Gorgeous Girls!

Slowly, slowly spring is getting ever so close, I can count the days now!

As the weather warms up everything seems to come alive..the grass in the paddocks, the baby calves, the blossoms on the trees and even the chooks!

All winter we have had hardly any eggs from the girls.

 Finally they have started to lay again.

The girls have a fabulous life I think, 

a bowl of grain for breakfast..followed by some scraps from the kitchen,

 this morning.....couscous....

followed by a spot of egg laying....

Can you see what she has hidden under there?

then perhaps if the weather is nice, a wander outside in search of something yummy!

then as the day comes to an end they head home to roost.

And I collect the eggs for the day!

Perhaps pancakes for breakfast tomorrow?

Honey, Honey...you're so Funny!

Sunny days.....and you can feel, see and smell spring around the corner.

Blossom buds are bursting open on the trees.

Yet some trees cannot seem to cope with it all...

Dad and I found a bit of a mess on the weekend this old stringy bark tree feeling its age...

It fell on the fence....Dad has to saw it up, stack the timber and fix the fence.

More work...

BUT you will never guess what we found!

A really SWEET SURPRISE!

HONEY , HONEY, HONEY!

Loads and loads of it. 

We robbed the bees of their honey.

Once upon a time my PopPop had bees so he knows a bit about honey. 

He showed us how to get the honey out. The beeswax is loaded with honey! 

Icky Sticky honey!

Have you ever watched honey run.......

We will have jars and jars of honey.

I love honey, especially on sultana bread! 

YUM, YUM!

WHAT A TREAT!

Cupid Strikes!

WOOOHOOOO!

One of our working men is in LOVE!

Beau has a girlfriend.....her name is Tilly.

Beau is our best working dog on the farm. He is good at everything! 

He is nice and steady in the paddock, and very handy in the yards.
 Beau is 10 years old. That is pretty old for a hard working dog. 
Sheep can be alot of work on a farm, and good dogs are very helpful. BUT very hard to find!

Dad says,....." Beau is worth a few good men!"

Beau's girlfriend is just visiting for a few days.
 Her owner wants some puppies and would really like Beau to be the Dad!
 So Beau and Tilly are living together for a little while.

AND

Maybe in 5 months time Tilly and Beau will be parents....we will have to wait and see?

I would love a puppy!

Final Weeks of Winter...thank goodness!

There are only two weeks until spring arrives and finally winter will be over.

I have decided that I like summer, autumn and spring best. Summer because I can go swimming, autumn because I can play in the leaves and spring because its spring!

I do not really care for winter.

The last month of winter is hard on the farm. The ground is so cold from all the frosts, and the grass will not grow. The wind seems to blow cold and strong. And we have not had a good  fall of rain for sometime. 

The weather forecast today is for a sheep graziers warning....SNOW! 

That warns farmers who might be lambing or shearing to move stock to sheltered areas.

The animals on the farm are looking forward to the end of winter too.

Each year we go through all the sheep, before they are shorn to sort them into different grades. We grow sheep for wool and meat. So all the best wool sheep are kept for breeding more wool sheep and the worst wool sheep breed meat sheep.

Mum and Dad started sorting some out yesterday.

The red nosed sheep are going to leave the farm, they will go to sale. The blue nose sheep are going to breed meat.

Dad counts them as they leave the yards.

 Guess who came through the sheep yards yesterday, my favourite girl....Bella.

Bella has a small problem, she has a cancer growing on her ear. 

So we have to remove the point of her ear, she will be brave, she knows it is for the best.

Birth and Death.

Every morning and every night Dad and PopPop do the rounds, checking the heifers. 

We are having a good run this year, most of them are calving on their own.

We had to help a heifer calve on the weekend, she could not get him out on her own.

 Her calf was TOO BIG! He came out alive.

 BUT the heifer was quite upset....you can tell when a cow is mad,

 she throws her head around and points her ears forward...then you can look out!

She was so upset she jumped out of the yards....

We put the calf in the paddock with her but it seemed she just did not want to be a Mum!

She did not remember to feed him...we bought them both back to the yards the next day, but the calf was very weak and starving hungry.

PopPop milked some magic milk from the cow and we fed the calf from a bottle all day and all night. SADLY though he did not make it, he died.

The heifer will be sold later in the year, she has no calf now and she is too crazy to keep.

The cows in the paddocks are calving really well. Mum checked them on the weekend.

There are calves everywhere, even a set of twins!

This little calf was just born, as Mum checked them. His Mum loves him. 
There is no way she is leaving him.

I hope she did not mind the audience of steer weaners in the next paddock.

I love new calves they are so very cute!

We are Important PEOPLE!

Odd Jobs!

An inspection of Dad's yard building today....they are slowly , slowly coming together!

I love to pretend I am a sheep and test them out!

 It is taking him a long time to build them.

It is a job he does between all his other jobs.

 BUT they will be great when they are finished. 

It will mean that the sheep do not have to walk quite so far.

Spring time is fast approaching and it is a really busy time on the farm.

When the weather warms up the grass will grow like crazy and Dad plans to cut hay.

We are feeding some of the cattle hay and we will need to refill the hayshed.

This is the paddock he is going to cut the hay in. 

 There are a few trees that have dropped branches so we have spent some time picking up sticks and burning them.

If the sticks get caught up in the machinery when Dad is baling the hay they would break something and he would not be happy about that. 

So hopefully we will clear the paddock of sticks and he will not have that headache!

A little bit weary...will rest for a minute...

Ladies in Waiting.

Calving has started....and we are off to a good start.

Most of the time the older cows calve without any worry. 

BUT

the heifers are first time mums and we keep a close eye on them.
Everyday the heifers are checked...this morning the first heifer calves arrived....

They are very small.....that is a good thing....easy to get out.


It is hard to imagine that this little calf will ever grow up to be as big as his Mum.


Amazing, how quickly he is up on his legs, running and jumping...
happy to meet his new world!


The other heifers look at the new calf a bit funny....they have never seen one before.


They will be surprised...BECAUSE they are all going to have one TOO!