Oh Man, Its Cold!!

Winter has arrived and dont we know it. The past couple of weeks has been simply shocking. Gale force winds, pelting rain, hail, snow. You name it, we've had it. And all the while, the ewes have been lambing. Poor buggers. Though I must say, there have only been a few losses which is really hard to believe. I am rearing only 3 lambs who were abandoned by their mothers. Though we still have about 400 ewes still to lamb including over 150 maiden ewes. The young ewes have been running with wiltshire, dorper and wiltipoll rams. It will be very interesting to see what their lambs are like and how they compare in weight at weaning to the merino/border leicester/poll dorset lambs.
We are half way through the milking season. The bulls have been running with the herd and are now back in their own paddocks. Things have been running smoothly except for when fellow work mates take holidays and relief milkers come in to fill in. Just a pain in the arse I reckon. Cant wait for my holidays which are still a while a way at Christmas, though I do have a month or more off. YAY!!
Nothing is happening with the dogs. Really dont have an appropriate area to train Josey, though she remains super keen to work. I am continually teaching her commands though, and luckily she is a quick learner. I feel that by leaving her until she was older has allowed her to develop into her own dog, and she is more willing to listen. And I must say she has such a completely different style of working to both Floss and Brynn. UK bloodlines showing through? Perhaps. I can see her out the office window, sitting in her pen, eyeing off the lambs that Im rearing. Oh wouldnt she love to get out and say hello!

Oh its winter isnt it.

Josey

Floss

Time Flys

Gee, its been so long since I have written here. So much has happened, well not really, just seems like it.
Well the year finished, cows were dried off and I had approx a months holiday with a little weed spraying thrown in for good measure. Mid January and the cows started calving again and it was full on up until a week ago. We had up to 20 cows calving a day, it was crazy. Calves to feed, cows to milk, sort out, cows on test buckets, mastitis, sick calves oh the list goes on. Now we are down to two calving a day, sometimes more, but there is only about 70 left to calve. Thats not bad considering there is about 500 of them.
I have been getting sore hands. They ache so badly. I wake up at night and my hands are numb. Dont really know what to do about it. Maybe I will visit the local doctor for his advice. It appears that I do have a ganglion cyst in my wrist, something that you would see in a gymnast. Everytime i think of it, I can hear Derek Zoolander saying 'Sorry, Maury. But I'm not a gymnast'. Ha ha I shouldnt laugh, its very painful at times. I really need to find out what treatment there is and get it sorted.
I have been on a roller coaster ride with my effort to have a dorper sheep stud. I have decided though, that it is just not worth it emotionally and financially to continue with them. Talk about trouble! The time and effort I have put into getting their feet right is just crazy. Dip, trim, its non stop. One week they will be fine, no sign of limping, the next they can hardly walk. Just so over them. Then just when I thought things had turned around with them, rectal prolapse in an 11 month old ewe. Gahhhh. I did manage to get one of my rams back to his old self. His feet had been shocking so I tried something different with him and it worked, though its not working with the ewes. So I will cut my losses and cull them and stick to the wiltshire horns who are never any trouble. Such wonderful easy care sheep. I currently have them running with a gorgeous wiltshire ram. Cant wait til lambing time to see the results.

this is one of two dorper lambs that have had no problems with their feet. Amazing!

My jersey heifer Poddy finally had her calf, one week early. I am now rearing the calf and poddy is in the herd being milked. Im rather pleased at how well she is milking.

We have been blessed with some glorious sunsets.

Funny How Things Turn Out.

See, i told you i had lots on my mind.

Since my eldest daughter had gone to Alice Springs i had been trying to work out what to do with our Border Collie bitch Floss. Floss was bought for “M” to trial with and to use around the farm, working with the sheep, but now what to do with her….. I decided to find her a new home where she could be put to good use.

But then fate stepped in..

My boss has recently bought a new property and a large flock of sheep came with it, SO, he has asked me if i can work with the sheep and if i had a working dog. So now i will have to learn to work Floss and she will have a purpose in life. YAY!! So it is funny how things work out. Never in my wildest dream did l think that i would end up as a shepherdess as well as a dairy maid.

So Much on my Mind

I have been wanting to blog for quite a while but havent found the time, until now. So i have lots of things running around in my head that i want to get out.

