Christophers Comments

Posted by on 1 September 2010 | 1 Comments

Once again the weather has been to the forefront of our minds or should I say the rain!! Ken Ring, the weather by the Moon advocate, had predicted very few fine days in the month of August and he was spot on.

Since the 13^th August there has only been two days on which rainfall hasn’t been recorded  and in the first half of the month only six days without rainfall. A total of 210mm.

The reason I chose 13^th was that was when our lambing started which hasn’t made for an easy lambing. We have been lucky in that although it has been wet it has been mild so our lamb losses haven’t been as severe as they might have been. We have still had a lot of orphan lambs through our rearing system and at the moment we are feeding 25. Thanks to the network that Amy has established we have been able to pass on a considerable number of lambs mostly on a rear and return basis. We are at this stage over ¾ of the way through our ewe lambing and then have a further 160 hoggets which are just starting to lamb.

After a few false starts (because of weather) we finally managed to get the hoggets shorn. They were lucky enough to be able to overnight on the new grating that Hugh had cut and installed and what a fantastic job he has made. Very professional.

All the wool from the hoggets and the ewes was sold at the sale on the 19^th August and we received 346 for our hgt. wool and 316 for our ewes. A very satisfactory result.  In order to catch the sale I delivered the wool to Elders at Te Kuiti and was very impressed with their facilities and their plans for expansion. Who said growing wool was a sunset industry!! Think again you shedding wool sheep advocates.

I said in last month’s comment that the signs of spring were around. Perhaps I was a little hasty!! Yesterday I saw our first lot of Paradise duck chicks – 8 in all. Throw in some sunshine and we will be away. Its sun that the grass and the stock really need now. (And us as well)

Finally a sad note to end on. A very good friend of ours originally from Cambridge but who had made his home in the States died unexpectedly. Janet had known Allan through Cambridge High School years and I had known Allan from our Massey Diploma days. Allan was one of the 22 guests Janet and I had at our wedding in England in 1971. Such a nice guy who we will be remember forever because we shared so many good times together. Farewell Allan.