Farmy Walkabout

We are not looking directly at Daisy, in fact this shot is of Peghorn.  Do you see him.  Bottom left.That little patch of orange feathers. 

Apparently Daisy is doing a Mama and not looking at us either.  She is being so good, and so patient – her udder is just so enormous now that it is chafing against her inner thighs. So I need to put powder in there and keep it dry.  When I start to wriggle my hand in beside the udder she quite literally raises her leg so that I can dry the area off and dust it. She balances on three legs until I have finished,  then when I go to the other side she lifts that leg out too. I was astounded when she first did this.   Now she does it the moment she sees me pick up the powder.

Hairy Maclairy’s scabby knees are recovered. And he is allowed back out into the playground.  As long as he promises not to play so rough. 

Kupa.. well what can I say.  He has taken to howling out  at the guineas when they start their screeching and they stop, just like that.  If someone slams the screen door he has a shout about that too and calls out when I call to the dog.  He is insistent about maintaining a peaceful farmy.  As I am writing this i heard the roosters begin their morning crow then his huge shout of Shut Uuuup! and they all immediately fall silent. 

You were right, he really is ruling the roosts!

Now you need to learn to  tell these two piggies apart now.  Sheila the Babe, as well as the spots on her ears,  has a red beauty spot beside her right ear and another above her right eye.  Also her ears seems droopier but that may be an age thing. Sheila is also the piggiest of the pigs. 

How naughty could a face be! She is going to be trouble!

Charlotte on the other hand is more lady-like than Sheila.  Daintier and longer. She has a perfectly white face, with pixie ears  and a much sweeter attitude.   When they came yesterday I thought they were going to hurt themselves they were so terrified, hurling themselves against walls, they had never been touched by a person, however they are quickly learning that my voice means food and that my gumboots are tasty.  

My girl came yesterday and stood at the gate and just stared silently.  We will train them together but she will work with Charlotte.  She was just kept looking across at me and grinning. She is not a big talker. I left them to it.

Look at this ..  the promise of grapes!  they are looking good, much better than I had expected after that bad frost. 

Both the bee hives are hooning along. Hauling in the pollen.  Both hives are already filling the top super so I have to keep watch for over crowding and also as Dad said I need to check for Queen cells one more time. Hopefully today while I have Our John home.  Supers full of honey often weigh over 40 pounds, so the job is just so much easier with a helper.

And here is Mama, flanked by two of her fat lambs. She is putting on weight and looking great.  The strangest thing happened with Mama yesterday. I was inside writing and heard her call out. She has a distinctive voice, older and more gravelly than the others and she was  baa-ing loudly and insistently. I went out to the verandah and she was standing at a side gate staring straight at the house calling out. I walked through the garden towards her, she looked straight at me, called again, went silent, waited until I was closer then galloped to another gate and baa-ed straight through that gate. Looked back at me and did it again. It appeared to be considered.

So I went into the paddock with her and looked through the North gate and saw that her lambs had all crept through a gap that Minty had made for them in the gate cover and were all sleeping in the sun on the far side of the barn. But Mama could not get through the gate to get to them.  She called out to them again, but they pretended not to hear. So I went through the gate and shooed them all back and fixed the hole.  Mama said thank you very much and trotted with her tribe back into the long grass.

Now, this is a sheep, yet it appeared that she had called me over to help her retrieve her lambs.  What are we supposed to make of that?

Good morning!. For Stage Two of the journey of Mama’s fleece  from wool to woolen hat, we need to zoom over to  Punkin’s Patch and look at Mama’s wool all carded and fluffy. You will love it.  There is a lot of work in  getting a fleece ready for knitting. Sara your work is beautiful.

Today the teenagers (teenagers never walk alone) and I are going to work on the outside pig palaces.   The plan is that one small field a year is given over to the pigs  for the summer, then tilled and resown in good pasture. The pigs will have rooted through it, turned it over, eaten all the roots and bugs and fertilised it for a season, with the chickens following along behind. This year it will be the salad bar paddock, which already has the chook house run in it. This field has a lot of stones in it, so as the pigs root them up, we will pick them up and wheelbarrow them out onto the drive to fill the Chicago sized potholes.   The big pigs are about ready to start their summer jobs.

Pat’s Paddock was cut for hay yesterday, so that will be turned this afternoon.

I just looked out the window of my summer study and there is a peacock in my garden waiting! I had better get going.

Have a lovely day.

celi