Christophers Comment

Posted by on 31 October 2011 | 2 Comments

Christophers  Comment for October 2011

For those hundreds of readers who have been anxiously waiting for a new comment I do apologise. Since returning from the UK trip time just seems to have literally flown.  To those faithful readers who put a comment after reading, thank you very much. Comments are really appreciated.

Of course our major news has been  the safe arrival of our eighth grandchild - Frederick  Samuel  Beech was born at the end of  August.  Freddie weighed in at a very healthy 8lbs 4ozs.  Since his arrival he seems to be doing remarkably well and growing very fast. Amy and Cliff are wonderful parents and their other two boys Thomas and Alexander are very excited to have a little brother.

Talking of new additions, lambing has now been and gone for another year. We tailed 164% which is well up to where we like to be. The weather this year for lambing was near perfect which is a big help. We still reared a lot of orphan lambs due mainly to a lot of triplets and if any triplet was thought to be  struggling it came home. Hugh did a great job on the lambing and virtually did it all   himself while  I was confined to the orphan lambs and helping  Janet with two grandchildren when Amy was otherwise engaged. All in all it went very well. To make sure we kept busy we then lambed a lot of hoggets as well and although the result was satisfactory they were quite a lot of work. The system there will need reviewing for next year.

All the lambs are now tailed and the grass is growing very well. We are rotating three mobs of ewes and lambs as a bit of an experiment. Right at this moment we are in the process of planting 4 ha of Chicory which hopefully will be a help in fattening all these lambs we now have especially if the weather turns dry over the summer.  Also at this time of the year when grass growth is so good weed growth is equally as good. So its thistle time again. This year we still have Candice working here part time ( the rest of the time is training for triathlons ) and we also have Renee who will be with us fulltime through to Christmas. Renee is a rising star in the water ski-ing world so watch this space.

And finally I  must conclude with a spiel about the Webb Ellis Trophy. Lets be clear the All Blacks deserved to win as we were the ONLY unbeaten team leading into the final. Wales probably deserved to be there as well but it does emphasise the old adage that the first person you pick in a team is the goal kicker and the second person is your back up goal kicker. Goal kicking let them down in two games. England? Enough said. France? They were certainly lucky to make the final but on the day lifted their game to be worthy finalists. We were also very happy that our local boy who was 4^th choice first 5/8 performed so well on the day and laid to rest the unfair tag that he cost the All Blacks the test match against Australia in Hong Kong last year. Stephen Donald was the toast of New Zealand following the victory. So all in all it was a very successful  World Cup not only for the All Blacks but also for the whole country who really got in behind  the tournament attending the games in large numbers and adding a lot of colour and atmosphere.

Family birthdays in this period were Callum our oldest grandchild who turned 8, daughter Amy and son-in-law Stuart Nicholson.  Happy Birthday guys and many happy returns to you all.