How Did She Know?

Yesterday had been a good day. I hadn't lost anything; broken anything; or messed up in any significant way. So I made myself a celebratory dinner of mutton, asparagus and baked potato. I was still congratulating myself as I prepared to step into the shower.

And then my perfect day fell apart. Literally as I was sticking my toe into the water, I heard a loud, plaintive BAAA from under my window. Really loud!! As in "I'm not in my paddock. I'm here in the driveway." And she was! 'She' was an almost grown lamb who desperately wanted back to her flock.

The problem is that she could bolt, run down the driveway into a neighbor's property or even down to the road and cause havoc with the traffic. And it would all be my responsibility. 

So I pulled a raincoat on over my wetness (and bareness) and ran sockless in my farm shoes into the garage. The sound of the garage door opening sent the lamb into a frenzy and down she ran. Off our driveway and 2/3 of the way down our shared driveway. I got in my car and followed. I parked beyond her and jumped into the too tall grass and waded my way up to her. My idea was to herd her into the paddock through the driveway gate.

Unfortunately that gate turned out to be locked and I didn't have the key. I did have grass up to my navel (did I mention it was wet grass?) and was distinctly uncomfortable. Anyway, at this point the lamb bolts back INTO our driveway, I run back down to the car, and drive past her to open the gate into the area before her paddock. 

This is the area claimed as their own by my chickens who bolt themselves at this unexpected opportunity to race into my garden and destroy all my baby flowers. So then I drive back and secure my neighbor's gate and our gate to the main driveway. All this time the  lamb is loudly protesting her enforced separation from the flock. 

"Aha!", I think, "I've got her now. All I have to do is herd her into the chicken yard, open the far gate to the paddock and shoo her in." Oh, the best laid plans...etc. I get out of my car and start moving her. She moves all right. Back down our driveway to the closed gates. I sigh with relief a tad too soon. She bellies her way under the gate and dashes back down the road.

Reread the first few paragraphs. It all happens again! Finally I get her back into our driveway and this time I back the car up against the gate so she can't scoot through. This works and she darts into the yard. I shut that gate behind her. She runs over to the brush next to the barn and I open the gate into the paddock preparatory to shooing her through.

Wrong again! She bolts over the brush and falls into a gully on the other side. She is trapped; the other 46 sheep are not. They curiously start poking their heads through the now open gate. I spend the next few minutes racing back and forth keeping the flock away from the gate and trying to extricate the lamb. I finally fall into the gully myself as I push the lamb out. As I thrash around trying to get out, she saunters calmly through the paddock and rejoins her family.

As I get back into the shower, wincing at all my scrapes and bruises, I have one question. How in hell did that lamb know I had just eaten her grandmother? And was this a purposeful revenge? Okay, make that 2 questions.

Til later.

What Is a Warkworth?

First, an two-pronged apology. The first is for not including a photo on this blog. The reason is simple. I "upgraded" my Windows and now cannot download my photos. Just assume that my photo of the growth of the chicks has occurred. The second prong is that I have not written for some time. My computer crashed and my rotator cuff still bothers me. Still, I'm sorry.

Okay, here is this month's update. All the older hens have been humanely dispatched to the great scratching ground in the sky. We waited literally months but no eggs equals no hens. The 10 chicks appear thrilled to no longer be terrorized by the big bullies.

Our 3 steers are not working out well at all. They came puny and remain puny. Not too puny however. When Dan and Yael tried to treat them for possible parasites/worms, one crashed through our fence and romped off with our neighbor's herd. A second smashed the gates. The third took his medicine meekly. It was an unbelievable drama to get #1 back and I personally can't wait for him to become hamburger.

Anyway: What is a Warkworth. Warkworth is the small town I live in. In the summer months (which is what we have now in the Southern hemisphere) our small town is overrun with tourists and weekenders. It is almost impossible to find a place to park. If you are one of the blessed few, the parking is free. (I told you it was a small town!). I have a book club meeting on the 1st Wed. of the month - today - and after much circling and muttering I parked in a 10 minute space and hoped the parking police were busy elsewhere.

About 20 minutes into the meeting, a librarian ran over and whispered that the traffic guys were getting a cup of tea in the break room before grabbing their hand-held computers and sashaying forth to spread a little Xmas cheer.

