Rumbles grumbles!

Meow! What does a cat have to do to get any peace and quiet around here?

Last weekend Brian decided to mow the lawns and the paddocks with the little tractor from Menzies - who ever said the countryside was quiet?  I believe he was attempting to top the thistles but the grass was so long that all he did was bring it down the the level of the thistle tops! Crazy. As if if is not bad enough when he is doing laps on that ride-on lawnmower. Will never understand humans.  Why work when you can sleep all day?

And as for deciding to drive the uncovered tractor home in the middle of a majorly huge rain and hail storm? Well I have no sympathy. He left a huge puddle of water on the floor of the laundry when he took off his drenched clothes in there before jumping in the shower to warm up - I got my paws quite wet when I walked through my cat door!

At least we got rid of one of those beasts out there, known as mooers. The black male one, Beefy, was taken away by Ray Shanks, apparently for an idyllic life on the hill above Mataura (but I know what they really end up as! Am smacking my lips with the thought! Daisy the ex-dairy cow went to the big paddock in the sky in September and there are now some very yummy sausages and meat patties in the freezer, thanks Daisy!)

There was a bit of trouble loading him up but I can't blame Beefy for being confused - it was a horse float, he's not a horse; I would have caused more of a stink, but with three people there they eventually persuaded Beefy it was okay to go for a ride and in he went. Still have the carpet-cow Kiltie, the Ginge and Pippi Longstocking.

I would say there were four people there but that new young thing who teaches at the school and was observing is obviously bit of a cityslicker coz she just was NOT dressed for farmin' so stood on the road. Wonder if she learned anything other than that she should not leave her nice boots at the back door as black Bess thinks the best way to make new friends is to chew-the-shoe!

She did later on that evening get to see how stressed out Bri when the mooers get onto the gravel road and make like they're heading anywhere but where he wants them to go...such as towards the main road (they are such good actors, Bri falls for it every time!) - Jen and Abby were so busy chatting that they didn't spot the drama out on the road (Bri was trying to herd the three mooers towards the dead-end but they felt like a bit of run in the other direction). 

Took a few choice swear words and some arm-waving from the gals to change the mooers' minds and they were persuaded to head back into the paddock and Bri gave up on the idea of getting them down the road to graze on the neighbour's verge (very kind of him to offer it though!)

Bri and Jen and Kieran drove past the Shanks' place on their way to Dunedin the last time they abandoned me for a night and saw Beefy in the paddock - yelled out his name out the car window and he whipped his head round for the look but the jokers were driving past so fast he would've been left wondering if he'd been imagining things!

Those blimin' hens are still clucking around - can't get through my cat door anymore to eat my biscuits though - HA! Jenny finally got round to getting a new catflap (seeing as that rascal black Bess broke it the day she tried to follow me through it!). She still manages to get her nose in though!

As for the constant bleating from the silly lamb out there every time she sees a human - honestly, give over! ...it will NOT make them let you into the house, even if you do follow them all around the backyard, believe me, they are not worth the worship (have a tendency to leave for hours and hours at a time and you must have worked out that they only feed on demand IF they feel like it!)

Ah well, the boy-child seemed quite happy with the lamb's performance at pet day, they do have quite a wee bond going on - unusual name though...Piri, Piri Weepu to be precise.  Something to do with rugby and getting all the kicks over in a pool-match?  Had a Richie McCaw lamb too but must have overindulged in the sweet white stuff and died of bloat, oops!

Right, must go reposition myself away from the sound of that ride-on - where's a nice quiet bed?

And so to the pork!

Here is a sample of our first meal from the pork that had previously been running around in the back paddock: a beautifully cooked pork chop...yummy scrummy!

So the freezer is absolutely packed to the max and we will be right for meat for quite a long time.

The next batches are continuing to be prepared, with the cattle being grazed in the big paddock now, and hay supplementing their grass.  Brian is a pro now at shifting a break and the cattle all trot over to see what he is up to and where he is going to let them go next.

The two new pigs, both pink this time (as Brent couldn't catch the two-tone one!) are grazing in the back paddock; the two hens are still laying (as long as we keep them locked in until the afternoon otherwise goodness knows where they lay!) and Bess is being Bess (bouncy, messy, and loveable).

and so...the Sunday roast!

With a new 510 litre freezer in the garage now full of the beef of one Highland cow, and two romney lambs  (thank god we bought a big one as we still have the pig to put in there!) we sat down today to our first home-killed lamb roast.

Last night we had porterhouse steak (thank you Ruby) - delicious!!!!

The lamb roast sizzled away slowly all afternoon and was tender and tasty! (Thanks Cuddles or Shadow).

Looking good!!

Here we go...



Delicious!!!

