Lambing season.

[Rex Fearnehough]

I have returned from my latest black hole and it's that time of year again. To celebrate the lambing season the weather turned to winter again, with gales and torrential rains. We had grass in February, which was burned off, due to the cold and salt.
Today is pretty warm though so, I suppose the ewes will wait until it pours with rain again before producing any more.
Why do they decide to produce only when the weather is bad?
So what is new out in the wide world of the bilge?

[ishmael]

Hey, Rex. Nice to see ya back.

Same characters, for the most part, differerent day. Dutch has several new monikers I'll let you figure out. Scott Rosen has been notably absent. So has Ed Harrow. Our loss.

It seems, in general, that the right wing has been chased off, which is too bad. I still hold that end of the rope, occasionally, and Kevin is an eloquent libertarian voice. The new format is okay.

I and others still spout poetry now and again. People are still living, marrying, dying, having kids and dogs and cats. Not much new.

It's been absolutely balmy for the beginning of May hereabouts.

How 'bout with you?


Cheers.

[JimJ]

Rex

What happened to the move to warmer climes?

[Mrleft8]

Got Haggis?
:D

[Rex Fearnehough]

Ish, The weather today is warm/ish around 44F. light winds, force 7from the east.
Jim, I went to visit and realised that it meant joining in with the rest of the ratrace again and it frightened me. I have lost my tolerance of people who enjoy being miserable. I suppose that I will threaten moving again when winter comes around again, that is presuming that this one moves off. Apart from that it's also time to get the boat back in the water. So life is even rosier.
Lefty, there is lots of haggis and I'm going to eat some tomorrow. When I go out to check the sheep again I will inform them of that fact too, it keeps them on their toes or hoof tips.

[huisjen]

Hey Rex, good to see you.

My sheep have lambed in the last few days, both without foul weather or obstetric complications. I mentioned it here (http://www.woodenboat-ubb.com/vbulletin/upload/showthread.php?t=49892) and posted these pictures:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v219/huisjen/IMG_1925.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v219/huisjen/IMG_1935.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v219/huisjen/IMG_1938.jpg

Dan

[Wild Wassa]

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid204/pc0bc856f3e731f757e141b2c4ec0ff36/ef584693.jpg


http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid204/p0ed78cac8ff8d956ef161d00a9501842/ef6889ae.jpg


G'day Corra 58. The cattle are lowing and the lambs are cool, like freezing and the Possums are being over-the-top, they are fighting tonight. They sound like the living dead. I use an old Rumsfeld standard when I shout at the Possums to tell them to shut up, ... "Folks aren't being helpfull."

There is a lot of smoke in the air from burning off coming from the high country, down south. The lambs here wear breathing apparatus, we like our legs of lamb roasted not smoked .... and the paddocks are always burnt off. It would be nice if it would rain. It is still the same old place.

Thankyou for your interest in rural affairs.

Warren.

[mmd]

Welcome back, Rex. We have shaken off the winter mantle here in Nova Scotia and are trying to avoid getting clouds of blackflies in the fresh varnish. Last week was very wet, providing optimum breeding conditions for the bloodthirsty buggers. A small family group of five deer come into my back yard every morning to aid me in my attempt to keep the grass at bay. Today has been sunny and warm (about 21 degrees C.), the first such day in almost a week. Sadly, I believe that we've sent a nasty low pressure system on its way to you. Tell the sheep to get it done with quickly - they only have another day or two before it arrives.

[John Gearing]

Rex,
Great to have you back! Fairly warm down here, about right for the season. Have wild turkeys patrolling the back garden now and again. For some reason we had a couple of 70F days in February of all things.Not as much snow this winter, but more of rain, so no drought for now.

The bilge is mostly as you remember it, with some old voices missing by choice and some new ones chiming in. Welcome back.

[skuthorp]

Wild weather down on the bay. 30-35 knots from the north, then the south. Fish are biting though they say. Big stacks of cumulo-nimbus, lightning and hail, p*****g down! The paddocks are full of calves though. Not many sheep down my way. Great Turnerish skies, good beach-combing weather. Blizzards in the alps, 30cm already on the tops, very early this year, hope it stays so we get a decent season and good melt for the reservoirs in spring.
Overall though the country is still dry, the 'norm' now maybe. Agriculture as well as the'burbs will have to change. I'm putting a couple of bladder tanks under my house at the moment.
Cheers, Jeff

[shamus]

Rex, about 30 years ago we had a particularly vicious low pressure system which deposited a lot of unseasonal snow just as lambing started. Over thirty of a mob of about 100 ewes dropped their lambs that night, with of course many casualties. So I suspect bad weather does bring them on- a puzzle if considered from the point of view of evolution. Good to see you here again.

[Stiletto]

It seems that lambing starts in the worst of weather here too.

