglan certainly put on a nice day for us, with lots of sun and no wind. As a bonus, there wasn't a lot of people around either. With the tide going out there was plenty of wet sand to build a castle and moat. I didn't think the water was that warm, but the kids thought is was ok for jumping waves.
 |
| Alice, Katja and Rachael with their castle |
We then headed into town for the obligatory ice cream that you have to do at the seaside before heading off to Bridal Veil Falls. This was my first visit and now I wonder why it has taken me so long to get there! The 261 steps down to the bottom were well worth the walk, as we were rewarded by the 55 metre drop, with water cascading into a large pool at the bottom.
 |
| Bridal Veil Falls |
It was enjoyable day of the farm and was nice to have such a fine day to do it in.
No comments:
Post a Comment