Lambs 2018... continued

They just get more adorable every year!

March Born Lamb With May Born Lamb

Lambs 3 Days Old

All is not done, 

there are more lambs to come...

Twin Lambs April 2018

We've had lambs very early this year and over the weekend we've had our first set of twins. Born sometime between 9am and 4pm on a very wet Saturday. 

I had been waiting for her to give birth, for the last two weeks Mum was bulging from the sides and had a very big udder, so I knew she was due at anytime.  She also had twins last year too. 

We have history, me and this sheep.  She doesn't like me at all and I don't understand why, but I'm very proud of her, she is a good Mum to her lambs. Sheep must be like people, sometimes no matter how hard you try, you just don't get along with some people.  

She has always been very difficult, as she is the one that jumps the pen fence, she is always the runner from the flock, won't come to eat the sheep nuts when the rest of the flock do. But that is how I could tell she was due, as she wasn't running away from me... she was too big!

One Boy & One Girl.

Well Done Ole Girl!

Quick Update From Down Wattle Lane...

It's so easy to be busy being busy, and time does fly when you are having fun.  Below is just a quick update on Life Down Wattle Lane.

Our two duckies are much bigger, below you can see how much they have grown. We have just moved them to the big pond, it has taken them a couple of days to adjust to their new environment, and they've only just taken their first swim in the big pond. Previously they could touch the bottom of their small pond, but the big pond is about 2m deep, so they've been a bit hesitant about taking the plunge.

 

 

Over the last month, weekends and evenings after work have been filled with mowing lawns, digging drains (by hand & shovel), keeping a close eye on the sheep for fly strike, weeding the garden, building new fences, chopping fire wood, adding some finishing touches to the cabin, but it's nice to take your time to smell the roses.

We've added steps the the cabin, solar power is now connected, and we  have created a path from the house to the cabin lit at night with sensor solar lights.  Also, we've created a small garden bed with hibiscus plants and chinese lanterns on the path side of the cabin. The bedroom part of the cabin is ready to use with a curtains now hanging, and a bed & linen. We still have yet to start work on the bathroom.

White Butterfly on a wild Penny Royal flower.

We have some free wild Turkey's if anyone wants them. They are very destructive to my plants and tree's, they have no respect for all the work we've been doing and they crap all over the place.  I break their eggs when I find them, but there are about 14 of them that have taken up residence. No matter how many times I chase them out of the garden as soon as I turn my back, they are back again. FREE TURKEY's! 

On a happier note, we were surprised with a bouncing bundle of black joy yesterday, a healthy new lamb! Very much out of season, but better now than in the middle of winter. Very very cute!

A Bizzy Buzzy Worker

Bee of the Month! 

One of our bee's, working a clover flower on a hot summer's day.

Out For A Duck!

If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck!

We have ducks... well ducklings, this weekend our family has grown by two Muscovy Ducklings!

Very cute... if I do say so myself...

The two girls are rather small, and there is a real chance of a Hawk snatching them, so we've built a small pen to house them in for a couple of weeks until they are a little bigger. But the plan is for the girls to keep the vege garden in order and to wander free about the property. Already we have noticed they are excellent fly catchers and love eating grass and bathing. They seem to really like to keep themselves clean which is great, but I do feel they are going to absorb a lot of my time, as the are so cute and I quite enjoy just hanging out with them!

Our Harthouse Cabin Arrives...

Earlier this year, mid winter 2017, Gary mentioned that his family might be coming out to visit in 2018, and a quick conversation about sleeping arrangements, the size of our house, we came to the conclusion that putting family in a tent on the lawn wouldn't do. So we needed to do something about guest accommodation for family, friends and visitors.

We started researching about adding an extension onto the house, and to add another bedroom, ensuite, around 30sqm, we were getting quotes of around $100,000. Which was crazy for an extension which is much more straightforward than a new build! We built our entire house, 90sqm for less than $200,000.  I think part of the NZ housing/building crisis is how expensive materials and labour has become with the housing boom.

So we had to rethink our plan.  

Back in January 2017, while at the Mangawhai Domain Summer Gala Day, a local market day with stall holders selling their wares, we came across the Harthouse Cabins display.  So I got in touch with Cliff, the creator of the Harthouse Cabins. You can find him on facebook: Harthouse Cabins  

Cliff has been excellent to deal with, and is quite the craftsman.

When building a dwelling/sleepout/cabin to avoid building consents etc, the interior floor space must be less than 10sqm. Now what I love about the Harthouse is that the interior floor space is maximised to the 10sqm, and as the walls curve outwards, and the widest part being about eye level, this design feature creates an amazingly spacious feeling in such a small space. The Harthouse does not feel like a small tiny box at all, but it did tick all our boxes ☺.

