Something....continued

Well, I was supposed to quickly upload the photos, and then after tea come back and edit it to contain the day's blog, but I got distracted trying to get the lamb tanning going (more on that later).
Yesterday as we had the tree protecting fences done (well kind of, they'll stop a lamb, but not a goat) we moved the lambs in to the paddock we resowed at the end of autumn, the grass in there was getting knee deep in parts (which is

really a bit long for the sheep), but it needs to be trimmed, and taking the tractor and mower in there would just destroy all the hard work planting it out, so sheep it is. We were expecting to have to herd the goats back out of the

paddock as normally once we open a gate, there are 4 goats going through it, but amazingly enough, we managed to get the sheep out of their paddock, through the goat paddock and into the next, without the goats moving.
After moving the sheep, we had a bit of a wander around, and wewnt over to see Markissa, but we left the bike on the other side of the paddock, big mistake, within seconds there were goats trying to eat various bits, and Monkey was

considering climbing on the bike, she got pretty close! So when we went back, I lifted Monkey on and went a short distance, she wasn't overly keen on that!

Once the sheep were moved, we had to also move the lamb house into their new paddock. I lifted it up so Steph could grab the rope underneath it and a big (about 12 inches long) rat dashed out and into the neighbours paddock. It just so

happened that they were on the way over to say hello etc. After a few minutes yapping, we started stamping around the nettles trying to flush the rat out, and she thankfully ran out of the nettles and back under the house. We decided to

leave her there and get Strider in on the act after the last time. Steph wandered up to the dog run, and brought them both down, and once we had Strider near the house we wound him up something terrible, and then I lifted the house. He

was in underneath it in a flash, and went straight for the rat, snap, but unfortunatly it wasn't quite enough and it started running across the paddock, with Strider chasing it and catching it. I ended up catching it and dispatching it.

Later in the day, we had the charming task of picking up alpaca poo, we're currently grazing them in a neighbours paddock, and consequently we collect the poo weekly. I must admit picking poo is up there on unpleasant tasks.

The rest of the day was actually quite restfull, I was going to spend some more time doing some moulding for the secret project, but, instead, I decided that the workshop was too much of a mess, and spent an hour or so tidying up, not

that it really made much difference.

In the late afternoon, Steph and I wandered around deciding what to do with our place, we've been offered a series of breedings to a very pretty stallion with exceptional bloodlines, for a very good price, so we've been considering that

and what stock needs to be rationalised to make space for a foal. Up till yesterday, we were considering selling the Alpacas, but the other option was to cull some sheep instead, we're currently running 5 permanant ewes, if we dropped

that to 2, that should keep up in lamb, and when we need some, we can always buy a small flock at the sales as grass permits (and it wouldn't be until next september anyway). In theory, we should be able to run 38 stock units, a horse

being 8, a foal about 4, the alpacas are around .8, goats would be about the same, and ewe plus lamb is 1. So if we had Markissa, foal, alpacas and the goats, that leaves us a surplus of about 18, but you would never want to stock that

high. So if we kept about 2 maybe 3 ewes, that still leaves us some margin, and thankfully Markissa is a "good do'er" and doesn't need a great deal of grass to keep condition (obviously that will change if she's up the duff).
One thing we did decided we would need to do was improve some fencing. We currently have a single electric strand as an internal boundry fence "protecting" the trees, that would need to be fenced properly (and if we've got foals around, then 7 wire and batten is best. So we measured up whats needed to do that, it's about 70 something posts, and around 2.5Km of wire, might try and get a post rammer, or a contractor for putting those posts in, 'cause that brings this spring's fencing task to about 110 posts (plus the tree protectors which most are not rammed yet)

In the evening, I tried setting up the next stage of the tanning of the lambs, the instructions stated that it had to have a pH of about 4, and unfortunatly I read the instructions wrong, and got my chemistry wrong, and added bicarb when I was supposed to be adding acid. Eventually I ran out of pH paper, and gave up. The lambs spent the night in the fridge, and then today I realised my mistake, I used water from the outside tap. It has a very high calcium carbonate hardness, which means it can buffer changes in pH very well (hence why it's good for the fish tanks). So I was fighting a losing battle anyway! Once I remade the solution with filtered rain water, it worked much better (and Steph brought home a electronic pH meter, which made it heaps easier).

Thats all folks, next week, the lambs are off to the works, Steph heads off to Canberra for a week (lucky girl), and I'll have to tend the farm by myself (but she gets to do the same later in the year when I head out to London for a few weeks, and the tickets are almost booked!