Three women recommended that I park (as they do) in the nearby supermarket lot. They assured me that they had never had a problem. Well, I was stuck so I took their advice. After the meeting was over I went into the supermarket to buy something. Guilt is a powerful force. I met all 3 women in there also buying stuff. No wonder they'd never had a problem. Neither would I if I continued to shop there. But that's a small town: the parking is free but scant and those of us who live here feel guilty about taking advantage of the shops and buy things we don't really need to say thank you.

You just have to love New Zealand and the small town mentality. At least I do!

Because I Deserve It

No, friends, I am not dead but with both shoulders out of commission with rotator cuff injuries, there were times I wished I were. Anyway, that and bad weather and sheer laziness explain why I haven't written for six weeks. Oh, and the fact that there was nothing to write about!

That all changed today. In my down time we acquired 10 baby chicks. These chicks need a lot of TLC and are thriving as you can see. However, yesterday we moved them from the breeding coop to the big coop. What happened to our 9 chickens that had been occupying said coop? Well...

Chicken food is expensive and in order to justify that expense, the chickens have to lay eggs. From 9 chickens we were getting 2 or 3 eggs a day. This went on for several months. Finally it was time to declare that we no longer had chickens as pets. Then I had to discover which chickens were still laying. Not easy but eventually I caught 3 actually sitting in the laying boxes, marked them with Naavah's finger paints and the rest were doomed to be fertilizer. Dan did the actual dispatching of the hens; I did the crying.

But we moved on, sort of. After 3 weeks of chick sitting, I was ready to move them into the big coop. This meant displacing our 3 remaining hens to the small coop. Not as bad as it sounds since the weather is nice and our fowl range free all day anyway. So we made the swap - we chased chickens, blocked hen attacks and nurtured the hell out of the little ones.

Today I cleaned out the old coop (what a fun job; 3 weeks of chicken poo, etc.) and was trudging back into the garage for yet another trash bag when I spied the cat trap that Dan had stored in the other bay of the garage. Lo and behold, we had trapped a possum. And not just any possum but one who had left its weight in poo and wee all around and under the cage. Now I figure the genetic possum pool has just risen by several points because this one had obviously been born without any brain whatsoever. It must have snuck into the garage while I was cleaning the coop and darted into a cage that didn't even have any food to entice it. What a loser! Or was I the loser?

Anyway, I now had to finish the chicken coops and then dispatch the possum and clean the garage. And now I am going to have the world's longest, hottest shower. Drought be damned. I deserve it.

New Ventures

One of the most important things today's small farmers can do is to keep trying new things. Above you see our latest attempt: Bee Hives. Now don't get the wrong idea. We know nothing about bees and even less about bee keeping. Naavah, 4 year old grandchild, had to educate me on the number of eyes bees have. 

Anyway, here we go with another joint effort to keep things humming (sorry!) here at the farm. What we've done is contract with a beekeeper who situated his hives on our land. He will have responsibility for the maintenance, gathering, etc. In exchange, he keeps us lavishly supplied with honey and takes the excess for himself.

This works well for us. We don't sell anything we harvest, reap, or grow here. But we do eat exceedingly well. Our eggs are for us, our meat is for us, and now our honey is for us. What we do get is the knowledge that the kids are eating the best food in the world. No  preservatives, no hormones just organic everything. I am very proud of Dan and Yael for their commitment to giving the healthy best to their kids. After all, these are my super, exceptional grandchildren and only the best will do for them.

Til next time.

The Babies

I know its been a while since our last blog but I haven't had anything to write about. How many times can I tell you that it rains a lot in the winter? That it is soggy and cold? That I am never out of boots, wellies, galoshes, rubbers or whatever? Anyway, it feels very boring to me so I can just imagine how boring it is for you.

But today I am happy to report that there is indeed something newl Three somethings to be exact and they are the three babies pictured above. They are 6 month old Black Angus steers and are hopefully destined for a cushy life for the next 2 1/2 years. Ultimate destination? The chest freezer.

We have had such great luck with all our other Black Angus steers that we decided to stay with a winner. I am sure that our butcher will be as happy about that as we are. If you remember he raved so much about our meat that we ended up giving him some.

So that's my big news. It's Spring and the willow trees are leafing up and the rains are slacking off and the temperature is rising. And we have 3 brand new additions to the farm. Doesn't get much better than this.

Til next time.

