electric slug fencing and Persian sheep

6.8. 2021

 

Today we start our sixth lockdown!  We had just started to ease out of the fifth one so this is not welcome news.  There is still such a massive shortage of suitable vaccines that it looks as if we will be in this limbo situation for quite a bit longer,

 

The good news is that yesterday, when we were still allowed to travel, Edd and I managed a day out driving to Shepparton and buying a young Persian ram. We brought take away food and ate lunch in the park at Violet town. All day we drove through rolling hills that were cleared for stock grazing. There was almost no other humans to be seen but we went through a beautiful valley with stunning rock formations and twisted pale barked gum trees. 

 

Today I let the ram into the paddock with the other sheep. I was worried they might bully him but instead they ran away, terrified!  I admit that with his rough hairy coat and short skinny tail he does look very different, but he is still a lot smaller than our remaining 4 sheep. He is a type of sheep that does not need shearing or tail docking and in theory he should be quiet and easy to handle.  I need sheep to keep the grass down in our fire reserve and on the house roof.  The goats would jump on things like the solar panels so they are no use for this work.   The hard bit will be finding ewes to breed more purebred Persians but until we manage that we can start breeding with the sheep we have.

 

Whilst I am writing the first batch of bread loaves are baking in the oven and the second bread batch is on its first rise.  Luckily this is a warm indoor job. We had warmer dryer weather earlier in the week and we planted out the first snow pea seedlings.

 

  Josh made some slug guards out of plastic bottles.  He tied copper and stainless steel wire round the guards to try and make an electric fence on a slug scale. So far, the seedlings have not been eaten.  I put sand and lime round some broccoli seedlings I planted and they have been slightly under attack.   Last year Edd put out beer traps but they just seemed to be the basis for midnight slug parties, all paid for by us. Edd next started slug patrols to try and curb the worst effects. None of this solved the problem. I do not want to put down poisons so we just keep trying.