Another weekend, and this time I now I have something to write about because my shoulders ache, I have some cuts on my hands and we’re both knackered.
Saturday morning was reasonable normal, with a trip into Masterton to do the shopping etc, but whilst we were there we paid a trip to Arakura nursery (a local council operated tree nursery), after chatting with the guy we came away with ideas on what to plant this year. We’re hoping to turn the paddocks into a park like area, and he suggested silver birches, plane trees, oaks and ash to name a few. So once we work out how many we need, we’ll head back an get some to plant. We’re hoping to have that done before I head off to the UK.
Once we got home, we decided to move the sheep from Jenny’s paddock to another neighbors paddock. Unfortunately there was no easy way to get them across so we used the stock crate. First though we crutched and drenched them, hoping the drench would give them a better chance at gaining the last few kg’s they need before slaughter. Whilst we had them all in, we checked our ewes that should be pregnant. They are huge, still a while off, but they were massive (one might be a bit obese even, how I have no idea as they haven’t had that much feed).
We caught the first 12 and threw them in the crate and then ferried them over to the other paddock (using the bike), there was 1 lamb though that needed to be put in another paddock as we’re slaughtering it for the freezer next weekend or the one after. Once the 11 lambs were out of the crate, I started the bike again to take that one lamb back to our paddock, it spluttered and died. After several minutes hard pulling I found out that the tank was empty, so I switched to reserve (or so I thought), and gave it a few more pulls. One pull was a tad too hard as I snapped the pull cord! In the end I went and got Tom, put the bike on the cargo tray and the trailer on the tow ball, and took the bike back to the workshop (hoping I could repair it), and then the lamb down to the race. Getting back out of the paddock was hit or miss, it’s been very wet this winter, and what with the paddocks already all churned up by the rotavator in autumn, they are like two large mud pits. With the extra drag of the trailer, the tractor tyres were spinning and we weren’t going anywhere fast, but moving…just. Patience was a virtue here as I just sat tight and waited till the ground got a bit firmer and then managed to turn around the gate and head back out to the other 13 lambs. On inspection the next day the ruts I left were over 12 inches deep. Looks like I’ve got some serious rotavating and harrowing to do come spring.
By the time we had move the last 13 lambs across, it was getting dark and I decided to start repairing the bike.
Removing the cover for the pull cord showed the problem (as if we didn’t guess), the cord had snapped inside the housing. So after pulling that out etc, and then working out how it was put togther and disassembling it, I worked what to do, unfortunately I forgot to thread the rope through one of the holes first! Then the spring wasn’t sprung enough to rewind the rope, so I took the center casing out…whoops…the tightly wound metal string became desprung. This was really annoying because initially I had no idea on how to respring it. But with two nails, lots of cable ties and several attempts I managed to respring it by hand, holding the spring together with cable ties. Once it was tightly coiled, I put it back in the case, and started snipping the cable ties, letting the coil expand. That’s where I called it a day, and headed back inside for a nice coffee and a shower.
Sunday started out with finishing fixing the bike, which with Steph’s help only took a few minutes, we presprung the rewinding mech and then feed and tied off the pull rope. Once the bike was complete, I cleaned up all the dead branches that has been sitting around our property for several months, and moved all the other wood debris into a fire pile.

As I was pretty puffed from moving all the wood around, I decided to walk over and check the sheep and goats. Whilst over there I had a chat with the guy who was chopping down some trees for them, and he mentioned that there were some logs around the back of the property that might be good for turning etc, and that I should have a look. It was at that point Steph realized that the alpacas were having fun in the front garden. I had built a temporary fence across the back garden so that they could have some more grass, but they had knocked that over and gone for a walk around the garden, but the main problem was that all the gates were open, and Steph was still on Markissa’s back! After a few minutes of chasing alpacas around the paddocks, we managed to get them back into their paddock and fix the fence so they couldn’t get out again.