The Down Side

As you know, Dan works hard and plans meticulously to try and have the best possible grass in our paddocks. This year we even took off the steers so that the grass would not be eaten down as quickly and their tonnage would not chew up the ground.

So we were pardonably pleased that our paddocks stayed green, produced an abundance of grass for our flock, and were the envy of our neighbors. At least of our bovine neighbors. The above picture is our quarantine paddock. We use it only as a holding paddock when we buy new stock. The new stock acclimates to our sounds, smells, etc. while shedding all their toxins, chemicals, etc. through elimination (poo and wee to the less finicky). This way our other paddocks remain pristine.

Good, sound agricultural practice? You bet. And deeply appreciated by our neighbors. So appreciative are  they that they have taken to butting their way through the fence on the right and into our paddock for some serious grazing. Imagine my surprise when, as I drove by, to see white heifers placidly munching through our grass. They barely looked up. They knew what they liked and they were helping themselves.

So I turned around and headed back up to the farmhouse and Dan. We called around and finally got hold of the heifers' owner. He was down to our paddock within 2 hours (he would have been there sooner but he had a sick child to take care of). He rebuilt the fence better than new and I have seen nary a cow since. That is what I call a 'good neighbor'. The heifers, not so much. But now you see the down side of doing everything right. Some 4 footed animal is sure to take advantage!

Til next time.

Foster Mom

I am in the process of updating my resume to include Foster Mom. Yes, I am now an experienced !! ewe substitute with a living lamb as my credentials.

It all started on, literally, the coldest night of the year. So cold that we actually had a nice, crunchy frost the next morning. Anyway, that night ewe #9 yellow decided to give birth to twins. Since these weren't optimal conditions the 3 of us agonized over the kitchen table about what to do.(I suppose #9 yellow's agony was worse.) Should we bring in the lambs and risk having the mother reject them? Should I feed them in situ and hope for the best? Should we move them into the stalls, push the ewe in and pray? Or should we do nothing and let the Mom be in charge.

I was in favor of ceding authority to the Mom and that is what we did. Unfortunately, the Mom declined the baton and one of the twins was dead when I got to the paddock the next morning. The other (see above photo) was curled in a ball shivering violently. The mother had wandered some way away, obviously completely uninvolved in the proceedings. Another sympathetic ewe tried to approach the lamb but #9 yellow butted her away. The kid could die but no other ewe could have it. (Sorry, not kid, lamb).

I tried to get to the lamb but the ewe was ornery so I woke Dan and he got the lamb out of the paddock and into my shirt covered arms. I was very careful not to let any part of me get directly onto the lamb in case the mother would reject it for my scent. So there I was happily tucked up in my overstuffed chair warming a lamb. It was kind of nice! The girls played quietly nearby, coming frequently to see that the lamb was still alive. My cat, Smudge, sat on the bed nearby and gave it the prolonged cat stare. Hard to tell what she was thinking but I certainly didn't sense any hospitable approval.

Finally the lamb began stirring and bleating. The sun had warmed the paddock and we decided to risk reuniting mother and child. The lamb was eager, the mom standoffish but at long last she let herself be milked. She is still a lousy mother and this poor little lamb has to fight for everything but it is still alive. It runs around stealing a sip from other mothers and getting stronger daily but we still watch her closely and pray every morning that she is still alive. So far, so good. 

Yea! Lambing Season

The rains are here, the cold is here, and the lambs are here. Two, anyway and many, many more are expected in the new few weeks. As you can see from the picture above, the ewes are very nonchalant about the miracle of birth; I am not.

As the world becomes increasingly incomprehensible to me (as in "What are they thinking of?"), I turn from the latest bewildering news byte to the  rhythm of the farm. I firmly believe it is saving my sanity - or what's left of it.

There is something soothing about watching the flock amble its way to the sunny part of the paddock. It took me almost a year to figure out why. For those of you who don't know, it is because the sunny grass is drier and so easier to chew. And the dry grass doesn't irritate their eyes the way wet grass does.

 Anyway, the ewes don't rush; no train to catch for them, no rush hour madness. And then they settle in to the daily routine, of which they never tire. They eat, they rest, they eat, they snooze, they eat, and then they bed down for the night.

