Another week, and still things are ticking along nicely – this weekend we managed to achieve quite a bit. On Friday afternoon, because it was going to rain, I got the tractor out and topped several paddocks in the hope that when the rain comes, they will bush up even more, I managed to get the three new paddocks done, and I started on another, but gave up because the sheep were in there and getting a bit stressed running in front of the tractor. Early that afternoon, I installed 2 new T-joints and taps of the main water line, so that we can irrigate the trees permanently.
Also I managed to fix the leaking tap on the tractor, it turned out to be a small rubber washer, I picked that up for nothing from a plumbing shop in town.
Saturday was not such good day for achievements though as we spent most of the day on the road, first driving to Masterton for some piping (for the irrigation) and some hoof stuff for Markissa, and then to the other end of the Wairarapa to a friends place to drop off some chilly-bins. We ended up getting back home around 3pm, and then in the afternoon I started cleaning up the garage so we can move all the fibre stuff out there (so we have a spare bedroom again), and I installed one line of irrigation along the trees beside the arena. During the morning though we did pick up “Annie”, our neighbours morbidly obese sheep and put here in the paddock with the Alpacas and goats (there’s no grass down there).
Sunday was much better in terms of achieving things, I got up nice and early and finished cleaning the garage and moving everything out of the spare bedroom, then Steph got up and we brought our sheep up to the yards, after catching Winston and putting him out of the yards (I didn’t want a ram with horns around whilst trying to catch the other sheep!), we caught the black faced ewe and her two lambs and drenched and dipped them. Then we caught the other ewe as she was also limping slightly; just a hoof trim for her, and then it was on to the lambs, one had really bad scald, which we’ve now treated, and will do so again later this week, the other was fine though. They are both good weights, and we’re thinking about getting one done for Christmas lunch – should organise that soon.
To make life easier for later this week, we put the sheep up in the orchard, there is really long grass there and it’s right beside the yards, it did involve building a small temporary fence around the compost pile as there is no fence behind it yet, our neighbours cows pulled it over, and he still hasn’t got around to fixing it yet.
After that, we moved the alpacas into one of the new paddocks as they are being shorn next Saturday, fingers crossed that this year the fleece will be better, it’s certainly looking less polluted than last year. We’re thinking that this years fleece we’ll get professionally carded so we can use it as an example of what we should be aiming for. Another job all done, but now we realised that we had to move around a few water troughs as Adam likes sitting in baths (and the paddock they are in has a bath for a water trough). We took the 280L water trough (which he can still stand in though) from the other paddock and plumbed it in, but then we still had to move the bath, and gee’s they are heavy – this called for the tractor. Using the cargo tray to lift it up was much easier than any other way. Whilst I was finishing up the troughs, Steph started cutting the front lawn. Once I had finished I went across to Jenny’s to pick up the mower and sprayer, I quickly mowed the back garden, and then after lunch we filled the sprayer and Steph drove the tractor around whilst I was walking along behind with the sprayer, we did the driveway, around the tanks, the vege bed, the edges of the arena and around the junk area, hopefully in a few weeks it will all be dead!
After returning the mower, I started making Steak and Kidney pie (the kidneys from our sheep, and steak from Margo’s cows), and Steph carried on painting the fence. Once the meat was stewing, I drove into Carterton to pick up some pastry and some bell collars for the cats (we’re getting fed up with a bird a day!)
Once I got home, Steph finished up painting and quickly went down to do Markissa’s hooves, and I turned a new drawer knob for my dresser out. Once we both finished, the rain started, and then we decided that the day had finished (and it was still early afternoon). Time for a relaxing bath for Steph, and I cleaned the office and started working on a new project writing an computer system to monitor and control a fishtank.
We rounded the evening off with the pie, glass (or two) of wine, and we sat down and watch “The Truman Show”, unfortunately the projector was playing up a little bit, so I’ll ring L.V. Martins today.
Hopefully this week I’ll purchase another 15 or so sheep, Jenny has a large paddock that is getting overgrown, so we’re going to throw in 15 sheep, and Paul (the shearer), is going to put in another 10. Hopefully we’ll fatten them up and then move them onto the yards and make about $15/head, we’ll see how long we can keep them in there, would be good to keep them in till around August, we would make a much better profit if we can.
Anyway till later.
No comments:
Post a Comment