Finally it was lunch time….After lunch I took the bike and trailer over to look at the timber, and after an hour or so I came back with two rounds (about 3 foot in diameter), and a slab about 6 foot long and 2 maybe 3 foot wide. Heavy is about the only description that I can think of….One of the rounds had a nasty split right down the middle that I thought might be fixable, but upon picking it up and putting it in the shed for drying, it split right down the middle into two parts, “Bugger” I thought, but then I realized that it would make 2 tables that fit together and that could be quite cool.

After that I decided that I would start making the next couple of bunny hutches, so I spent a few hours in the workshop cutting and ripping timber down into preset lengths and then assembling one hutch. So Snowwhite and Hollywood are now both in the house, I hope to start Rubin’s hutch this evening…

Next week when the light is better I will take photos of the hutches, but by the time I was finished, it was all dark.

Oh, other photos I need to upload is the white lamb’s rug and the finished Winston.

Till later…

Catchup

Ah, once more I've been very lazy about blogging, in my defense we've only just got the projector back (hence blogging from the lounge on a Sunday afternoon can continue), and what with it being winter, not a great deal is happening. But to fill in a few blanks with what we've been up to recently. Firstly all the animals are fine, one of our sheep died a few weeks ago, not sure why, du if you have livestock, at some point, you always have deadstock!. The weekend following I buried it in the paddock where I've been tilling it over ready for spring, well I dug a big hole, threw it in and then started filling it back in. I decided that it would probably be easy using the tractor and the FEL to push the dirt back in - dumb idea. It was fine until I also thought that going over the top with the rotavator was a good idea. The soil was ofcourse uncompacted and the front of the tractor fell into the hole and it took a fair bit of jiggling around to get the tractor out...Later that weekend I had to use the tractor to drag the neighbours ute out of a paddock 'cause he also got stuck, the boys had a great time running around rounding up the cows and Gandalf was espcially pleased when he found an entire sheep carcase...so many bones just for him! He wasn't too impressed when I called him away from it.
We've sent another two lambs off the the big freezer in the sky, and we should be getting them back on Wednesday, along with the hides. Oh, I finished tanning Winston, and he made quite a nice rug, and I also tanned the lamb we used for suasages, the leather came out really even, but not quite supple enough, maybe I didn't use enough leather lube. The only downside with the tanning method at the moment is that it uses chrominum as it's main thing, and it stains the fleece slightly blue, the next hide I'm going to try washing/soaking in sulphuric acid for a day to try and remove the chrome color.

Hopefully on Wednesday or Thursday Snowwhite and Hollywood will have babies, during the weekend I made two nesting boxes out of plywood and now it's just a case of seeing if they drop!

Hm, what else...we've moved the goats onto a neighbours paddock as it's hiller and dryer, which is better for their feet. Hopefully they'll do well over there, and we're going to move the rest of the lambs overthere next weekend, we need to get a little bit more weight on them before we move them on permanantly, and Jenny (our nieghbour) where they have been grazing has finally sold and has 4 weeks.

On the tank front, the Co2 controller has some hardware issues, and I need to rebuild it. I'm going to design a PCB for it, and hope that sovles some of the issues. I've yet to do anything regarding getting the internal glasswork ready either, ah, time is short....

That reminds me this Wednesday is special to Steph and I, it's the shortest day of the year, so it means it only gets better from then on....(and of course, happy birthday to Sophie (if I remember correctly)).

Well that basically fills in all the blanks....

Till next time (hopefully this weekend if something exciting (like baby rabbits) happens).

Hopefully normal bloggin resumes next week

For the last few weeks I've been without the projector, hence unable to use the computer in the lounge (and thus blogging has been erratic).
There isn't much to report at the moment, I've finished tanning Winston, and his rug is now in the lounge, and I have a strip for a wrist support at work. Steph's rabbit is currently being tanned. All the animals are fine and dandy. For those who haven't heard, I'm headeding back to the UK next month(ish). Other than that, there isn't much real news.

Hopefully next week I get the projector, so things should continue as before with weekly blogs and photos.