I have heard it said that farmers are Nature's philosophers. Well, they'd have to be, wouldn't they? They see the pace of nature up close and personal. Nothing is much more personal than pulling a sideways lamb out of the womb. Farmers take the long view on everything. Rains come when they shouldn't and don't when they should. But so far it has evened out - sort of. Farmers live that reality. 

They also live with the knowledge that nothing lasts and change always happens. They gave up optimism with puberty and know well that sometimes the farm floods, locusts savage the first ample wheat yield in 7 years, the bull they saved up to buy will be sterile, etc. etc. etc. And yet they get up each early, early morning and watch the ewes amble down to the sunny side of the street. And now I do too. I am very lucky.

RIP Raw Milk

For some time now, we have been engaged in the movement to allow more access to raw milk. We have been drinking it for several years and  about 8 months ago, started slacking off since it is incredibly difficult to get out to the small dairy farm to buy it. But we ran back a few month later when we all were back in the cycle of recurring colds, rashes, aches, etc. We were better off with raw milk. Naturally we were anxious to see how the Government responded to the consumer demand for better access to raw milk. Here is the response:

Following the public consultation and an extensive review, the Government has announced its new policy on the sale of raw milk to consumers.  The new policy will allow farmers to sell raw milk directly to consumers, either from their farm or via home deliveries. There will be no limits on the amount farmers can sell to a consumer, or the amount they can sell overall. However, raw milk can only be bought for personal and household consumption, and can not be on-sold.

 The new policy, which will apply from 1 March 2016, recognises the strong demand for raw milk from both rural and urban consumers.  However, given the food safety risks associated with consuming raw milk, farmers who want to sell raw milk to consumers must meet strict conditions, including specific production, transport and labelling requirements, in order to manage these risks.

 Farmers will also be required to register with MPI and must be independently verified on a regular basis to ensure they are meeting their requirements to minimise and manage food safety risks where possible.  All farmers who sell raw milk to consumers will have to meet the same requirements, regardless of the amount they sell.

 Sounds good doesn’t it? The reality is that farmers will have to meet the ‘same requirements’ as dairy farmers. Great except that most dairy farmers who sell their milk are large scale operations and can afford equipment costing upwards of half a million dollars and staff to regulate temperatures, etc. The whole purpose of raw milk is that cooking milk destroys good bacteria.

I don’t need to even touch on labelling, transport, etc. We buy our milk directly from the farmer, bring our own jars and don’t label anything. We can see that it is milk without any words to tell us so.

Since the milk cannot be ‘on-sold’, it obviously is for private consumption only. The small raw milk farmer should not have to comply with the same stringent requirements of major suppliers such as the massive dairy herds that make up Fonterra.

Anyway, as of 1 March 2016, I guess we’ll be going back to the generic, processed, cooked milk that has failed so spectacularly to help keep us healthy. The Government has really stepped up to the plate in response to the ‘strong demand for raw milk from both the rural and urban consumers. I would say that it is a lose-lose situation except even I can see that the large dairy conglomerates win, win, win.

We Start Them Young

The most important fact about a farm is that the work is never done. The first year I was here, I kept trying to 'finish' my work. By the second year I was committed to 'keeping up' with the work. Now, I settle for 'doing something' every day.

In order to keep even close to having this farm run properly, we all have to work: that includes the kids. All 3 of them. Alessia is 6 and 1/2, Naavah is 4 and 1/2, and Jesse is 2 and 1/3. Alessia has been opening gates, feeding chickens, gathering eggs, and in general being another pair of hands for 4 years. Naavah is a reluctant (to say the least) member of our human fence to help guide stock into the proper paddocks. She will also pull an occasional weed (under duress). Her future is destined to be living in a penthouse apartment in Manhattan and only breathing unfiltered air as she sweeps to her limo on the way to the ballet.

Jesse is the newest member to be introduced to farm labor. And easily the most enthusiastic and least fearful. Alessia would do anything required of her and often a lot more but she had to overcome her fear of chickens, of sheep, of cows, etc. It is just the opposite with Jesse. He has to be reined in. He will run headfirst into the flock of chickens, greeting them with rapture while I race behind him worried that he'll be pecked or clawed. So far they just move out of his way.

Yesterday Dan decided to move the sheep from the new barn paddock down to the quarantine paddock. Yael and the girls walked on down closing gates on the way. They then positioned themselves alongside the open gate as the human fence into the quarantine paddock and waited.

