Whats happening at our place October, 2010.

I only noticed that it has been 3 months since we put up any news.  Wow, where does the time go.

Part of the problem I think has been that we had a man who wanted to agist his sheep. He seemed okay.  When he rang he said he had 400 dorper ewes. That was 100 less than we really wanted to take but as no one seemed to want agistment (grass growing everywhere!) we took it.  We had had merinos here and they stayed in our electric fences okay and we had had cross breds at Rocky Glen and they were no trouble.

Then after coming and looking, he said that he was going to sell 200 and would 200 be okay?  Well, we decided what the heck.   Wrong, wrong, wrong decision on our part!

They subsequently arrived.  First the truck went off the track and got bogged. Vic had to help dig it out and then fill in the hole.  Then they unloaded the sheep.  The went careering through the fence and broke it!  What a sorry looking lot.  Really old ewes that obviously needed a good feed.  Lambs that had skinny mothers.  Still they would fatten up soon enough.  We put them in the 25 acre paddock on the western side for the time being as the man was going to get them shorn the following Saturday.  Vic was madly fixing up the part of the fence near the dam.  He finished about 5 p.m.

Checked the sheep the next morning, they were all eating furiously.  The sheepman arrived with some more lambs and a ram.  Meanwhile our next door neighbours were not a happy lot.  As these were self shedding sheep, they didn't want them near their merinos.  Also because they were dorpers, one said, they just keep butting at the wire until they get through.   

Everything seemed okay until the next day when I saw the sheep all tearing down the eastern side.  They had busted through the fence and gone across the paddock that was open to the eastern side for the stallions.  We rounded them up and put them back.  Vic was fixing fences again.  For 5 days we kept repeating the same thing each day. I rang on the 5th night and told the sheep man he would need to take them away, he could have his agistment that he had paid in advance back as Vic couldn't  keep up fencing everyday.   He then refused and even though we offered to pay to have them trucked back from where they had come from, he refused.  He cut fences, left gates open and generally was quite nasty.  After his agistment ran out, we told him to pick them up or we would ring the pound.  Eventually, he came and picked them up but was very threatening, so much so, that we rang the Police.  Not a nice experience at all!  

We have had a lot more rain and our paddocks are overflowing with grasses and sooooooooo green.  We have decided to only agist cattle after that fiasco.

On a lighter note, our daughter has found 5 kittens in her shed.  No mother cat seems to be about and she needed to rescue them from her dogs.  Her big problem is that the kids won't want to give them up.  Just got a phone call, as I predicted, each child wants a kitten.   She will either have to have 3 or only 1 as with 2 kittens, one child is left out.  I think it is funny, as kids can be so manipulative about getting a kitten.  As the dogs would have no hesitation about eating them, I have no idea as to what she will do.  After all, we have her cat because of that problem.  Of course the kittens will get used to the dogs but I just can't see it happening the other way around.  That is the dogs will get used to the cats.

Until next time

Vic & Rose