4th November, 2024

The wind continued today, I have a very low tolerance for wind by now. Over it. 

I set up three strips of grazing into the main paddock ready for when the withhold ends tomorrow. The herd is still in the hops paddock but I will bring them back tomorrow and give them the new grazing.

I need to get a thistle spray in this weekend and spray the grass on the fencelines and the barley grass patches as well. I have a three day weekend this week and should be able to hook right in. It's probably not far off having to do the next slice of blackberry battle too.

This photo shows the line between the grazed and ungrazed grass and the knoll paddock over the fence which will be cut for hay.

This photo is facing the other way, each slice will be about eight feet wide. The green blobs in the distance are wrapped silage bales at Robyn's that Jason cut and baled yesterday.

3rd November, 2024

A windy day but not too cold, it's clouding over now. We've had a mix of cold and warm, even close to a frost. I think they just spin a wheel and whatever it lands on is our weather for the next 8 hours.

Jason sent me the weights for the four weaners he bought from me yesterday, the two younger ones were about 340kg and the two older about 440kg. All in all they were worth about $4500 and that will be offset against the haying Jason did for me in 2021 and 2023. Depending on how he costs it, I might even have some towards this year's.

I moved the herd to the hops paddock for the next 24 hours to give me time to set up the first slice into the grass in the main paddock. That's about knee high now and I will give them 4 metre wide slices while the far end, sheep shelter paddock and barnyard grow back. Hopefully we won't need to take too much of it, because it would be nice to have some as hay. This area was fertilised back in October and the withhold period ends on Tuesday.

Jaffa was looking a bit cagey on Wednesday so I figured she'd calve on Thursday. No calf, maybe it was just moving around. Lunchtime Friday she appears with a heifer calf that's clean, dry, drinking easily and hopping around. Clearly not a newborn ! I suspect she calved on Wednesday night or Thursday morning and hid her. I have named the calf Eloise.

The bank manager rang me on Thursday and asked for some more recent pay slips. Sigh. I wonder if we'll get approval for the mower before Christmas ?

No movement on the job front, other than to find out Lynda at Woolies also applied for the Council job and also didn't get an interview and they are also dodging her. Which made both of us feel a little bit better.