Dan started moving the sheep down to the gate leading to our driveway. This is a large paddock and very long. It dips significantly in the center and rises steeply at both ends. Since Dan couldn't both chase sheep and move at Jesse's small legged pace, he sent Jesse to stand in the middle of the paddock. Generally speaking the sheep will move along the fence line so the middle is the safest place to be. Dan called to Jesse.

"Are you all right?"

"Des." Translation - Yes in 2 year old.

Dan then spreads his arms wide and moves on the sheep. Jesse spreads his arms wide and plants his sturdy little legs deep in the wet grass. All 47 sheep race up to him.

"Are you all right", queries a slightly panicked father.

"Des." Lots of giggles and outright laughter as the sheep cluster even closer.

Dan then moves toward the sheep who obediently file out the gate. Guess who is right behind them? Not Dan! Nope, here comes Jesse following his new 47 best friends. The sheep cluster right outside the gate and begin munching. Jesse runs right up to them, waves his arms and yells "RUN!"

And they do. All the way to the curve in the road. Dan is panting his way far behind. Jesse is galloping down ecstatically yelling "RUN!" This happens all the way down to the quarantine paddock where Jesse's terrified mother is not amused when he announces, "I move de sheep all by myself." I bet there was an interesting discussion in the parental bedroom that evening.

Until next time.

Suzukis Are Not Pursuit Cars

Dan and I both own Suzuki cars. They are fine as basic transportation. I refer to mine as "the lawnmower". It is extremely economical, easy to turn, and has almost no power whatsoever. And that brings me to the latest farm saga.

Our rural communities have been infested with thieves and arsonists. This is not a laughing matter. Some crazies have taken chain saws to cows, burned, pillaged and stolen everything that is or is not nailed down.

We have been warned repeatedly by the police to keep a vigilant eye out for the unusual or unexpected guest. So when we were sedately driving the Suzuki down our driveway, it was not hard to spot the intruder. Of course it could have been an innocent sightseer who had managed to leave the road and wander half a mile up our driveway (which is posted prominently as "Private Driveway").

But we gave up any benefit of the doubt idea when the intruder ran back to the car parked on the verge, bolted into the driver's seat and raced away at a speed never before seen on that driveway. I use the term 'intruder' because we genuinely have no idea of this person's sex. The figure had shoulder length dark hair, wore a unisex sweatshirt (I think with a hood), baggy pants and country shoes. Could have been anybody.

Once we grasped that the cloud of dust ahead of us was trying to escape, we raced off in pursuit. We tried; we really tried. Our Suzuki gave its all. We zipped down the mountain, over the railroad tracks and around and around the twisty mountain roads. But we never even got close enough to get the license plate. Sukuzis are not pursuit cars.

So if anybody knows of a black or dark green station wagon owned by a unisex sweatshirt wearer in the Rodney district of New Zealand, let us know. We want to have a chat.

For the Butcher

This is what a steer looks like when cut into usable meat. We couldn't even have fit half of one of the boys in the trunk (aka boot) when he was alive. And we take all possible parts. Still, the boys gave us beyond-prime meat.

The butcher raved on and on and on about how our meat was the best he had ever seen. "You can't buy quality like that!" And he's right. You can't. But we don't have to. All we have to do is buy yearlings, baby them for 2 years, give them lots of room, a calm environment, plenty of grass and fresh water and wait. No hormones, no nothing, But try telling that to people who have spent their lives on supermarket sirloins.

Yael was so thrilled to have our boys appreciated that way that she gave some cuts of meat to the butcher. It sounds funny. Sort of like giving shoes to the cobbler but he was very appreciative.

Once again I am going through my angst. The boys were an important part of my day and I miss them. I find that I am eating less and less beef and I don't know if it's an increasingly delicate digestive system or this nagging sense of guilt. And yet I have to admit that our beef is really, really good!

Catching Up

So here we are again with autumn here and winter coming on. It has been full on at Stone Tree Farm. We have had visitors from all over the world. And while that has been great, the weather has not cooperated. The first guest came when it was still summery (and by the way, guest, many, many thanks for the Lego set. The kids have been entranced ever since.)

What do you do with people who can't drive here (wrong side of the road), it's bucketing, and Alessia has a massive ear infection and sore throat? Oh, and did I mention that the kids are off school?

