Day 287 of 2024

I enjoyed a hill walk today.

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 285 of 2024

Ganma duties again, feeding Pikachu and Leah when the family had a busy day.

They are slowly quietening down (were 1 month old and very un-tame when their mother died and they went to live with Lily and George).

Pikachu is definitely the greedy, and quieter, one - Leah moved as far from me as she could the minute she had decided she'd had enough to drink.

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 284 of 2024

Two pet calves came over to Ganma's house for a visit so had to be walked home again!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 283 of 2024

Always great to have a small (big) boy's help with the calves.

We were weaning this mob, taking them out the back to the runoff.

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn 

Day 282 of 2024

Just enjoying a bit of sun.

I can never get a decent photo of my black girl, she is the one laying the green eggs, so in spite of the rather sinister face, she's quite special!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 281 of 2024

The rambling, wild rose has just started flowering - a fabulous splash of colour!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 280 of 2024

It's always good when you can get into a paddock and park the feeder before the calves come over for their milk.

They were so busy grazing that lush grass that they weren't too interested in me.

These were to be weaned in a couple of days and this is a great sign for successful weaning.

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 279 of 2024

Yes, it's been a while.

I'll spend a few days catching up again!

One advantage of not having a proper clean out of the vege garden in the Autumn, is that there are extra-early potatoes in the spring!

(October 5th photo)

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 278 of 2024

The ultimate in Milky Moustaches!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 277 of 2024

The calf shed is starting to look a little empty these days, as calving slows down and older calves move out onto the farm. 

These guys have plenty of room to stretch their legs after their feed!

See you tomorrow,
Raewyn

Day 276 of 2024

"Rural Scene"

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 275 of 2024

One of these things is not like the others.....

I can't believe it took me 7 weeks to notice this tail!!!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 274 of 2024

Mountain calves.

It's always cool to have the calves up in the back hill paddocks.

4-wheel drive needed to get up there and limited spots for parking the feeder on level ground!

But plenty of grass.

You can see that as soon as they finish their milk feed (some still sucking to the right of the photo) their heads go down and they start grazing.

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 273 of 2024

Overnight, sometime recently, the beekeepers brought the hives out to our bush areas.

The (white) manuka is starting to flower and the bees are starting to get busy.

On a warm spring day you can smell the honey they're making. 

Delicious!!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 272 of 2024

Little did they know it, but this was the last milk feed for this mob.

They followed the feeder up the the first part of the track to the runoff, had their last feed, then carried on out to the runoff to lush grass.

Woot woot. One less mob for me to feed!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 271 of 2024

This appealed to me.

Cow Number 1 first in the shed....

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 270 of 2024

Do Not Disturb.

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 269 of 2024

Time to get the oldest calves in and sort out a mob for weaning.

The weaning mob get drenched, vaccinated and copper capsules.

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 268 of 2024

The prettiest little Granny Bonnet I ever did see.

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 267 of 2024

Watching me watching them.

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 266 of 2024

One little horse very happy to be moved to a new paddock!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 265 of 2024

The calving mob.

We had four new calvers for the day (one calf over the fence in the grass) which is a good number for this time of the season, when calving is really slowing down.

When we move this mob onto new grass, the new mums and their babies are separated off into their own paddock of lush grass for the day.

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 264 of 2024

 
When everything goes quiet, it might just mean that food is involved...!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 263 of 2024

T-A-M-M-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y!!!!!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 262 of 2024

Not sure if you can work out what this is?

We had several massive hail 'showers'...not massive stones but they went on for quite some time and lingered a while too.

A cold snap hit the country and we re-lit the fire!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 261 of 2024

Woot woot - it's that time of the year. The Wisteria is putting on a great show :-)

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 260 of 2024

Not the best photo sorry.

The twins feeding their twins.

These guys were recently orphaned and are now having a crash course in becoming domesticated.

Milk helps.

Evening feed so it's gumboots and pyjamas!

See you tomorrow,
Raewyn

Day 259 of 2024

 

And just like that, back into it again.

We're down to one or two new calvers a day now.

The last 30 to calve will drag on for another 3 weeks or so.

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 258 of 2024

It took a fair bit of planning but I was able to get away for 24 hours to join the celebrations of a family wedding.

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 257 of 2024

I always love having calves down this corner of the farm.

