Message for ALL!

Mum found this really cool video on the internet....it has some really good messages about how important my Dad and PopPop AND all the other farmers are to Australia and the world!

Australian Agriculture - The Greatest Story Never Told from Four Season Co on Vimeo.

The story of agriculture in Australia - the greatest story never told.

It's our farmers that sustain our way of life and help ensure the economic well-being of the nation. You and I, we should all be proud of our farmers. From developing innovative techniques to intelligently managing the land, Australia's farmers are leading the world in the science of farming and sustainability.

2012 is the Australian Year of the Farmer -- it will celebrate the achievements and recognise the hard work of all the farmers in our Country.

Visit yearofthefarmer.com.au to find out more

Baby Bulls!

So....we were not so lucky with our patient cow, after lots of medicine, love and attention.....she died!

We were all very disappointed about that, we really thought she was going to make it!

Now we have two baby calves to look after....Clover the bull and the incredible Hulk.

Clover is very quiet, he spent some time just lazing about in the garden.

UNTIL he started stomping on the plants....so he had to move OUT!

HULK is also a bull calf, he is really strong. His Mum must have had lots of milk because he is enormous. He loves milk, he drinks so fast, it is a wonder he does not get a tummy ache!

He drips milk 'slobber' everywhere, I think he needs a bib!

Clover and Hulk drink 3 litres of milk a day.  They are too strong for me to feed, they suck so hard they sometimes pull the teat off.

Maybe if they grow up big and strong I will be able to ride on their backs, they could be like a 'cow pony'?

Inspection Time!

What glorious weather......great to be alive!

No time to be inside....time to get out and enjoy the sunshine. Today we have hardly spent a minute inside, Mum and I spent some time in the garden this morning planting out some seedlings. I love to garden, it is great to watch things grow and I love to pick flowers.

We have been sorting up the ewes when the weather is nice.

Off to work!

Every year all the ewes are checked over to make sure they are good enough to go back with the rams in the spring. Mum checks their wool, their feet and their bodies, Dad checks their teeth. Ewes that have bad wool, bad bodies or bad feet will probably end up with the meat rams. Really old ewes will loose some teeth, they have to be sold.............

they are JUST TOO OLD!

Sheep have no top teeth!

Mum and I spent the afternoon on the motorbike taking sheep back to a fresh paddock. The sunshine is so warm, it is good to see the back of winter.

LOOK at the view...I can see the whole world from up here!

Not quite as spectacular as Sydney harbour, but it sure looks good to me!

OH Dear!

Oh, Dear, what can the matter be

Dear, Dear what can the matter be........

A bad day on the farm.

First a heifer was trying to calve and her calf was coming backwards, we got him out but he was already dead. We went to check the old cows and 2 cows were dead. Both of them had little baby calves alive and now they have no mums. They were both very sad and hungry. We caught the calves and brought them home. Mum mixed up some milk and they were really happy to have that.

We put one calf with the heifer that lost her calf and she loves him and he loves her milk! The other one we will have to feed for now. I have named him CLOVER he is a bull calf.

His tongue tickles!

We moved the mob of cows because the paddock is making them sick there is too much grass and it is not good grass! One more cow was very sick, we could not get her out of the paddock, she laid down and we were sure she was going to die too! Dad gave her heaps of medicine......

and so far so good............ she still is alive and she can now stand up!

Her calf will be very happy about that!

The rest of the cows and heifers on the farm are going very well, the calves are very happy, they run around and kick their legs up, they are like buckjumpers!

Emergency!

ALL hands on deck......sometimes the calves are just TOOO big.

After giving the heifer time to calve, still nothing has happened! If we leave her too long the calf will surely die. PopPop and Dad muster her into the yards, to help her have her calf. It takes a lot of muscle power to get the calf out. I hope PopPop had his weet-bix this morning.

Getting the calf out alive and keeping the heifer healthy and happy is the most important thing to PopPop. It seems awful hard for the heifer and her calf but PopPop and Dad have done this lots of times and it is the quickest, simplest way of helping her out.

The calf is alive.....YEY!

When the mother comes out of the cattle crush, she knows the calf belongs to her. She is a good mother, and she starts to clean him up, she loves him alot! She talks softly to her calf and he even talks back.

It won't be long before she has him clean.

He will be up in no time, and ready for a drink of milk!

Sunny Days!

Beautiful sunny days to be out and about.

The cows must think it is lovely weather to have their babies, because there are new baby calves everywhere! We went out to check the old cows this morning, and found six in one paddock, there could be more but the grass is so high we can't find them BUT I did find this one.

 

Baby calves are beautiful, they are so warm from laying in the sun, you can't help but cuddle them!

 

The heifers are busy calving too. Today when Mum and I went to check them, there was one just born, his Mum had just got him out, she still had a big job to clean him up.

 

He was in a big hurry to try and walk, but his legs were not quite ready!

 

Whilst the weather is sunny Dad and PopPop have been busy spraying barley grass. Barley grass grows now the weather is warming up and it has some bad seeds that get in the wool and the sheep's eyes.

The sprayer leaves pink blobs all over the paddock. The blobs tell Dad and PopPop where they are up to. I don' t help with spraying some of the chemicals are very nasty!

A BIG SURPRISE today....Oppy found the chooks hidden nest while she was mowing, it had 5 eggs in it!

NOW I have 12 eggs....my basket is nearly FULL!

Hide & Seek!

Slowly , slowly the cows are calving.

The cows are very good at hiding their calves. The calves cuddle down in the grass, and HIDE, normally only their mothers know exactly where they left them! BUT if you are really lucky you might just stumble upon one......

 

or two....

and then they jump up and run to Mum....she is never far away!

Coming MUM!



Most of the cows calve on their own, but the heifers who are having babies for the very first time need to be checked often. Sometimes the calves are too big or back the front, if the heifer is too long calving the calf will die. PopPop and Dad are like doctors at a hospital delivering babies, they just need a siren on the ute!

Winter has come back, just when we thought it was nearly over....we have had 25mm of rain. When things warm up again the grass will grow like CRAZY! Dad says we will not have enough mouths to eat it all!

Breakfast Bar

The lambs are all weaned from their mums and they seem pretty happy.

Most of them are on crops that Dad sowed, and some have special feeders in their paddocks.

PopPop fills the feeders with oats from the silos

 

and the lambs can help themselves.

Some REALLY EXCITING news....the chickens have started laying eggs. We let the chooks out of their yard everyday, so today I had to go on a chook egg hunt. I found one in the herb garden. I did not let them out this morning I waited to see if they would lay an more eggs,  and I collected 2!

Egg with toasted soliders tonight!

The cows have started calving but there are not many calves yet, they are very slow. Dad and PopPop are kept very busy checking the heifers having their first calf, sometimes they have alot of trouble getting it out!

Countdown

30 days until winter is over! The countdown to spring is ON!

I can tell spring is coming, the birds are chirping busily in the trees, they have not been this noisy all winter. I can hear magpies, blue wrens, willy wag tails and sparrows in the garden. In the paddocks the galahs, cockatoos, and parrots are all out in the sunshine. The grass in the paddocks is starting to grow, and Mum says she can smell it growing. And some daisies have already poked their yellow heads out. That is when it is really spring time - daisy chain time! I love to make daisy chains!

Dad spent some time in the vegie patch with Mum and I. We have spread some compost over the patch, it should help the vegies grow.

Another sign that is is warming up and the seasons are changing are the wattles flowering, they brighten up the wintery paddocks.

The village where I go to mobile preschool have painted a beautiful picture on the post office, it tells a story of about all the things close to where I live.