Christophers Comment

Posted by on 25 November 2012 | 1 Comments

Christophers Comment November 2012

Although it was my intention to write this column on a far more regular basis I have slipped up big

time. My last comment was in July.

We have successfully negotiated our way through another lambing ending up with a percentage of

L67 for the ewes and 98 for the hoggets. Hugh managed the actual lambing himself while I dealt

with the orphans. We have a philosophy at Taruna Farm whereby all lambs that are born have to

have a chance at survival. After all, they are all worth money. The Orphan Lamb Project, originally set

up to provide pet lambs for school children to take to School Agricultural Days and then return them

to Taruna Farm, has now turned into a system whereby lifestylers either buy the young lambs for

breeding purposes or for Christmas dinner. Whatever, less and less of the orphans find their way

back to the farm and get their purchase price refunded.

We left the tails on some of them at docking time this year, latest science says that cutting off a

large part of the backbone may cause a check in their growth. lt remains to be seen if the shearers

find that having to shear around the tail is an expensive exercise. Then, guess who will be paying for

that. Yes, me.

Soon after tailing, the ewes and their lambs were combined into three mobs and put on rotations.

lnitially feed is quite tight but once the rotation is established and extra paddocks added if required

the grass soon starts building up ahead of the mobs. Although there is more work required in having

to move these mobs regularly we feel we are keeping our pastures in a more vegetative growing

state ( more like how a dairy farm operates over spring ). lt also has the added bonus of teaching the

lambs the practice of moving so that after weaning they become a lot easier to handle. A further plus

is the ewes have the chance to regain and add any weight lost during lambing.

Hugh is very good at checking the parasite status of the sheep before deciding if action is required.

On the strength of this he has drenched all lambs once and is monitoring to see if another is required

before weaning and drafting on the 7th December.

We advertised through Student Job Search for a student to work till Christmas in helping us control

thistles on the farm. Since we have launched a concerted attack on thistles there has been a marked

improvement over the farm. So Nick has joined us for the next 6 weeks or so and of course we still

have Candice helping when she can between trainings. Candice has been recording some very good

results in her triathlons so congratulations to her.

A lot of our time and energy lately has been used up on our retirement project, the rebuild of the

town house. It's taken weeks to prepare the villa and section in Thornton Road for demolition of the

back part of the building, the resiting of the front part and the levelling of the site; over a hundred

years of junk on the section now cleared and ready for the build which starts next week. lt's an

exciting time for us - quotes, decisions on contractors, cleaning bricks for sale, trees trimmed and

one felled, unwanted joinery and fittings on Trade Me with the help of our commission agent, thanks

Amy - you can have the red bricks for your landscapingl

An exciting time too for Janet, who graduated last month with a Bachelor of Arts from Waikato

University. The Ceremony was held at Claudelands, Hamilton; all she wanted was her family to be

present and they were. A celebratory lunch was held at Onyx in Cambridge afterwards. Great fun

and thanks to all who made it possible.

Not many weddings cross our paths these days but one which we have waited for years for came

along. David and Alana March were married at St. Andrew's Cambridge this month and a substantial

head count of English family arrived for the occasion. We had such fun with David's parents, Audrey

and Bob, and his cousins Johny and Janet Addison and the Warburtons from Cumbria. lt was a happy

time reconnecting with friends and family from afar. sadly, Margaret Addison died while the family

were here. We loved her so much; she is with Steele now which at least is some comfort for her family.

So all in all its been a pretty full on four months. And now we enter what is traditionally our busiest

period - drafting, weaning and shearing and all before Christmas. Then on top of that throw in the

villa house build.....all good funl