Christophers Comments

Posted by Christopher on 3 October 2010 | 0 Comments

It has taken nearly the whole month but at long last we actually had some fine days - four in a row but spoiled by a lot of rain on the last day. But that still only made six days without rain in the whole of September. The start of October looks promising so that should put everyone in good cheer.  Lets hope so.

The two wet months will I fear impact quite severely on our lamb survival. We are currently rearing 47 lambs and a further 41 have been sold to school children for their Pet Days. The Orphan Lamb Project which Amy organises has been a great success again. Lambs are sold on a sale/return basis and most of these will be returned to us at some stage. It is a most rewarding experience for everyone. Our farm records show

however that we have lost more lambs than usual and although Hugh felt the ewes were a bit light going into lambing I think the main contributor was the wet weather. Tailing has started and although we have been held up by so much wet weather, fine weather is predicted for this next week so that should see us through. It will be interesting to see what lambs are worth this year. We will have two company's  meeting with us to present their proposals for the new season. Watch this space.

And in talking about lamb losses let's spare a thought for our fellow farmers in the south of the country who got hit by those terrible storms. It must be heartbreaking to see a years work in producing a lamb all be wiped out so quickly. We shouldn't be complaining about our losses. Lets hope a good season helps everyone get back up again.

The first lot of heifers have been inseminated and bulls start arriving this week for all the remaining heifer mobs. So in between tailing, cattle mobs will need to be sorted into the right owners so their bulls can join at the requested time. Thank goodness it's going to be fine.

Another enjoyable off farm activity which occurred this month was the combined Karapiro, Whitehall and Taotaoroa  125^th Jubilee celebrations. The Friday night started off with each school holding their own Wine and Cheese evening, decade photos the next morning, then a combined lunch and official welcome followed by a dinner in the evening. I only attended the Whitehall part of the celebrations and it was so good to catch up with so many old friends some of whom I had not seen since primary school. I wonder how many of us will be around for the next one. Scary thought.

Finally, some family birthdays this month:  15^th Amy turned (what was it Amy?), 16^th Callum turned 7 (can you believe it?), 20^th another special person had a very special birthday - many happy returns Aunty Colleen. And Blake Allison turned five on the 25^th - Happy School Days Blake.