It’s now been a week since Mr. Ram arrived and I’m happy to say that he appears to have settled in.  He is often seen sitting or eating with the whole group of girls, instead of just one or two.

This year we decided to take the plunge again, borrowing a ram for a few weeks.  Unlike 2008, we are planning to only keep the ram with the girls for a few weeks.

At first the girls all kept away from Mr. Ram, but within half an hour he had managed to make friends with one of the younger sheep (I think this was the only surviving female of the 2008 lambs).

Of course for the first time in weeks I didn’t check them this morning, but did after lunch. And sure enough there she was with the face of a lamb sticking out her rear end. And of course the stupid thing decided that today was the day that she did like people, and didn’t want to go anywhere where we could help her. So after half an hour or more of chasing her around the paddock, I finally gave up and decided to put her in the pig paddock.

Thank goodness the pigs went last week.

10 minutes later there I was with sammie sitting on her and me with my arm up her whatsit. I managed to get one leg out, but there was no way I was going to manage the other one, so decided that since the lamb was probably dead anyway after all that that I would just have to pull it out by one leg and its head.

Out it came and as I plonked it down I saw the flutter of a heart beat. Not breathing, but the heart was still beating. I have him a good rub and blew some air in the general direction of it nose and still nothing. Gave it another rub and another blow watched and then suddenly it threw its head back and took a big gulp of air. Then another and then on to normal breathing.

Mum was still lieing down a bit shell shocked, so I gave her a push so that she could come and see her baby. She walked over him twice ignoring him, and in the end I rubbed my hand on him again and rubbed it on her nose. That was enough and she started to talk to him and attempt to lick him clean.

I left them alone for a little while and then went back and checked. He still hadn’t stood up. I expect he was quite tired after all that ordeal. I got Sammie to hold her sheep and sat him under her so that he could get his first drink.

Mother and baby are still in the pig house, and he still isn’t very well licked, but they are both standing and he is drinking.

I probably should have checked to make sure that there wasn’t another one, but to be honest it was just a relief to get this one out, and I didn’t really want to go back in there unless I really had to.

So I have birthed my first lamb and he lived through it.

 A healthy, fluffy little ewe lamb. It took a while to convince the new mother to move up three paddocks away for the other sheep to where there is better grass for her to feed her baby on, but we got there in the end.So it has definately been a sheep morning and although she was not the one I thought would pop first, she did have a successful and problem free birth. Now we just have to wait for the others to come.

As we say goodbye to the summer garden, I am reluctant to clear out the sad looking tomatoes and peppers in the hope that winter may not be quite so close. But the truth is that winter is on its way, and we all need to turn our thoughts and embrace it.

Last winter I noticed what grew well and there were a couple of months there that, even here in the winterless north, nothing really grew at all. So this year I have been filling the garden early with many of the winter veges we will be wanting.

This may seem like a good thing to do, but has been problematic due to the hugh amount of white cabbage butterflies we have had to contend with. They are every where and seem to be able to get in tiny gaps around the garden boxes to lay there eggs. All the brassicas have bird netting covers still on them, but the butterflies are getting very clever all the same. I had some cauliflower seedling almost ready to plant out, and some cabbages just popping there heads up, but when I looked at them this weekend, they have suddenly become nothing more than stalks. Luckly I have been interval sowing my seeds so all is not lost, but with the warm weather fading I went into a bit of a panic, and went and bought some seedlings from Koanga Gardens (which we are luck is just down the road from us). So now we have some wonderful heritage seedlings that we didn’t plant sitting in the garden under some frost cloth. Interesting that the cauliflower I got from them was that same one that I had planted, but the broccoli was different. This is good since it hasn’t messed too much with my planning on the Planting Planner.

We have been luck this summer, in that while most of the country have be suffering a drought we have had just enough rain to keep the grass growing. We are going into winter with a little less growth than last year, but as the grass is still growing we will hopefully get through well.

We have also chosen this year to hold off getting the ram in for a while. Since we are only raising the lambs for our own use and not for the open market we have a bit more freedom to move. After the christmas lambs being so easy to care for because of the warm weather, we decided that having the first lamb born on august the first like last year, was just making the winter harder. So hopefully the ram will go in with the ewes in a couple of weeks, and we will have lambs the end of september.

All our winter firewood is in, and we still have pears and now also feijoas in the orchard.

It has been with great pleasure that we have watched our grocery bill drop down to less than half what it was before we started this venture. With food prices rising steadily, we are eating as well as, if not better than we use to for a fraction fo the price. I often now wonder if it wouldn’t be a good thing for downturn in the economy if it forces more people to plant a garden and grow even a little of their own food. There is something amazing and very satisfying about sitting down to a meal that you have produced yourself. Italmost feels like free food when the main cost is just time. A packet of seeds can go an awful long way.

Pretty soon we will have to start the autumn clean up, and there will be lots pruning and composting, but for now I am content to just pretend that it is still summer, even if it is getting colder.

 So, first things first, out with the weedeater and clear a patch around the gates – sounds easy, eh?  Half an hour or so later and we were ready to move the lambs.  By the time I had done the last gate, Mum and daughter had already managed to get the two lambs through the “middle” paddock and into the bottom one, where we wanted them – they had still been reluctant to go through the long grass, they were at least in the right paddock before they encountered it

Now it was time for the last five.  Fortunately they were in the paddock just North of the middle paddock, so they weren’t too far away.  So with Mum and daughter strategically positioned on the hill, I “ushered” the lambs down from the top.  But, upon reaching the gate, they decided they maybe they didn’t want to go through afterall, so they headed between us and back up the hill.  Our daughter then (reluctantly) when up the hill to head them off, but that just encouraged them to go “through” the closed gate – go figure!  Unfortunately that resulted in them now being in the same paddock as the older sheep and the four new lambs.

So next we had to move all of them into the pens (miles away) so we could sort them out.  This probably wasn’t so bad because it gave us a chance to separate out some of the fatter ones and put rings on the new lambs.

Putting them sheep and lambs back was a slightly easier job, since we now put the two older ewes (who needed fattening up after lambing earlier in the year) in with the older lambs (yes, some of theirs), so the lambs just followed the older ones through the gates.

We then put the three “fatter” ewes in a low grass area, and the three mothers (with ringed lambs) in the house paddock – another job finished!

The rest of the afternoon (for me at least) was spent mowing the orchard.  I think I managed not to run over any waterers, for a change!