Wet Wet Wet Winter

Here we are, on the brink of August and again, it's another wet winter.  Although temperatures have been much milder generally and it surprisingly appears we are getting a small grass growth, the constant sloshing and pushing wheelbarrow loads of hay through slush and hungry animals fetlock deep in mud along the fencelines constantly  bellowing for 'More Hay, More Hay' is getting a little depressing.

We had rain last week, a couple of days of beautifully fine but cold, crispy days with heavy frosts, and we are back to the rain again.  We have looked up the long range forecast for the next 8 days, and it is rain, rain, rain every day.  Our hay situation might be getting a little critical as most of the paddocks have more than their fair share of mud and any remaining grass trampled in.

We have five sheep in lamb this year - two of our original Dorpers (the only two remainders of our original four) and three of their offspring from the year before last.  Looking good as far as William's performance goes (William being the young Wiltshire ram we bought earlier in the New Year).  Mostly in the Wairarapa, the ram goes out with the ewes on 1 February, but we held William back until the first week in March.  With a gestation period of approximately five months, we can expect lambs from early next week on.

Some of our hens have started laying - in particular, Hannah (the hatcher) and Lucky (who defied the storm bomb).  This is a nice surprise with it still being officially winter - we're getting maybe three eggs every two days.

 The hens are reposing back in their flash condo that we showed you a few months ago that got a bit busted up in a bad storm.  A friend of ours has painstakingly fabricated new pieces and glued and fixed all the parts back together.  The house is now reposing on our garden lawn as the ground is much flatter, as against in the adjacent paddock where the barn is where it runs the risk of being pushed over by four exuberant calves.  The downside of this is that they are wandering nearer and nearer the house, which may seem 'cute' and 'farmhousie' to some folk, but it's not so great when chook poo is being tramped through the house.  Two of the Barred Rock 'chicks' in the foreground who will be laying very, very soon, with Hannah (who reared them) at the back

With all the miserable wet weather, we have managed to get on with a few more things inside the house, like finishing off painting woodwork, replacing hardware, etc.  The reason we have not shown you any photos of any of our house interior, is that we do not yet even have one room that is totally finished!

We got above-ceiling and under-floor insulation installed last week, which has made a huge difference.  It no longer feels like the South Pole when you open the door into the hall.

                                

Well, lookie here - a fine day!  Yes, folks, we did have two fine days in between the rain last weekend, albeit with a very chilling northerly wind.  Here's the whole damn family grazing Bonnie and Bella on our long acre

                                         And here's Madge, the supervisor

Surprisingly, the days recently have not been too icy and our house lawns were mowed on Sunday (the above fine weather day), showing that there has been some limited grass growth.  We will be utilising our long acre over the next few days when one of us is home and can get two cattle out at a time as they require constant monitoring.  The tape across the road is not electrified.

Bonnie and Bella's calves, Dawn and Paddy, were weaned off them just over a week ago.  Such a terrible bellowing for 3-4 days;  not so much from the babies, but from the mums.  Paddy and Dawn are now with Walter and Wanda, our foster calves from the year before (10 months old) and are being cosseted with barn shelter, feed nuggets and ad lib hay.  They are about 4 1/2 months old now.