 Still about 20kg of mince, and tonnes and tonnes of beef roasts and steak and sausages, and lamb roasts and chops - should be right for about a year!

The First Kill!

So...Sunday 13th March was the day of our first home-kill: Ruby the highland cow, and the two lambs are now waiting at the Edendale butcher to be processed for the freezer.

We won't go into too many details but local Matthew Ferguson came around and shot Ruby (it was quick and peaceful and she suspected nothing), and slit the throats of the lambs.

Next step, buy a cow/lamb/pig sized freezer!

First Shear!

A couple of weeks ago the two ram-lambs got their first shear thanks to a couple of college students - one who knows what he's doing, and one who is learning.

So the pen had a covering of shorn wool (and no we are not adding spinning wool to our list of artisan hobbies), while of the sheep one was fine and the other had a nick in his ear.

I came home a day or two later to find a tractor parked by the shed - thankfully not a purchase, but a friend of a friend etc situation, where we will be caretakers of the tractor and so it is there if we need it.

The pigs are getting bigger, the calves are too, the paddocks are green and all is good.

February 2011



Rumbles (now three years old)
- checks out the ranch from a safe vantage point!



Gosh, life goes by and suddenly again there seem to be not enough hours in the day!

With both of us back at work there is not a lot of time for pondering on the Ponderosa!

Baby Bear and Mama Bear (our walkie talkie call-signs, though Kieran thinks he should be Stinky Bear, and I have to say I would agree!) went out last night to lasso Beefy the calf so we could administer some eye ointment for the infection Brian spotted there on Thursday night.



Must say we were a mighty-fine polished team of cowfolk!  All we needed were the stetsons and spurs!

Beefy was not interested in standing still so we walked around beside him for a minute or two until he got trapped under the macrocarpas and I was able to slip the loop over his head.  He struggled and tried to back up for about 30 seconds, with Kieran doing a mighty job of holding tight to the other end of the rope, which fortunately was around behind Beefy's back legs.  So Beefy couldn't go very far and kinda gave up trying.



This meant I could get my arm around his head and squirt the ointment into his infected left eye, plus a bit in the right, as advised.  Not sure what the infection is from (being new to this and all) but he and Pippi are still being shat on by Daisy when they have feeds off her, so maybe it was that - or he could have been kicked by her. Hopefully the ointment will help - he is still feeding and eating.

Was a bit worried that Ruby would try to interfere, as she kept following us around while we tried to help Beefy, and those horns have not got any shorter!

The pigs are getting bigger and currently having a change of scene - sharing the hen pen while the sewage pipes that have been laid in their paddock are getting hooked up.  We are now on 'town supply and takeaway' as of Friday but the workers haven't covered it over yet so the pigs have to stay with the hens for a while.  They seem to think they should be re-landscaping around the clothesline and henhouse and are enjoying rooting it all up.



Shadow and Cuddles
- getting closer to DF-day (deep freeze day)!



The hens are just the same as always, sometimes there are two eggs in the box, sometimes only one.  Of course, in the holidays we realised Bess the dog was jumping the fence and helping herself to the fresh eggs, so we have to make sure we collect them before she has been left to her own devices for too long!



Last week I rescued Moneypenny the hen after seeing her sprinting (quite a blur she was too) along the front verandah with the dog in hot pursuit.  Found her right round in the back corner with her head through the sheep fencing under the hedge and her bum sticking out. 

Wasn't sure just what condition she'd be in as hadn't seen if the dog had caught her or not, but when I pulled her back out I think she was very grateful!

Make Hay While the Sun Shines!

Summer has begun and we arrived home from our break in TeAnau to find our 'neighbour' Greg Poole from down the road was here, cutting the hay in the big shed paddock and his father-in-law was gathering it up with the tractor ready for baling.   

Brian

 

Brent, Rodney, Brian, Megan

He returned a bit later to make the bales and Brian put the call out for Richard and Brent to come and help stack it in the shed.  So within ten minutes we had Richard and Megan and Jonas here to help, and Brent arrived with his trailer.

Megan and I each drove a vehicle with a trailer on it (she got to drive Brent's nice red car, while I was stuck with the 4WD).  Brent, Richard and then Rodney came over too, were loading the bales onto the trailers and Brian was over at the shed to stack the bales as they were unloaded.

Within the hour we had made, gathered and stacked about 180 bales - so we are all set for feeding the Brady Bunch in the winter to come - fantastic! And now we can see the two sheep in that paddock as the long grass is gone!

The calves are growing well though they are not talking to us at the moment - two days before Christmas we had the vet here to de-horn them and to castrate the two boys.  Not a pleasant experience but a necessary one. We were diligently ignored for the next two days, but it may be that a week of holiday has blurred their memories as Pippi did let me pat her tonight.