The thing about being self sufficient is growing or making your own produce so with this in mind and the fatc that i work on a dairy farm, i have been making my own butter. Actually the Gourmet Farmer inspired me. I have been using my Breville Wizz Mix to make it and its been turning out very well. First lot was eaten on scones, so what can l cook for the next lot to consumed with? I have kept the buttermilk from the latest batch of butter so maybe it will be more scones made with buttermilk. I would also like to have a go at making cheese but of course i cant find my cheese making book. packed in storage i think.

We have a Stanley Errigal wood stove on order which i cant wait to see and cook in. Bread will be on the menu for sure. I just have to learn how to make it!!

Another thing ( or things) that will arrive in the near future is a couple of piglets to fatten and of course will end up in the freezer or as ham. I have never kept pigs before so i think i will have alot to learn. I like the idea of making our own ham or bacon. I hate to think that we are eating in the stuff bought from the supermarket. I like to know what im eating.

Life Wasnt Meant to be Easy

Im sure that everyone has ‘rough’ patches that they go through. Everyone suffers one way or another. Im no different. My life has changed so much in the past 6 months. New property, eldest daughter moved away, new job, actually just job. I have been a stay at home mum for the past 20 years. doing what i felt was the best thing for my kids. It probably was the best thing for them, but not for me, as i have recently found out. It was my decision though and i still feel like it was the right one. Having to get out and get a job to earn money to live has been a huge hurdle for me.

Financially things have been Ok for me. I have gotten by, never been extravagant in what i bought. The kids were well dressed and fed, that was the main thing. Then i found out that my ‘income’ will cease at the end of the year. Talk about a shock, understatement really. I fell into a deep, deep hole and l felt like someone was filling it in on me. Not a good feeling. I had gotten my job milking cows so that l could afford the things we could never afford, travel more, stuff like that. To make things ‘easier’. Hahaha, wrong. Now that job will keep food on the table, and everyone looked after. There will be no little luxuries, time away. Just work.

I am still trying to dig myself out of the hole i had fallen into. Some days Im fine, others not so. I know i will get by. I always have, always will. One good thing has come out of it all. My realisation that l must become self sufficient, not just talk about it. I have the land and the stock to make it happen. I also realised that i must cut costs in the family home. Mobile phones, power usage, just general running costs. It is possible to cut back if needed. The unneeded mobile has gone! Next on the list…..

I have always wanted to be self sufficient but just played around with the idea, never really got stuck into it so to speak. I have always produced our own meat but there is so much more that can be done. I have plans to extend our vegie garden. At the moment it is only a small one but it has supplied us with, potatoes, cauliflower, cabbage, leek to name a few. Until you grow your own , you dont really realise the money that you can save by doing this. So, extending is a must. Its just finding a good day to get stuck into the fencing. Winter in Tasmania is just that, winter in Tasmania. Wet, wet, wet, dank, no sun, snow, frost, cold, the list goes on and on.

Trouble is i also have a list of other jobs that have to be done. Just have to figure out the most important and get stuck into it. I have almost finished the dog pens, well they are finished, l just want to put a roof up and more protection from the winter weather. Also a shed for the sheep who have foot rot. This has been such a pain in the arse. I trim and dip every week, but still l cant get rid of it. I hate to see the sheep suffer but i am determined to see it gone. I have been using zinc sulphate as a dip, but i have also been reading some of my old sheep management books and they all say to use copper sulphate, no zinc mentioned. In Pat Colebys book she also says copper sulphate for a dip and she the sheep to eat if they need it. So tomorrow i am heading into Devonport to buy the ingredients that i need to create Pats mineral lick. Fingers crossed that it works.

April

Today is the most cold, wet, miserable days in quite a while. It was just lightly drizzling when l went to work at 4.30. By the time we were feeding the calves at around 8am it got heavier and heavier until it was coming down horizontally on the wind. Not good. Im not really looking forward to this afternoons milking because Targa Tasmania is on and the cars go past the farm. Its not a race leg but a touring leg so the cars are travelling much slower but there is still alot of them. We have to cross the road to feed the calves. Hopefully we will cross when the slower cars are coming through.

Tonight is my last milking for the week. I have 3 days off so lm looking forward to having the time to cook the kids home made pasta. Its not really the kind of thing you want to be making the day you milk and your hands are slightly green (yum). I also want to try to make a dish that was shown on the tv show Master Chef. Its a fish and noodle dish cooked by Australian chef Neil Perry. So my mission today is to find the recipe. Hopefully its not too hard to find!

Catch Up

As i have done a few posts on another blog i have, i thought i would transfer some to this blog, so bear with me.