A difficult day

Sari weaves her leg through the fence panel, it got worse than this!

June 9 2017

Some days sort of gather problems, and yesterday was one of those days.  It started all right, and I got all the animal work done in record time. Just as I was about to return to the house Sari, the youngest brown goat attempted to jump over the pen wall and failed.  Her rear foot caught on the fence and by trying to kick herself free she got her leg woven through the rails and ended up with only her front feet able to touch the ground.

I was quickly with her but there was no easy answer as her leg and foot were sort of woven through the metal and her own weight locked her firmly in place. I tied in vain to free her leg but it was impossible.  I then fetched a stool and lifted her up onto the stool but she was not high enough to make things any better.  I tried lifting her further with a sling but the more I tried the more I could see that to free the leg she needed to be over a metre in the air.  It also dawned on me that even if I had an extra person to help we would still have a problem.

A different approach was needed. The section of fence was to locked in with other fence sheets to be taken down easily so I searched the shed until I found Edd’s angle grinder.  I have never used one before but once I worked it out I was able to cut out the section of fence around her leg and once on the ground she freed herself.  Amazingly she walked off relatively un-scathed; in fact I think the whole adventure had left me sorer than she was!

Back at the house I discovered a young chicken had also been injured and was being attacked by the other chicks.  I sorted this out by relocating the fit chicks into the pen in Edd’s shed and keeping the injured bird with me in the house.  I cannot tell if she will survive but at least she has a chance now. From there the day improved and I had a nice lunch with Bo but on my return I discovered a buck kid had got out by opening the bars on the bale in the yards.  I caught the escapee and then fixed the bale with extra planks.  That seems to be working, at least in the short term.

Today things are going a bit more smoothly. I have planted out the elephant garlic and cleaned the house, both fairly safe procedures.  Sari does not seem to have done herself any lasting harm and the chick is still alive but not very mobile. We now have three lambs with twins born to the second dorper ewe. The lambs all play around Zulu the alpaca who they see as a family member. He looks quite happy about this too. I wish I could move their feed trough closer to the drive but it is very heavy and took a super human effort just to relocate from the dam paddock to the closest fence in the house site.

Winter arrives

June 3 2017

The sun is finally shining again after a very wet cold week.  I am still feeling very grateful that the camp was over before the weather changed.  It has not been the sort of week that anyone would choose for outdoor jobs.  I have been doing my two hours each morning, milking and feeding, and my one hour at night and been happy to stay under cover the rest of the time.

Most of the week has been take been taken up by chooks. I took Edd to the airport to set off on his Europe trip on Monday and on Tuesday I collected 12 point of lay birds, clipped their wings and put them in the olive orchard shed with Ruphus, the red rooster who rules that area.  After a couple of days acclimatising I let them out into the run and luckily Ruphus got most of them in again at dusk.  I had to catch a couple who could not work it out, but that is not bad for day one of freedom.  It is lovely to see them today scratching around under the trees and tasting green grass.

The older chooks are now settled in their retirement home and have started the job of cleaning out the weeds from under the lemon and fig trees. They also look very content.  The school kids did a great job putting up their shed and the door Edd fitted works well. Luckily these chooks did know to put themselves to bed without help.

The chicks in the house were more of a problem. (I am not at all happy that Edd hatched them just when he was due to go away for a month). They need to be kept warm, but late at night their bulb stopped working. We did not have a replacement so I had to get up in the middle of the night and refill a hot water bottle for them.  I brought a new bulb next day but once again, after the shops had shut it broke so I had a second night of chook duties. The following day I drove down to Bunnings and brought four bulbs and even the first of these is now working fine.  Last night was a lot more relaxing and at least they all survived.

So, I was just thinking life was about to get easier when a lamb turned up with the rest of the sheep for their evening feed. This means our lambing season has begun a month early, bother.  Yesterday I moved the horses back onto the hill and moved the sheep into the new paddock below the dam.  In this area they are in view most of the time so it is possible to check them several times a day with out a lot of extra walking.

The other drama this week has been with Rosa, Indi’s dog. She found a large packet of rat poison in Indi’s donga and scoffed the lot. This of course meant another trip to the vet and lots of bright green poo everywhere. I think that dog must have more lives to risk than a cat but so far she has lived through every drama.

school camp

 The vegetable garden has been replanted and tamed after the pumpkins were harvested

New pens have been put up for the goats in the big shed

A retirement shed has been put up for the older chooks

The school camp week went well helped by really good weather and willing workers. The week went so fast it was over in a flash for Edd and I.  The dairy milk room has now been painted and at last the smell of burnt milk has gone. The students also took down the temporary fence that kept the goats and horses from reaching the hill.  This is almost the last of the temporary fencing that we put up after the fire to go.  At last we feel that we are getting on top of the rebuilding process.  It has been a long eight years.