Only a couple of months in and I’m already getting slack about keeping up the blog posts!
June and July have traditionally been our fencing months. Each year when normal, sane people head off to the fire with a good book, we traipse around the hills carrying star-pickets and wire. It makes sense, of course, to fence when the ground is soft after rain and the cooler weather makes vigorous exercise more pleasant. We have done fencing during summer and I can assure you that it is not at all comfortable. Yes, fencing in winter is sensible, but sensible is not the same as comfortable. Of course, this year Justin dived off a shed wall, spent 3 days in hospital and has been rehabilitating ever since. We are now starting to think about doing our fencing for the year – just as lambing is about to start.
Yes, five months has gone quickly and the ewes are due to drop lambs any day now. Each morning we pull out the binoculars and scan the paddocks looking for little white lumps on the ground, but so far, no lambs. We’ll let you know when it does happen. It is always very exciting and very nerve-racking; new additions arriving daily and predators prowling at night. The ewes are generally very protective of their lambs, but they struggle to protect triplets so unfortunately one triplet will often not survive – unless we take it and bottle-feed it. As always, we are hoping that our preparations for this year’s lambing will make it a trouble-free period.