Nestled in the crook of the river, it's so peaceful and feels very remote.

And these big old trees (Totara mostly) would have seen a lot of comings and goings.

See you tomorrow,
Raewyn

Day 256 of 2024

 

What can I say, but another cute face.

See you tomorrow,
Raewyn

Day 255 of 2024

We were thrilled to discover the native Clematis, Puawananga, in flower in the neighbouring reserve.

Such a pretty flower, the photo doesn't do it justice.

This time of the year, the MOL is always on the lookout for it - he's seen it once; across the valley at the top of some tall trees! 

There were two younger plants, at eye level, growing on small trees (this one was on a Puriri, you can see some leaves of it mid-far right).

Now that we've found these and they're easily accessible we'll have to keep an eye on them and try to get some seeds from them later on.

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 254 of 2024

"Where's my Mum?"

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

 

Day 253 of 2024

What better thing to do on a sunny day, than go to the beach.....in the sandpit!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

 

Day 252 of 2024

Yaay, one of my new chickens lays green eggs!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 251 of 2024

The kids catching up with Bella, Kaliah's pet calf from 2 years ago. 

She's still very friendly.

Penny, who was Saydee's at the same time, doesn't really want to know!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 250 of 2024

I've just realised that this was the only photo I took for the day so you're stuck with another calves feeding photo!!!!

Significant in that this is another combined group, where I now have 20 together in this mob, out in the big paddock, and their first time feeding off the big kids feeder.

Look at those cute fluffy-tail-wagging butts ♥

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 249 of 2024

Kaliah and Saydee running in the inter-school cross-country.

Qualifying to compete is always a thrill and watching them brought back memories of our own kids competing there back in the day!

They did great, 39th and 40th out of 130 in their race.

(Note of interest; they ran at Barge Park, which was the MOML's family farm.)

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 248 of 2024

Ahem. These may have come home with me...

I've been wanting to have a few more coloured hens in my flock.

The white girl is really pretty, the black is a little 'different' and the reds have more black on them than my other chickens.

All are 'point of lay'; about to, or just started, laying.

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 247 0f 2024

Lovely Clivia flowering in a corner.

I love that, no matter how neglected, the garden still has these wee moments of brilliance!!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 246 of 2024

Of course, the calves become tuned in to the sound of the bikes going past - bikes=food.

These guys went onto once-a-day feeding, with a big milk feed in the morning and nothing at night.

(Except lots of lush grass!)

You can see that while they were inquisitive about us going by they're not exactly charging at the fences trying to get to us and find some milk.

Whew.

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 245 of 2024

I sneaked a couple of hours with a couple of friends at Saturday Sewing and it was so nice!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 244 of 2024

One of the advantages of moving the big calves further out onto the farm is that it's a bit too far from the sheds to multi-task and feed another mob while they are drinking.

So, what do you do but sit back and relax with a freshly picked orange until they are done :-)

See you tomorrow,
Raewyn

Day 243 of 2024

The sheep from next door have come over to tidy up the orchard.....so the MOML doesn't have to mow it!!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 242 of 2024

I'm missing my hill walks and their sunrises....I did catch this one though.

See you tomorrow,
Raewyn

Day 241 of 2024

Snoozing day for the dairy calves.

Dehorning time; all got a general then a local anaesthetic.

(The vet does this job these days.)

All well and happy and eager for their afternoon feed by 4pm.

(The beef calves are polled, ie hornless, so they just stood around and watched.)

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 240 of 2024

Cow time.

See you tomorrow,
Raewyn

Day 239 of 2024

"Remind me", I said, "when I complain about sore muscles tomorrow, that I did a great job cleaning soggy shavings out of the calf shed!"

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 238 of 2024

Whenever one of us comes back from checking the cows and announces there is a new calf, the question they get asked is 

"Plain or Fancy?"

Our beef buyers asked if we would breed a few FleckVeigh calves for them....these calves have mottly, spotty faces, panda eyes etc etc.

Sadly we aren't getting many of the pretty creamy coloured ones - mostly black and sploshy as in the calf on the right, but they're pretty cute either way!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn

Day 237 of 2024

While we've been waiting for the slow wheels of legal-ness in offices above our pay grade to turn, it feels like there has been little progress on YD's house on the farm. 

Today, some physical evidence of progress, with the arrival of their water tanks!

See you tomorrow,

Raewyn