I got an earfull

Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking, most of the times I figure that I don’t think enough, I suppose it could be laziness or just an over dose of self confidence – luckily the cook wasn’t here to hear me swear ( I think I made a pig blush!). How hard can it be to lay a couple of hundred of metres of poly pipe and fit some taps?? I think the easiest part was getting the roll of pipe off the truck by myself, chasing it down the hill and rolling it back up was a little difficult, and time consuming. I knew it had all gone wrong when I cut the ties around the roll and it exploded like an out of control slinky toy.

Anyway I managed to get it untangled and dragged out, with only a couple of kinks and one tap in a wrong spot – pretty much a success for me! I just need to wait until it rains so I can dig it into the ground (I’m sitting here laughing at myself – I think I’ve disconnected from my reality drive)

So now we have water to all the pigs paddocks and the kids won’t have to cart buckets of water to some of the pigs and the hoses run much better than before. In fact now we can water all the pigs at once and fill the feeds with water at the same time.

I tried to move the goose sitting on eggs yesterday, which ended in tears – for me. For some reason I think she was really attached to her spot, after coaxing her off the eggs with some yummy wheat, I bent over to pick up her eggs, I was trying to be really careful not to break any, I had planned to put them in the covered pen in a nice corner with some straw and other nesting material, but that was soon forgotten as she grab me by the ear and started swinging. Of course, I swore – which didn’t help, her mates all came running and soon I was on my hands and knees with a goose dragging me by the ear and five others honking and hissing all around me. I think the dogs were entertained, they watched from the safety of outside the chook pen.

Thankfully the goose let go after a few seconds (felt a lot longer), she’s still outside the covered pen and she keeps a weather eye on me whenever I go in there now.

I did a bit of shopping today, at the local rural store. I picked up some gear for a new set of pig yards, I had promised my mother I’d build them for the cook last time she was here – and now she might be coming back so I’d better get that done before she arrives (BTW Happy Birthday Mother OXO). I have a plan, I need a new loading ramp and a race, so I had a talk to the guys at the local steel yard and have all the options figured out – in other words they’ve confused the hell out of me, but I figure it can’t be that hard – right ??

So that’s tomorrows job, I need to dig about seven post holes – that’ll be fun, I love digging holes. I am also planning on having a go at shearing George. I got the shears out the other day and sharpened them up, they are an old set of hand shears, but I’ve got them nice and sharp. I took them out yesterday to see if they were sharp enough – normally I can just walk up to George and give him a pat, but he took one look at the shears and headed for the gully and blackberry bush and didn’t come out until I went back into the house. Next time I’ll take them out with me when I do the bread and have a go whilst he’s feeding his face out of one of the buckets – well that’s my plan.

Running of the Sheep

She’s a warm one today – it’s only lunch time and it’s reached 32Deg C already. The weather bureau has issued a storm warning, but the radar shows everything is missing our little slice of heaven. I decided last night that the sheep needed to be moved back out to their paddock. The Cook is home today and she thought she’d move them with the kids. I received a call about an hour ago “The sheep are every where! We can’t get them out of the impound paddock!” It’s forty sheep and a half acre paddock; I wonder what she’s doing?

We have had Peter Andrews’ visit confirmed, hopefully we will have some rain between now and then. There’s a Natural Sequence Farming meeting this week and I’ll find out more then. We are still having problems with the Jeep – I think it’s the Cylinder Head Gasket, I’d better order one from the US and get the whole thing fixed before its too late and somehow I think its something I’m not going to be able to do myself.

The animals all ended up drinking their apple cider vinegar as well – can you imagine the faces they would’ve pulled!!! The Cooks now brewed her famous Biodynamic animal lick ready for the sheep – apparently it fixes the lack of sulphur, which is what leads to infestations of lice.

Weekend well spent

I spent Saturday morning doing a job for a mate, collecting some free steel and taking Harry shopping. Saturday afternoon we brought the sheep in to be sprayed for lice and checked over. We managed to muster the majority, however; Beryl is lurking out there somewhere with here part bred Ram friend. Mildred is still wearing her bell - I'm seriously thinking about putting more bells on the sheep, they make finding them so much easier.

We walked the sheep down to the impound paddock to give them a couple of nights of Apple Cider Vinegar treatment. The sheep don’t seem to mind it and will drink a bathtub of the stuff in an afternoon. The horse won’t touch it; they stand at the trough, push the water around with their noses and refuse to drink. The cows are little sensitive to the taste of it as well.

By Sunday, after a well deserved sleep in, it was back to real work. I had to replace the carbie on the fire pump - I’m glad that’s working again. The Cook spent a lot of the day in the garden, we built a leaky weir down in the gully close to the road and I cemented in the Cooks new Hills Hoist.

After feeding last night I went for a walk around the horse paddock, I found a number of half eaten loaves of bread, a collection of egg shells and a good amount of Fox poo – all fresh. Seems the foxes are still about, just picking different targets now.

