I think the drought is over...

We are having incessant heavy rain.
With well over 5 inches these last few days our fields are water logged, our road ways are a muddy mess and the ditches are overflowing.

The good thing with all this rain is that the grass is growing and growing.
If it will dry up we may even have a wonderful hay crop this year.

This buck is bathing in grass:



The ewes and lambs are having a hard time with all the water,
the lambs are just not really drying up and we can see that this is costing them some growth. To supplement the water soaked grass we are feeding some hay. The sheep really appreciate this extra roughage. We only have 10 ewes left to lamb, so the end is in sight!

The neighbourhood babies are growing up fast.
Here is a recent photo of one of the fox babies:

and here is a photo of one of the fish eagles babies:

We went to check the cattle in between the rain.
The cows are looking happy.

We like happy cows.

We also did some gardening with some of our sheep.
We placed some electric nets in the "wild parts" of the garden, along with about 300 sheep.
They disappeared for a day or two but eventually we could see them again...

Katcha had garden guard duties..
Even our farm sign became more visible after the sheep did some gardening.

Here we are moving the sheep to another area to graze:

With all the rain, the grass is growing right into the mouths of the animals on our ranch,
All they need to do is stand in one place and chomp down..

We are not complaining about the moisture,
but a few dry days would be nice right about now!

Lassie, Skip, Rin Tin Tin, Old Yeller all in one...

"People that hate cats will come back as mice in their next life." ~ Faith Resnick

This is a daily routine on our farm.
Every morning the kids get collected by the school bus at 7.25 am, they need to walk to the end of the driveway.

Every morning kitty Peaches accompanies the kids to the bus and in the afternoon she collects them again. This routine started off with the male cat Sarge, aka Tom, he taught Peaches the right thing to do and now Tom has retired to the barn and Peaches has her new role cut out for her..

This is in the morning..
waiting for the bus.

Can you see Peaches sitting in the middle of the driveway as the bus leaves?

The long and lonely walk home..

This is now 4.07 pm and Roy is back from school,

trusty Peaches is there to greet him and walk him back to the house.

So, whoever said that cats are not loyal or faithful,
have just never met the right one!

Rain

The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain. 
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It has been raining for days now.

We really appreciate the rain as this may result in a good hay crop, rejuvenation of the land and plants and the rain will help alleviate some of the drought conditons here in the Peace Country.

However, our farm is an old lake bed and consists of heavy clay.

Lots of rain = lots of mud.

Our yard is a mess, we have ruts everywhere and we are slipping and sliding all over the place.

All the rain has forced as to move animals around,
change routines
and find solutions for the mud problem.

Our ewes are lambing, we have a fairly large group of ewes and lambs that have acces to the barn and an outside yard area, where we feed them hay outside.
With all the rain, the yard outside became flooded and the ewes had to go through the mud to get to the hay feeders.
The lambs did have a nice dry staw bed inside to sleep in. However, the ewes became more and more reluctant to go and eat outside, so we were faced with a dilemma:
Either leave the ewes and lambs in, and let the ewes battle the mud but the ke lambs would be dry

or

move everything to the pasture where the ewes would have fresh, lush grass and no mud,
 but the lambs would not have a dry bed to sleep in...

We chose to put them to pasture hoping that the ewes would get a burst of extra milk  from the grass and, that this extra milk would help the lambs cope with the wet conditions.

It looks like we made the right decision as all looked wet but happy today.

As the rain does not want to stop,
and to cheer me up a bit,
I decided to take some pictures of some of the flowers in my garden,

at least I can enjoy them from behind my computer screen,
as sitting outside is not really an option right now...