The Rain Finally came.!!!

We made a quick trip up to the farm this week as we had purchased a cool room. We had been  keeping our eyes open for one for some time and this one just happened along and was the perfect size  for us and was  within our price range that we had  allocated.

When we do our butchering up at the farm we usually do a couple of sheep  at a time to make it worthwhile, and now being able to hang the  carcasses for a few days  will make the meat taste even better. Also it will be  fantastic when we have large gatherings for keeping  food and drink cold. It will take so much pressure off my house fridge.
We will need to add a few more solar panels and an  inverter of it's own as we want to keep it on a separate  "grid" to the house.
When we arrived, there had been 26 mm of rain the night before, the place was still very bare,but we knew it would pick up soon.

Our next door neighbour(my husbands brother) has a better block down the road a few kilometers, and we keep a few of our sheep and a couple of cows there while the conditions are so bad on our smaller properties.  As we had driven  past on our way  to our place we had noticed a small new calf by himself, so after the brother in law  helped us to unload the cool room we went for a drive down to check it out.

She was a very sweet little calf, but sadly the first time mum was no where to be seen.We hung around for a couple of hours there  hoping that the Mum may  come back.We wern't

 sure which one it was and the boys did a bit of a scout around to try and identify her,meanwhile, my sister in law and I  had some very friendly horses  come up to say hello. They were lovely.

They eventually found the mother of the calf and decided to lock them up together  into the yards  so that she may begin to nurse him overnight. We raced home and got some hay for her and a big  container for water and left them overnight. That night we had three  storms pass over and we recieved another 27 mm of rain. Next morning the brother in law went to check on the mum and bub and they were ok, and the calf was still alive, but to my brother in laws shock, two of his best animals, a steer and a lovely cow were laying dead under a nearby tree, struck dead by lightening during the storms of the night, the tree they were under was smashed and charred from the lightening..
 And then the rain came again.

Just so lovely to see the tanks overflowing again...not all are full to the top, but most of them are.
Brian continued to hand

feed the sheep, as he hoped that by doing that , that the sheep  would have full bellies and may leave some of the new shoots alone for a couple of days...I think it worked a bit, they certainly seemed content. The babies born last month are growing, especially the singles. The twins arn't doing as well, but hopefully will pick up once there is a bit of green feed.

While we were up there, I also took the opportunity to sort out a few more preserving jars. I had purchased these green plastic stacking boxes from Aldi and had these shelves down in the shed holding used paint tins, so combined the two and scored myself  a  good new storage area for some of  the empties.

And speaking of green, within 48 hours of the  first lot of rain, we had beautiful new green shoots   all around the place. The photo below is on our front lawn,....I am so happy.
With a bit of luck, when we go up next I should be able to post some  photos of a wonderful green  farm, I certainly hope so anyway.
That final night we were there we had the most glorious sunset, we were in the kitchen doing the dishes and my husband pointed it out to me through the kitchen window, so I raced out and captured it's last golden rays through the trees as it was setting behind the rocky hill  on our boundary.

We headed home yesterday morning, back to the rat race, back to work and routine. Sadly when we arrived home we had a message from my Brother in Law to let us know that  the dear little brown calf unfortunately hadn't been strong enough to make it through the  second night and they had lost her.
So sad,I hope there is more success  with the others. They already have had 4 healthy calves, with  a few more still to  deliver, all we can do is hope for the best outcome.
So, until we catch up again,
best wishes to everyone,
Cheers,
Jane.