Yup, it has been a trip. Now my dearest friends are leaving and I am struggling with some serious sadness. But the farm always has a way of dealing with sadness. It's called "work". The chickens are moulting, the borrowed ram is being returned (hopefully having impregnated 30 some ewes), the ewe lambs need to be re-introduced to the larger flock, and the boys aka our 2 steers are headed for the freezer.

Taking the last first, 2 steers is a ton (almost literally) of meat. Where to put it all? We have both a house freezer and a chest freezer at the farm. And a normal refrigerator/freezer at the apartment. Not enough. Not nearly enough. So we are renting a freezer from a neighbor.

All this is because we don't want the steers chewing up the paddocks through the sodden winter. They are hefty and leave great gashes in the soil as they walk. We could take off just one but they are social animals and it would be cruel to leave one all on his own.

The sheep are happy in the new barn paddock but the steers just left it and there probably isn't enough grass for the large flock once the ewe lambs join them. This is the conundrum of autumn. There is much less grass and it grows slowly. How are we able to balance feeding our animals with preserving the integrity of the paddock? We have never found the ideal solution so each year we have tried something else. This year we will try taking off the steers and just wintering over the sheep.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Autumn Abundance?

The above picture is the sum total of our market garden's Autumn abundance. The yellow cucumbers are great and there are a slew of them. The tomatoes - not so much. In fact that is all that have survived the great bug infestation. Out of 12 plants the harvest is, to say the least, puny!

The reason can be seen in the picture below. See that huge black rot spot? All the tomatoes (save the 6 in the above picture) have it. I can't control it with the only option available to me as an organic gardener - squishing the predators with my fingers. Where is good ole RoundUp when I need it?

Oops, I forgot. It looks like I could get cancer from it. Since I've already had more than my fair share of that disease, thank you very much, I think I'll pass. So back to organic squishing. I just don't see how the pioneers ever got enough produce from organic farming to survive. Perhaps I'll go to Amish country and see how they do it. There has to be a way; I just haven't found it yet.

It's possible that Alessia (granddaughter age 6) has found the way. The picture below is of her 1 tomato plant which is growing (dare I say thriving) in a raised bed in front of the living room. Now she does nothing but come out and pick the ripe cherry tomatoes. She planted the seed and babied it through infancy to teens and now I do the weeding and most of the watering. There has to be something she's done that I'm missing.

BEETS

The picture of beets comes from the green thumb of my 6 year old granddaughter. Her mother loves beets (or as they say here beetroot) and so Alessia decided to give her a gift. This gift took months of dedicated watering, transplanting, and care but they are quite literally the largest beets I have ever seen. I was worried that they would be 'woody' but they were delicious.

Unfortunately that is the only crop we have. My 14 tomato plants are producing well but some kind of black spot thing is ruining each and every tomato. I have gotten a total of 6 yellow cucumbers from 6 plants. Hardly worth the effort.

I am going to reconsider my whole approach. I think that I might switch to blueberries, asparagus, beet(root) and other such delicacies. The blueberry bushes should do well under bird netting and I don't mind waiting 3 years for asparagus since I can't get anything else to grow anyway.

My rose bushes have managed to stagger through the worst of the drought. They are nothing to write home about (although that is precisely what I am doing right now) but at least I only had 1 fatality. It helped to move the grieving companion bush to the front of the house. Perhaps this Fall I will do the same with the roses that are now in pots.

When I say "I will" I hope you realize that the true digger, mover, transplanter is Dan. I am, however, a crackerjack supervisor. I am brushing up on my "No, no, a little to the left. Are you sure that's deep enough? Perhaps we could pull it out again and try the purple in there."

Dan never says anything but his looks are exceedingly powerful. Oh, and he keeps right on planting where he thinks the bushes should go. Oh well, if I want it done right, I need to pick up a shovel myself.

Til next time.

Breeding Season

The picture above is of our ewe lambs. These are females born last July/August/September who are destined to provide us with cute, cuddly lambs in 2016. The problem is that they don't want to wait that long.

Their mothers and aunts are frolicking in other pastures with our borrowed ram. Our shearer has lent us a fine specimen of ovine masculinity and our ewes are mightily pleased. Our ewe lambs are envious. Downright green-eyed with jealousy.

