Calving time

I have not go around to blogging much recently, simply because I am really, really busy.

 I love blogging so it feels like this huge void. 

Another reason, is that my camera broke, 

so have not had any good pictures to share along with all the ramblings I do.

Calving has started. 

The area where we are calving is at the back of our ranch, lots of bush and has predators coming and going.

This means that some of the LGD have cow/calf duty.

Vuk is an absolute natural when working with the cows and babies.
He knows how to mooch about in a totally non threatening way,
 he is respectful of mad momma cows and understands the need to give them space.



His demeanor is calm, he walks in a non confrontational way, should a cow give him the stare down he generally just moves over a little to get out of her fight zone.
The occassional cow does threaten him, and he will stand his ground, and give a warning
"oeff" sound and then carry on his way.

Calving is going well.

So, far just one first timer,  that does not care much about her calf,

this requires some intervention on my part to ensure the baby gets enough milk from his mom.

I posted some pictures on facebook of the cows in the stormy weather.

All these pics are cell phone pics.

Spring has come early,

the days are balmy and I am enjoying the mild weather.

It's a wrap

Our lambing is pretty much a wrap.
With just a few stragglers left to go, we are pretty much done.
After 5 weeks of waking up at 2 am,
the hardest part of the end of lambing is trying to get back into a semi normal sleep pattern.

Thanks to my 4-H sheep group who came and helped out, as well as my green certificate trainee Ramona for helping out.

The coverall at night.

Enjoying the sun..

Mali the gate keeper

 

Besides the sheep lambing, we have power and water restored again, the barn site is cleared of rubble and a new tractor has been ordered.

We decided to buy a new tractor from Europe and have it shipped to us.
The reason for this is the major price difference,
we were quoted for a used JD tractor, without a front end loader almost
$50 000 more than for this brand new one with loader.
So, the decision was made to go for new one from Europe.
We are getting a Lamborghini R6 185.

The cows are due to start calving any day now so, that is the next "big" job on the list of things to do.

Over the years we have selected for easy keepers and easy calvers,
so we pretty much expect a typical calving season.
That will may involve playing "ring-a-rosies" around the odd tree, with a mad momma cow.

We are excited to see if we will get any calves from Big Willem, the old bull we used last year.

For the most part, we are happy that spring seemed to have come a little earlier this year,
however we will not get too excited yet,
 as April can fool us all, with a few snow storms too.

Thank you once again to all the wonderful people who have helped us since the barn fire.
We can now take a breath,
and, make decisions on how we are going to rebuild and move forward.