More lambies

Spring has sprung up here with a grand total of 6 little lambs bleating in our paddocks. Ginny sprogged on Wednesday sometime and produced 2 more ram lambs. She is a refugee from Don and Ivy down the road who lost Ginny's pal to a parasite attack and so she came to live with other sheep at ours to get preggers. Skippy has done his work well. We were surprised that both rams were pretty white looking when Dad is a brown colour.

So the total score now is 5 ram lambs and one ewe. All have survived so far and there have been no problems with births. Touching my head now in the hope that Survivor and Nippy don't have problems lambing. Channy and I spend a bit of time checking out the forum at LifestyleBlock reading threads such as this one:http://www.lifestyleblock.co.nz/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=23991
and having nightmares about our little darlings.

Further confirmation that spring is here or at least coming is that we have our first bunch of chicks hatch yesterday. A barred rock starting sitting on eggs in the pump shed a couple of weeks ago and was duly shifted to a safer place on the front lawn, where 4 cats and a dog can keep the rats and other predators away. She hatched 6 little chicks. Future replacement pullets or rooster dinners. We had a rooster for dinner 2 weeks ago and he made a fine meal. His friend is currently in my sights as he is upsetting Rocky (not to mention our good neighbours Goff and Janet with his early morning crowing.

Kid news: The boys have all been down with various bugs. In fact we have all been afflicted by bugs that are rife at present. Eric has been off for the last 2 days. Stuart struggled in today and did cross country at Pukepoto school. He came last. Paddy was off for several days last week and I was down with it last Sunday. Chan has been on and off ill with it as well.

We escaped the wet and dismal on Saturday when we went to see Irene and Lee with their 3 girls at Peria. We had a bbq and admired Lee's veggy garden. He shows me what is possible round here. He has carrots in the ground, ripe tomatoes and capsicums in his hot house. Very impressive! We all ate well, drank, and had a good yabba about this and that.

That's all for now folks.

Super Sally !!!

Well, at last Sally has produced her lambs, and what a surprise, TRIPLETS!!!. 2 boy's and a little girl.

We awoke to the sight of them in the paddock opposite.

We went stright over to invesitgate, our neighbours came out to tell us that they heard the lambs being born last night at about 9.15.

We feel lucky that Sally has produced 3 live births, without help, and has not rejected any. All are feeding well. The next couple of days are important, so let's hope they are prograssing well.

All this after Sally nearly drowned in one of the streams at the bottom of the paddocks. Thank goodness Mike was there on hand.

Spring Lamb

Yesterday I had a lovely surprise when I went down the hill at dawn to feed the animals. There were the 3 big white sheep looking like stranded whales and obviously still very preggers. "Ah well" I thought to myself "one of these days we will get some lambs out of these girls. Or maybe they will just explode because they are fat and not pregnant." Then out of the corner of my eye I saw Dippy sat in the gorse of the orchard with a dark shape at her feet. Yipppeeee! a lamb.

He is a ram lamb, with impossibly long legs and chocolate and white markings. Very cute. Mum did not look too happy with her head down and rear end upwards. I wondered if she was having another or maybe passing the afterbirth. We all had a look before school and the boys were thrilled to hear lamb bleat and totter over to mum.

We had some concerns yesterday that lamb (who shall have no name to prevent distress when his time comes) was not drinking. After school we all reassembled and sprayed his navel with iodine to keep infection out. We put him and mum together in the pen so that she could bond with him in peace and get him feeding. I attempted to shove him on the tit, but he would not drink. I was worried that he would die from a lack of food so milked mum into a container and tried to feed him some of her antibody rich milk from a bottle. The teat was designed for small rodents, so did not work for sheep. I got a proper one today, but was pleased to see him feeding a couple of times.

It feels like we have waited 2 years for this little fella, so we are all stoked. We are having some interesting discussions with the boys about our future sheep plans. They like having them around but moan like crazy when asked to help with the routine work.

Pictures

Grandad UK has requested pictures of growing boys so here they are. You know you are getting old when "things were different when I was a lad!". On the trip to Auckland last week, we made some gunge in the AUT chemistry lab. Some of the kids were getting really into it, simulating snot etc. I said that it was a pity I hadn't brought a camera. Next thing I know, they all have mobiles out and are taking photos of each other. Later on several of them are sharing the images with mates who did not go, cameras joined together and transmitting information through some sort of beam. Back in the old days you would wait 2 weeks to get photos back from the processor, or at least overnight. Now we can share a picture within minutes with someone 12,000 miles away at no cost!

Eric does not normally look like a zombie. Stuart has not really been arrested. Paddy does spend every available opportunity to be on the computer. Sally still has not lambed. The picture above was taken a few weeks ago. The fields really were that wet, that was the day that many houses in town were flooded.

Term 3

Term 3 is now at the end of week 3 and we have collapsed in a heap having hauled ourselves out onto the safety of Friday night. The weeks have been full of school and work and the weekends have been for recovering. Altogether not very exciting, but if I go through it all i am sure I can pick out a few highpoints.

Weatherwise it has been wet, wet with some wind, a little bit of sun, grey and then some more wet.

Ericwise there is nothing to report. He is sporting a smart new haircut. He has made his gun telescopic by trading Stuart's sight for a BB gun. It is a 4x32 apparently.

Stuart is still pottering about, puncturing the peace with manic hammering from his bedroom at all hours. The latest project apparently involves getting cow bone and carving it!

Chantelle is getting used to her new job with the Salvation Army. She is a Community Worker helping people to get over the effects of the recent flooding. She helped to put on a meal at the Community Centre last week for flood survivors, giving them the chance to meet up and swap stories. Pretty important for many who have been scattered around away from neighbours into emergency accommodation.

Patrick is hosting his friend Reuben this weekend. They are pretty inseparable and Patrick would like to live at Reuben's house, while Reuben would like to live at ours. His football season is almost over but he has not been able to attend practices, because he has moved schools and we cannot get him out in time. He does need to be doing a team sport and to learn how to cope with losing because they are his weak spots.

The animals are all still in varying stages of pregnancy ranging from very to not at all. We keep thinking that Sally cannot possibly get any bigger, but she carries on waddling about. Chan saw some mucus today which is a sign of imminent birth.

I do not have any big news. Went to Auckland with 38 Year 11 pupils last week. It was energising to be in the big city. Very noisy and big with huge buildings all around. It was kinda nice to get back to hills and trees!

Photos aren't happening much at the mo because our old hard drive has frozen and is stuffed full of pics. Plus we aren't taking that many. There are only so many pics of a wet field before it becomes monotonous. I am aware that pics do liven things up so I shall endeavour to add some. Let me know what you want to see phots of:

• pregnant sheep
• growing boys
• erics haircut
• a wet field
• something else.

Have to go now to play chess with Eric.