Front View

Rear View

Geoff & I Installing Foundation Posts

Cliff Delivering Cabin

Interior View From Front Door

With our cabin, in time, we are planning to connect services for an ensuite, so we have a small room at the back of the cabin for the ensuite, which will require consents etc. However for now its a storage space, but we're still within our 10sqm internal floorplan. Amazing!

Interior View Curve Of Wall

Max Inspecting Workmanship... It Passed!

View Inside-Out

So we still have a few things to do:

> Install steps up to the cabin,

> We plan to decorate the exterior white walls with mural style paintings,

> Furnish the cabin,

> Connect solar power,

> A lot of planting around the cabin,

> Then finally work on the ensuite... down the track.

So still a work in progress, but we're in no rush, as Gary's family decided they will now not be coming in 2018.

Tonight It's A Full Moon

Living in a rural environment on a cloudless night we're very fortunate to enjoy stunning views of the night sky. On occasions I enjoy sitting out on the deck at night just looking up at the stars. On one occasion, earlier this year, I had woken up at 4am to watch shooting stars. However tonight it's a full moon. I'm not very good with the camera, but this is how the moon rises Down Wattle Lane:

You Cant Lead A Horse To Water...

... well ain't I glad that I don't have horses, however I just need to lead my sheep to water and to do that, you just need to rattle a bucket of sheep nuts and they will follow you anywhere.

I've setup another water trough in the lower paddock, although the water trough is located at the top of the paddock. Kind of a reward when the sheep get to the top of the hill, there is a watering hole waiting to quench their thirst whilst enjoying the view.

I don't have any accessible piped water to this part of the paddock, so the water trough is small as I need to cart the water down from the house. It's not to far, and a nice walk. 

Wool...1 Bag Full

After shearing the sheep, we now need to decide what we are going to do with the wool.

If I have this correct, there are 3 steps to take raw wool and turn it into a useable fibre.  First thing is to clean the wool. 

Step 1 - Separate Good From The Bad.

On the back of the trailer, I spread out each fleece, and pulled out the mud, poo, grass. Basically anything that wasn't wool, had to be removed.

From the black trolley to the trailer, pick out the nasty's, then the good wool goes into the wool sack. At a guess we have ended up with 30-40KG of wool.

Step 2 - Washing The Wool

We need to wash the wool to remove the remaining nasty's, grease, and some of the lanolin in the wool. Now my plan has changed a little. Originally I was going to take the wool to a commercial wool cleaner, but at a cost of around $10 per kg plus GST, it is not economical to do that.

I've been reading online people cleaning their own raw wool, using hot water and detergent. Being a DIY Master, if I do say so myself, and I do have an old spare washing machine in working condition. So I'm going to give this a go myself.

Step 3 - Carding

This is working the wool into a useable fibre. Again I was going to have this done by a commercial wool processor, the same people that wash and clean the wool, but again the cost, you can pay up to $15 per kg plus GST to card the wool.  So again crazy expensive.

I could have been paying up to $30KG per KG to turn the wool into a useable fibre... and then it still needs to be spun. It's just not economical.

So this is an incomplete post, sorry about that, but I will post and update with more details on the process and how we got on with the washing of the wool and then carding of the wool.

Wool Clip 2017

One of the advantages of having Arapawa Sheep is that they only need to be shorn once a year.. which saves time and money, but 2018 is our biggest shearing day so far... 26 sheep. It's feeling like a farm more and more every day.

In preparation for the big day, we built another small pen with a deck, creating a flat, smooth surface which the shearers could work from. The idea was to make it an easier job for the shearer, and then it would hopefully be easier on the sheep with less cuts & nics. Plus with the way the land falls, we can now back the trailer up to the pen to load and unload the sheep when moving them.

I was up at 6am, rounding up the sheep... (I'm even sounding like a farmer), getting the sheep into the pen, which not an easy job. Overtime the sheep have learned that going into the pen generally means it isn't going to be a fun experience for them, so they tend to avoid the pen at all cost with some even jumping the fence when I do get them in. I've tried to create some positive experiences for the sheep & the pen by also feeding them the sheep nuts in the pen, I'm not sure if it works, they love the nuts, but it still took me half an hour to get them in the pen today.

Sheep Ready To Be Shorn:

Our Shearer... Doing The Hard Work:

Something I learned today... 

I paid the shearer $10 per sheep for the full cut. I had heard the rate is normally $7-$10 per sheep. To me this is a bargain, given how hard, physical and dangerous the work is. I learned today that farmers only pay $0.60 cents per sheep when crutching them, (shearing around the butt) but the shearer prefers $0.80 cents per sheep. So my hat goes off to all the people working in this business... Bloody Hard Work For Such Small Rewards.

My job was to catch, more like wrestle with the sheep, and then to handover the sheep to the shearer... but I couldn't help myself by stealing a hug with a lamb.

All Done... Sheep Back In Paddock.

And then it was time for me to have an afternoon nap... I'm buggered!