Archive for November, 2012

At the going down of the sun

Sunday, November 11th, 2012

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They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Laurence Binyon ~ For The Fallen

First born

Saturday, November 10th, 2012

It’s a beautiful Saturday morning here in Aotearoa. Birds sing and flutter under powder blue skies and scattered puffs of cloud, our animals graze contentedly and the cats and dog lounge in the sun.  This week has been a landmark week for us, with the very first birth of an animal on the smallholding since we moved in.

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I arrived home on Tuesday to much excitement in the household and the news that our Dorper ewe was having contractions.  Wendy and the girls mounted watch from our bedroom and the deck overlooking the home paddock.  As the light faded and night fell, I ventured into the paddock with a lamp to check the ewe. After managing to get in the right position, I could see the lamb’s head appearing but with no front legs showing, I was concerned that things might get complicated. After phoning for advice we continued to watch & wait and, twenty minutes later, the ewe dropped her small lamb just as my farmer mate Johnny turned up to provide guidance.

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Having been born a little premature and with a swollen tongue from the birth, the lamb was struggling to breath and made no effort to stand up.  The ewe began kicking it quite violently (to encourage it to move and stand), so we decided to remove it from the paddock briefly and help it catch its breath and find its feet.

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Surrounded by the family and Alex the WWOOFer, the lamb slowly picked up. After much oohing and aahing and drinking of red wine (well, one needs to celebrate such things, right), we took the lamb back to the paddock and, after a cautious attempts, successfully reintroduced it to the ewe. 

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Since then, Arthur (so named for Wendy’s Dad as the lamb was born on his 92nd birthday) has progressed nicely, feeds well and is great fun to watch.

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From my limited experience, the ewe and ram seem to be attentive, protective and nurturing parents and together they make a handsome threesome.  I pulled the lamb away this morning to check a weeping eye and Robyn grabbed a few quick shots before we treated it and put it back.

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Once again, I am thankful that we’re blessed by the experiences we have and the wonders we witness around us in this beautiful place.

Clipping our shavers

Sunday, November 4th, 2012

The day-old chicks that we bought seven weeks ago have grown nicely into decently sized Brown Shaver pullets.  Having finished the grass cutting and shelter belt trimming, Wendy press-ganged our WWOOFer Alex and I into helping clip the hens’ wings.

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Wing clipping is not as complicated or nasty as it sounds and simply involves snipping the ends of the primary feathers on one wing with a pair of scissors. This is enough to temporarily inhibit anything other than the shortest of flights which, in turn, helps to keep our free range birds fairly close to home. Once clipped, we moved them into the smaller of the two chicken coops in the home paddock, where they can acclimatise to their new surroundings and the other chooks.

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Dorpers, wwoofers and trimmers

Sunday, November 4th, 2012

Dorpers

This week, care of my good mate Johnny, we added a Dorper ram and ewe to our stock. Dorpers are South African breed of domestic sheep which were developed by cross breeding Dorset Horn and Blackhead Persian sheep. These are great sheep for meat and, unusually, shed their own fleece.  A unexpected bonus we discovered is that the ewe is in lamb so, God willing, we’ll have a third smaller Dorper at some point.  Elsewhere, Wendy’s chicken empire is due to grow again.  With our older birds going off lay, she’s planning to pick up some younger birds rescued from a closing farm in the next few days.

The day job has kept me pretty busy so I have got a bit behind on the jobs around the smallholding.  Luckily, we have a surprise house guest staying with us for a week or so who is helping with the backlog. Alex, a young guy from Cambridge in the UK, is a WWOOFER (a Willing Worker On Organic Farms) who is travelling NZ and earning his bed and board by doing work on farms. After spending a week at our neighbour’s equestrian centre, Alex has wandered up the lane to help out around our place.

With spring here and Alex ready to crack on, I have been servicing our power tools for all the work in the summer ahead. Hopefully, this will help me get jobs done reliably on time and without stuff breaking down.

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After a couple of years using the hopeless standard bump feed line cassette on our gas-driven line trimmer, I have tired of the endless jamming of the line and repeated disassembling of the head (above right) . After seeing one in a local farm store, I bought a Littl’ Juey replacement head for our trimmer. Fitting the new head, I found that the extra-long spindle of our trimmer left a gap of a few millimetres and this meant a far-from-ideal a loose fit. After a quick think I came up with my own No.8 wire solution and butchered an old gumboot (above) to make two rubber washers that closed the gap perfectly and solved the problem (below). 

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I also gave the chainsaw a bit of service today, cleaning away six months’ worth of sawdust and oil, tensioning the chain and generally cleaning it up.

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Once the chainsaw was ready to go, I got stuck into trimming back the shelter belt that protects the house from the Westerlies that blow through. This is quite some task as the thick boughs have grown out and close to the ground, making it extraordinarily hard to wield the saw effectively. With about three-quarters of the job done, I ran out of gas and chain & bar lube so I’m now waiting for the family to get back so I can drive to town to get some more.

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