I just niticed the coiunter is working again - beauty!!!

Just quackly

With the Cook and Boys away last night I didn’t finish the chores until 10:00pm, makes for a long day after a 5:30am rise. All the animals were fine – however I have left the chickens locked up until they get home.

George, of course, was ferociously hunger by the time I got home and assaulted me as soon as I got out of the car. His stomach rules our life at the moment. Some of the sows are coming in season thick and fast, this only lasts for three days, then there will be peace again for a few weeks.

Wool went to market today – get paid tonight. It won’t be a lot, but at least I can think about doing the walls of the pig pens before winter. I was hoping to be able to do this before the NSF day – which now looks promising.

It’s going to be a scorcher today, it’s already 30 Deg C, probably get to 32 again and tomorrow they forecast 35 deg C. This, thankfully, is down two degrees from yesterdays forecast. The pigs are handling the heat with out much fuss so far, and now the sheep are shorn they should be alright as well. Of course, today is bread day so another early rise and late night is on the cards.

Click go the Shears

Shearing is done! It took nearly all weekend, but it’s done. The first bale of Valley View wool is off to the buyer and I still have to clean out the shed. The mustering was the fun part – because it rained. We had eight people helping muster, I had the Cook and her sister and Malcom had his two dogs – must say I might get myself a couple of dogs, they work better then the two girls I had and you only have to whistle – not stop and explain why you want them to go up there, or block that gap or stay and they don’t stagger around all Sunday creaking and groaning (it’s ok the Cook doesn’t have time to read this right now).

It was an early start Sunday and the work didn’t end until well after dark. I’d forgotten how hard shearing and the associated work is, luckily it only happens once a year. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done on the shearing shed and yards. I want to get myself a welder so I can build a good steel set of yards, I’ve probably got a year to get the most important jobs done – which I’ll probably start a week before it’s next shearing.

The kids help out and, as usual, did their best. Couldn’t really do it all on our own so we are lucky to have them around.

I picked up Georges’ new girlfriend Friday afternoon in Yass. She wasn’t very impressed and is now up in the ewes paddock with the rest of the sheep. She stayed with George for a little while, but I think George is a little young for her.

We did get a little over 9mm of rain for the weekend. But a lot of the storms missed us either side – yet again. Unfortunately there was a lot of lightning which is dangerous this time of year. After the rain on Sunday afternoon I went to check the sheep and make sure they had settled down OK. I only found a dozen or so, but they all seemed ok, the rest have headed for the gullies and hill tops – I did see two foxes, both heading towards the house.

And guess what we had for dinner Sunday night – Roast leg of Lamb, well done Cook.

It costs what?

Eventually I’ll learn. Yesterday was a long day, made longer by a wait for the NRMA man at Michelago. I had taken the Jeep into town to pickup feed and on the way home decided to stop and pick up ‘The Land’. I couldn’t get the Jeep to start again, I figured out it must have been the fuel pump – didn’t waste all those years in the Army for nothing, and called in the man. Luckily I was correct and with a little bit of hand waving and black magic the Jeep was started and transported the feed and myself back home. I rang Jeep to find a price for a new fuel pump - $850, you’ve got to be joking – so I looked up a place on the net, in the US, for a part - $64, that’s more like it. How do people get away with charging 14 times the cost for a part? Even with $50 freight I’m way ahead.

The Cook drove out to the scene of the disaster to see what I was up to ( I was asleep – of course, bugger!) ; she had spent the best part of the day with the weed man and wanted to fill me in on what had happened. Luckily the weeds man was only after Serrated Tussock this time – and we have enough of that on its own. But we are both glad that was all he was after this time. Of course in the process of cleaning one up the others will get cleared as well.

So, unfortunately that’s another job for the list on the fridge.

I am picking up another poddy lamb tonight – a girl friend for George, I’m seriously thinking of calling it Mildred. George had the Cook laughing yesterday afternoon. She drove off down the track he decide he wanted to go as well, so he cased her down the track, he clocked over 30kmph! She had to stop and the lamb bolted around the car in giant circles very pleased he had made her stop. He started dancing a jig on his hind legs and bunting the car with his head – he was very pleased with himself!

On the way down the drive last night, once I had made it home, I saw a fox sitting in the middle of the drive, he just sat on his back side and watched me drive up – once he realised I wasn’t going to stop and was actually aiming at him he decided that he shelter of the willow tree was probably a better place to be.

So - no picture of the Red Rumped Parrot today, maybe over the weekend. We are shearing this weekend so I’ll see how we manage updating – I have to get some goo shearing shots.

Happy Birthday to the Nomadic Ladies out there in WA! Big move in progress so they probably aren’t checking the Blog at the moment – We all hope you have a wonderful day (no sarcasm implied).

Todays picture wa taken by Ben - can you guess what it is?