Even I am not foolhardy enough to brave today's forecast: 12C (44F), 10mm (½ inch) of rain, and the real kicker, 50 kph (30 mph) winds. Happily, I got the dogs run just before it started bucketing down rain.
Back Gully Reserve
I'm expecting to find the flock about where they were on Monday, and then with the northwest wind to graze them into the Back Gully Reserve, one of the biodiverse areas. There's quite a lot of gorse in the gully itself, and so far the sheep haven't shown their usual winter interest in gorse as a forage.
Lucerne Reserve, full day
Waterfall Gully Reserve
Whenever I tell someone I have a waterfall on my place, they look at me quizzically or pityingly, as though I've completely lost the plot during this extended dry time, and am seeing mirages. But I really, really do have a waterfall, with about a 15 foot drop, in my steepest gully of all. Ok, not all the time.
May 11-13: Wild Weather Continues (Into the Basin Grazing Area)
It's as though winter has decided to make up in a week the lost time in March and April, when it was so warm and mild. We had yet another ½ inch of rain overnight, following an inch on Monday night, both with blustery westerly gales. Last night as I drove back from choir practice about 10:30, it was sleeting horizontally, and the temperature outside my kitchen window was hovering at freezing.
No shepherding today-raining instead
I'm wimping out from shepherding today-forecast is for significant rain. Here's a photo from Saturday's shepherding-one I took with my real camera and its real telephoto lens. My only unhappiness with Instagram is that I have no way to zoom in on the images I want to send you! This was coming up through that rough gully. Notice the nice bite full of long grass in the lead sheep's mouth. By the way, I often see this older ewe up front, so maybe Horatio has some competition for Prime Minister.
Reprise-Highway Reserve
There's lots of good forage still in the Highway Reserve, so my plan for today is to head back there and try to work some of the less-grazed corners. I have no idea where the sheep will be, so have done an "eeny-meeny" guess. We'll see! Light northerly winds may help us to do a full length transit. I've appended two of my favourite photos of Elf and friends Clara and Vicki.
Back to the Highway Reserve
Assuming the NW winds are keeping the sheep towards the western end of the property, I'm planning to take them on a repeat of yesterday, into the Highway Reserve from the southwest end. This time I'll see if I can get them to graze down the hill to the west, before heading north into the tricky gully at the bottom.
A gentle walk through White Gum Wood
After our wild weather (and nearly an inch of rain, calloo, callay!) I thought today I might just take the flock through the middle section of White Gum Grazing Area, the paddock I call White Gum Wood. We'll concentrate on the downhill side of the paddock, and time permitting, may poke our noses into the southwestern end of the Highway Reserve.
No shepherding today
The good news is we had 14 mm (just over ½ inch) of rain over the weekend, in a series of wild storms and gale force winds. The ground is covered with tiny moths flying below the radar--their first chance for the right hatching conditions all year, I suspect. Today the forecast is for 50 kph winds, so I think I will let the wet sheep hang out wherever they darn please, and give myself a break from trying to convince them they WANT to go into (or even with) that wind. I skipped Saturday's half day as well, mostly because I was still worn out from Thursday's marathon. You see how easy it is to slide into laziness and complacency with this shepherding business? Good thing I have all of you to keep me honest! I really will do a circuit on Wednesday--probably back to the Highway Reserve for half a day, to let them enjoy this:
Jetting for flystrike, instead
My somewhat radical plan for today is to go back to the Lucerne Reserve for the morning, then take the flock into Old Cabin, which is actually part of the Basin Grazing Area for the afternoon, then out via Waterfall Gully Reserve and back to the White Gum Grazing Area. The plan is radical in that I don't normally graze into a different Grazing Area.
Half day in the Highway Reserve
I had a great plan for today, but the sheep forestalled me by doing it on their own yesterday: grazing the steep hill facing north toward the farmhouse. They spent the morning there, contentedly grazing the burned area from stem to stern, and even more importantly, from top to bottom. All I can say is downhill in this case was also upwind. Wind won, this time.
ANZAC Day in the White Gum Grazing Area
Well, though on Saturday I promised you a circuit in a new area, I lied. Not lied, exactly, just didn't think it all the way through. I'm betting the sheep will still be on the eastern end of the White Gum Grazing Area and therefore close to the Lucerne Reserve. Might as well have another bite at beating the bugs to the lucerne crop!
Into the White Gum Grazing Area via the Burn
Full day, back to the Lucerne Reserve
It continues terribly dry, though a bit of rain is forecast for Thursday, so I decided to do my full-day shepherd a day early and keep Thursday for a (hopefully!) rainy day of finishing my quarterly taxes. The bugs are gaining on the sheep in the lucerne (for those who missed earlier posts on this, I have aphids/mites turning my beautiful stand of lush green lucerne (alfalfa) into yellow standing hay).
Another trip around the "bottoms" of the Racecourse Grazing Area
I've been out with a nasty tummy bug since Friday, so no shepherding this weekend. I'm preparing to totter around the Racecourse GA (Grazing Area) with the flock this morning, hopefully all will be ok. We are now desperately short of rain, again. Essentially no rain for the past 7 weeks. So I am trying to spin out the grazing in the Racecourse GA as long as I possibly can, before putting the flock back on the White Gum Grazing Area.
Lucerne Reserve, full-day shepherd
The Lucerne Reserve is an area encompassing about 50 acres of monoculture lucerne, with grass and weeds, and an upper area of predominantly native pasture. Most of the fences shown on the map are no longer there-I took them down last year to allow free access from the sheltered hill area (native) to the lush feed of the lucerne flat. My plan is to give the flock the morning in the lucerne, then head up the hill into the native pasture for the afternoon.
Racecourse Grazing Area
The plan is to work the flock around all the lower edges of the paddocks that make up the Racecourse Grazing Area. Sheep prefer high ground-a predator thing, I'm convinced: much easier to spot the lions in the long grass if you hold the high ground. Of course, there's not much long grass to hide in these days...