We think they're too young to mate and far and away too young to be mothers. They might reluctantly agree that motherhood should be postponed but they have quite definite ideas that some practice mating this season would be a good idea. Teenagers! They're all the same.

So we separated them out from the flock. As you can see, they are in what we call the front paddock which is directly in front of the house. There is a far paddock (aren't we clever with our naming?) that opens off the front paddock and we moved them in there as far from the ram as possible.

This worked fine until they ate down the far paddock and we moved them into the front one. From there the catcalls of satisfied ewes across the driveway echoed all day long. Our ewe lambs couldn't stand it. They bolted. They knocked down the fence rails,  burrowed under the gate (see below picture with the gap on the left gate), and headed for the testosterone laden ram.

They didn't make it. The ram was busy elsewhere and they couldn't find a gap in the fence into his paddock. So they made do with an al fresco buffet on the main driveway. Obviously they had to be moved. Who got that chore? Guess. A  subtle hint: I was the only one at the farm at the time.

So I got in my car, shut all the gates along the shared driveway and then tried to figure out what paddock to put the ewe lambs in. Notice my optimism that I'd get them in. One side of the driveway was off limits - filled with mating sheep. The only other paddock was filled with our 2 steers. 

Now they could share the paddock but I would have to leave the gate open for an unspecified amount of time while I rounded up the lambs and herded them into the paddock. Not a good idea since the steers were quite likely to amble out to see what all the fuss was about and I'd never be able to get them back in.

That left the front paddock again. The far paddock is still grazed down. I eventually managed to get them back in the paddock. The key word is 'eventually'. Then I was faced with the prospect of them getting out again. So I wrapped the fence in rope and bird netting. Ditto with the gate. Finally I called Dan to report in.

We agreed that the best plan was to shepherd the lambs into the far paddock at night and let them into the front paddock to graze during the day. So that is what I have been doing. Luckily Dan is up here now and can reinforce the fence so they can't get out. Because I have to tell you, this herding stuff is getting old - really, really old. Or perhaps its just that I'm getting old - really, really old.

Til next time.

The Hedgehog

As you know we wage a never-ending war against possums, rats, rabbits, etc. And the humane cage I talked about earlier has been great for catching these destroyers of vegetables and fruit and roses.

But now it has reached into unknown territory. The above photo is of its latest victim – a hedgehog. A hedgehog, moreover, with a taste for roses. The picture below is of my prized coffee-colored rose bush at half its size from the night before. The hedgehog was caught by the trap which had been placed right next to the roots of the rose.

The problem is that I am a product of my times and so is Dan. We were both avid readers of the Mother West Wind series of children’s books when we were children ourselves.  Said books included stories of cuddly, cute little, you guessed it, hedgehogs!

As if that weren’t bad enough. Beatrice Potter took my heart with her hedgehog stories and drawings. Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for the trapped hedgehog, I have been reading these stories to my grandchildren.

The upshot is that neither Dan nor I could bear the thought of killing this cuddly little rose destroyer. 

So Dan lugged the cage down to the quarantine paddock which backs on a bit of wood and freed the hedgehog. Was she grateful? Did she sprint gleefully for greener pastures/wood? Nope. She remained stubbornly in the cage refusing to move.Time passed but she didn't. Finally Dan dumped her unceremoniously out on the ground and left her. My little Mother West Wind reader has grown up. I wouldn’t want to be the next hedgehog we catch.

This is a view of the market garden early, early in the morning. I had gone down there to do one of my periodic snail sweeps. Imagine my surprise when I found nary a single shell! I remember the first sweep when I captured (and fed to the chickens) well over 400 of the little devils. I assume the chickens remember it as well.

So I wandered puzzled through the garden and its surrounds until I was startled (I almost had a heart attack) by Harvey the Duck. First off, I had forgotten all about him. Second, I had assumed that after all his traumas he had scampered off to foreign climes. Well, there he was larger than life. I mean that literally. He is huge. I know where all the snails have gone and probably every other living creature in the area. 

He was not pleased to see me but he is so obese that I could have grabbed him before he waddled off into the brush if I had not been so surprised. As it was he made his getaway and I have taken ‘snail hunting’ off my calendar. No need for any more early morning raids.

Just for the fun of it, I have included 2 pictures of tomato plants. The first is planted over the carcass of a possum. The others were possum-deprived. Yet another reason for those possum traps.

Til next time!