Lights on the Lake

August 28 2015 28

We got some fine sunny days this week and used them to work on the new chook area we are building under the chestnut and olive trees. The finest day was Saturday. This was a minor miracle because Beth was organising a lantern party around the Yarra Glen lake. Lots of the local children had made lanterns by gluing tissue paper onto glass jars that had screw lids. The men at the Men’s shed attached the lids to pieces of wood. In the evening everyone put LED light candles into the jars and floated them on the lake.

Our job was to get the little boat there so that Morgie could row around standing up any the fell over or got stuck. There was a huge turn out and the weather was perfect. The best spectacle was at the end when Bo and Indi rowed round collecting the lanterns. Every time they got a boat full they brought them in to land and the boat full of light looked amazing.

On the farm we have a new problem. The goats moulted early but then some just went on moulting. I am worried that they have caught wombat mange. So far no one is itching much but this might be just the start. I have taken away the selenium lick in case they have over dosed and if all else fails we need injections from the vet.

The twin lambs have adapted well to the bottle and I have advertised them for sale in hopes that someone wants a pet. I do not want to put them out side yet because they would be very vulnerable to foxes.

August 19.15

There was another heavy frost last night with real ice on water left in the wheelbarrow!  My friend in Tassie keeps posting snow pictures on face book.  It makes me feel very glad that we don’t live there! At least the sun is shining today. It was overcast yesterday, but luckily it did not rain so we were able to fetch 21 bales of straw and some copper maron chooks from up Ballarat way. The maran chooks are the ones that lay the darkest brown eggs and we already have a maron rooster so I am hopeful that we may be able to breed our own.

The sheep in the paddocks looked in good condition but the farmer told us that they have been feeding out pellets for most of the winter because there had not been enough rain in autumn to get any grass growing. We are also still feeding out barley and hay to the sheep that have started lambing. The latest ewe to lamb is a hopeless mother so we have her in a pen in the shed with her twin boys. So far she ignores them so we are bottle-feeding four times a day.