blog in - blog out

Today the plan was to move the jersey cows out from their little paddock with the jersey bull and put them with the rest of the mob. Well, at least we got half of it done. The jersey cows are now in the back half, the jersey bull is in the front half but the main mob is in the small paddock to eat the grass down. ( waste not want not). We also attached netting to some of the yard panels to make them suitable to run sheep and lambs. We will be running them in in a few days time to ring their tails.

I also spend half an hour with my horses. I have neglected them attention-wise for too long so its time to get them back into work. Jester is falling back in to his old spooky ways so he will take a bit of quietening down. Remmington is still not fully broken so that will take me a few months.

I've not blogged for a year almost. Shame on me.
Well anyway, the farm has ticked over another year and life is pretty much as it was back then.
The crop this year is about the same area, but less planted and more reliant on natural pasture as last year the pasture was very good.
The oats ( ESK variety) have red leaves at the top so I think thats magnesium deficiency. I will be foliar spraying some soluble magnesium and other stuff in a month or so.

The calves are looking good and we have only 4 to mark out of 90-ish but they are quite big and will be a handful in the yards.

I have decided to run a small herd of sheep for home meat supply. At the moment there is 15 ewes and 2 rams, but 6 of the ewes have had twins, and 3 others have had singles so we will probably sell most at the market. I also invested in a wiltshire ram. Wiltys shed their wool, which for me is excellent as we shear, but use the wool for mulch as its multi-coloured and difficult to sell. Within 4 years the whole flock should be wiltys so they will be pretty much like miniature cows.

I am also still working in the north and plan to for 2-3 more years. We have bulldozed the house pad out of the hillside and have the transformer installed for the power, but that is all that has happened with our house plan.

Today I proved my suspicion that one of my dams contains marron. (freshwater crayfish). I have seen markings on the waters edge that looked like something was living in there, and some remains of one after a bird has eaten. Today I saw at least 10 live ones, and caught 1 as long as my hand ( not including the claws) Also saw in a small pool LOTS of young ones. I intend to catch as many as I can and distribute them to my other 6 dams. In the near future I intend to make a series of ponds down the hill and perhaps increase production to near-commercial scale.

Lets see....cows, sheep, hens, ducks, crop, marron........ yes I am diversifying my enterprise :-)