From the Farm
Apr 12, 2012
12 April 2012
Well believe it or not its dry and we could do with a bit of rain. The Yucca has flowers early.
It has been full moon most of the week, we don't sleep too well on full moon and nor do the roosters crowing at all hours and starting two hours early each day. No worries a load of them will be going with the ducks in a week or so.
We have another Dutch belted bull calf today and another Ponui donkey foal.
Ann Marie is here for a week, its great she gets on with everyone and is really into the farm. She has been helping to draft and crutch the sheep as we have blended all the mated mobs together into one flock, removed all the rams, ram lambs and wethers out to finish on the flats with the large ewe flock on the hills. The Dorset Horns are starting to spring down and i would say we will have lambs early May.
Pat my sister and Rick her husband came down at the start of the week and stayed with my mother in Stratford. We all went in for a meal Tuesday night with Samuel and
Natalie, Ben and Nihau, a good meal and night.
Samuel has started his new job and is house sitting in Stratford to cut the travel down. Ila is home for the holidays from school, spent the first two days in bed still with asthma but after that she helped Ann Marie and i in the woolshed and we levelled up the Shepherd wagon, fitted the steps, put the supporting struts in and concreted them in with a small slab at the end of the steps.
Beate is still sorting the pig shed with everything in it outside and back tidy - a real SPRING clean (well she is from Europe) it looks great.
Every day she runs all the pigs outside, calls them back at night and puts them to bed with a good feed.
Ruth's ducks are getting really ready, I will be glad to see them chopped back as our feed bill is thru the roof and they are just everywhere.
Ruth has had a few friends around and Beate and her have gone for farm walks with them, problem is with Samuel away i'm getting outnumbered so it was good to have Ross call today and talk male things.
Due to the storm north of Auckland the trip to see and sort the Waipa goats has been on hold for a few days. The Waipa goats are very rare and are the remnants of the first early imports of Turkish Angora goats long before the goat boom of the eighties. These goats are probably the only ones of the strain left in the world as world wide most have been adulterated with other breeds, so the Rare Breeds Society are very keen to hold this bloodline as once its gone its gone like so many breeds.
This computer is going slower and slower, won't be long before it stops and we need to get a new one but we are just waiting until we can get broadband. As yet we still can't get it. But in the meantime please if you send us photos please shrink them down and please don't send us You-tube clips and other lines of photos because downloading takes hours and then we have no phone or internet. Thanks.
It has been full moon most of the week, we don't sleep too well on full moon and nor do the roosters crowing at all hours and starting two hours early each day. No worries a load of them will be going with the ducks in a week or so.
We have another Dutch belted bull calf today and another Ponui donkey foal.
Ann Marie is here for a week, its great she gets on with everyone and is really into the farm. She has been helping to draft and crutch the sheep as we have blended all the mated mobs together into one flock, removed all the rams, ram lambs and wethers out to finish on the flats with the large ewe flock on the hills. The Dorset Horns are starting to spring down and i would say we will have lambs early May.
Pat my sister and Rick her husband came down at the start of the week and stayed with my mother in Stratford. We all went in for a meal Tuesday night with Samuel and
Natalie, Ben and Nihau, a good meal and night.
Samuel has started his new job and is house sitting in Stratford to cut the travel down. Ila is home for the holidays from school, spent the first two days in bed still with asthma but after that she helped Ann Marie and i in the woolshed and we levelled up the Shepherd wagon, fitted the steps, put the supporting struts in and concreted them in with a small slab at the end of the steps.
Beate is still sorting the pig shed with everything in it outside and back tidy - a real SPRING clean (well she is from Europe) it looks great.
Every day she runs all the pigs outside, calls them back at night and puts them to bed with a good feed.
Ruth's ducks are getting really ready, I will be glad to see them chopped back as our feed bill is thru the roof and they are just everywhere.
Ruth has had a few friends around and Beate and her have gone for farm walks with them, problem is with Samuel away i'm getting outnumbered so it was good to have Ross call today and talk male things.
Due to the storm north of Auckland the trip to see and sort the Waipa goats has been on hold for a few days. The Waipa goats are very rare and are the remnants of the first early imports of Turkish Angora goats long before the goat boom of the eighties. These goats are probably the only ones of the strain left in the world as world wide most have been adulterated with other breeds, so the Rare Breeds Society are very keen to hold this bloodline as once its gone its gone like so many breeds.
This computer is going slower and slower, won't be long before it stops and we need to get a new one but we are just waiting until we can get broadband. As yet we still can't get it. But in the meantime please if you send us photos please shrink them down and please don't send us You-tube clips and other lines of photos because downloading takes hours and then we have no phone or internet. Thanks.