Nice Day for a Drive

Yes it was lovely driving out in the paddocks today after so much rain. Don't know if I mentioned or not the other day that we had 18.5mm of rain, well this morning I emptied the rain gauge for another 20mm (and we've had a few more showers since then through the day too). So out in the paddocks it was nice and muddy and definitely a good time to engage the 4wd in the ute.

First chance I got to venture out into the fields was early this morning (which is 8am on a Sunday) and the reason was to move the cows back into the paddock they are supposed to be in. The cows are very annoying in this way. They tend to like to "escape" just for the fun of it. Although I must admit that this time they probably did have just cause. I put them onto the wheat stubble in front of the house probably 6 weeks ago now, and they have eaten it out pretty well. So the fresh barley stubble next door would have been quite a tempting option for them. I put them back this morning but unfortunately one of the cows had a calf out there in the night and that calf was either still born, or had died since. Either way that cow was not moving anywhere. So I left her there. I knew that in doing such a thing, even with a comprehensive repair to the electric fence that was supposedly keeping the cows in, that they would be out again by the time we got home from Church.

I was right. So then I had another opportunity to venture out onto the dampened pastures. This time I discovered another cow had calved while I was out there. I tried to get a picture, but it's not really clear.

But anyway there she is with a lovely new calf only minutes old. I didn't see the birth, but I didn't miss it by much. So having 1 cow still standing over her dead calf, another in there with her brand new calf, more cows in the wrong paddock than the right 1 and that being the paddock they were going to end up on anyway, I decided to leave them there. It required a quick fence repair to another part of the paddock, but that's ok. They're all happy now (and definitely not hungry).

Sheep feeding followed that and I fed all 4 ewe mobs today. The mob over on Bob's (back on paddock 4) had managed to escape to a neighbouring paddock, well actually 2 neighbouring paddocks - but that was always going to be a possibility as the fence there in 1 spot isn't real flash. So the few that did the right thing and stayed in the right paddock were rewarded with a bit of grain feed.

The other mobs were all ok, looking good.