[Rex Fearnehough]

Well, it seems that sheep all over the world are just there to get us wet and cold. None of he sheep belong to me, I was just helping out.
My best story, that raised a laugh, was when trying to catch a ewe that was having difficulty lambing. Now our sheep are Shetland hill sheep and wild. So the dog cornered it but, it spotted a gap and ran. I jumped a ditch and went to cut it off but it refused to acknowledge me and came at me like a train so I stepped to one side and rugby tackled it using the shoulder wool. I hit the ground, the ewe rolled over me and the dog crashed into us both. but, I held it. The next couple of minutes were spent laughing and trying to get the mud and worse off me.
Incidently I was wearing an Aussie rugby shirt.
Not bad for a 70yr old.

[huisjen]

:D Well done.

Dan

[Mrleft8]

Well, it seems that sheep all over the world are just there to get us wet and cold. None of he sheep belong to me, I was just helping out.
My best story, that raised a laugh, was when trying to catch a ewe that was having difficulty lambing. Now our sheep are Shetland hill sheep and wild. So the dog cornered it but, it spotted a gap and ran. I jumped a ditch and went to cut it off but it refused to acknowledge me and came at me like a train so I stepped to one side and rugby tackled it using the shoulder wool. I hit the ground, the ewe rolled over me and the dog crashed into us both. but, I held it. The next couple of minutes were spent laughing and trying to get the mud and worse off me.
Incidently I was wearing an Aussie rugby shirt.
Not bad for a 70yr old. Prolly a good thing none of your friends had a camera.... You might have a bit of trouble trying to explain the situation after that picture made the rounds on the internet! :D

[Rex Fearnehough]

I wish that one of the other two had had a camera. I have already had a cattle farmer asking me to help him and he said he would definitely bring a camera.

[Wild Wassa]

Cora, One of the things about the burning off, as we know the term "burnt off", to mean, at this time of year is that it makes for some great atmospherics during the day.

While I've been cutting and polishing hulls this week, when I've needed a distraction, I would look out across the water to one of my past relative's dairy farms or what remains of it above the manmade lake. Margaret Cox my past relative was born on the hill which was called Springbank then ... now the only part of the property remaining above water is called Springbank Island. The imported trees showing the autumn colours, were planted by her parents at the turn of last century.

Shots taken this past week.


http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid205/p516979d89406a5af1c16b72ebb8a37ae/ef0b8bb0.jpg



http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid205/pc122f8de1716f63c2ad74698b07aa858/ef0994a1.jpg



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http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid205/p0e6ba1897e2b12185a5df275aca2d391/ef069c07.jpg


It is wonderful autumn weather here at the moment ... so I'm doing the outdoor work while the sun tries to shine through the smoke.

Warren.

[Rex Fearnehough]

Warren, when I was talking about burnt off I meant, that the grass that was growing i Feb. was burned off by the gales and the salt laden air.
I know what you mean about the atmospherics. I lived in Malaysia for quite a while and did a lot of low level flying. I loved the smell of the smoke too. But now it's realised that a lot of the burning was jungle clearing. some for logging and some of which was for the subsistance farming. The latter was a nicer smell.

[Old Sailor]

I'll bring the Mint jelly.
Old Sailor

[emichaels]

We were lucky with our first lambing season, it all happend on a mild weekend several weeks ago and a several days before the week of rain we just had...... Don't suppose that will happen again.

Eric

[huisjen]

Eric, see my pictures above? The lamb is named Cuatro, born on the fourth and also the fourth male I've had, and the fourth member of the current flock. (He was fifth when he was born, but the Shetland wether I had was just too much trouble to manage, so I'm eating him, right now, as I type.)

Anyway, I had just come up from planting potatoes and onion sets in the garden, and heard him. I thought, "Hmm. That's a new one. Someone must have lambed." I ran up and looked around for him. See those tractor tires in the bottom picture? They were stood up in the corner behind where Chickpea, Cuatro's mother, is standing in the picture. Cuatro was underneath them! Somehow he'd fallen down a hole that I didn't even know was there, before his mother had even licked him fully clean. I had to move the tires, instructing any loose rocks not to fall on the lamb, and instructing him not to get crushed in the process. But I had him out promptly and reunited him with Chickpea. As I watched, he figured out the whole nursing thing.

Dan

[Wild Wassa]

Cora, I knew what you meant by burnt off. I wish we would have such burn offs. There is another fire across the paddocks tonight.


http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid206/p0bd5568758ab617c5b62a72bbb1df082/eefec336.jpg


It looks a little big for a prescribed burn.


http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid206/p69ce6b8f37f50a08097f60fecab0175f/eefebb49.jpg



Warren.

[Wild Wassa]

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid206/pb1940055293fec81fc6c2f5ab78ce196/eefafb18.jpg


When I went to bed last night it was only a small fire front although the hills looked speccy ... but this morning it was a bit more impressive (above). It is good when the fire isn't headed our way for a change ... the burn is headed towards Wee Jasper to bother the farmers out there. I suppose that they have moved the sheep.

This evening looking towards Two Sticks Hill was just smoking with an interesting sun setting through the smoke.


http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid206/p4db6bab49d815acf79b2c8d3dd7bec66/eefaee01.jpg



http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid206/p2e6f706c153bc2cf02ea26508748bc34/eefae0c0.jpg



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Warren.