Fasting, Cattle Work and Rock Picking

Checked the neighbours 7 girls on the river and still no new babies. Noticed the cows and calves that were moved a few days ago standing in a tight bunch along the fence line. went up to see what was going on. Nothing, they had found a spot on the rise that was getting maximum morning sun and were enjoying it. Although by coming over it reminded them to have a whinge about getting a new paddock.

The trailer had been in the Nuttery for a couple of weeks waiting for us to get around to picking up more rocks and removing weed matting. Got stuck into it for a couple of hours and almost finished that section before going over the river to help with some cattle work.

The boss was up for the weekend and it's a lot faster putting the animals through the yards with three people. One person can be dedicated to keeping the race leading to the headlock full. One on the headlock doing the work and one person keeping records and doing the general duties. The only mistake was the boss had greased the headlock. This eliminated any friction and the calves were able to push through. This was solved by me holding the lock down handle in place manually. No big deal and hopefully the grease will weather away before the next yarding.

The calves had been wearing their weaning nose rings for 4 weeks and it was time to remove them otherwise the nose can grow around it requiring a scalpel for removal. In most cases these rings seem to work but it's not a 100% certainty. We had already noticed the odd calf had worked out how to slip the spikey top up higher and by coming in at a steep angle they could still suck without spiking the udder. We separated them from the mums after removing all the rings and they will now graze in paddocks at the other end of the property until the bulk of them are sold. Hopefully they won't bellow too much and disturb the neighbours.

Weaning Nose Ring

Got home in plenty of time to finish collecting rocks in this section of the Nuttery. A worthwhile job which will help the mower blades last that little bit longer. Some of the weed mat was still in good shape and we folded it for storage. It will come in handy when we build the Spring Tomato bed in 6 weeks time.

Close to a ton of rocks taken out of the Nuttery

Because we had visitors on Thursday we missed one of our fast days. Rather than miss the day completely today became the alternate fast day. Just tea or coffee in the morning then maybe a couple of mandarins early afternoon then that's it until dinner which usually is just a thick soup of beans. Tonight's soup ended up being Barley and lentils with piles of Stinging Nettle and a scoop of Salsa Verde. Having picked up fresh oysters in the shell the previous day we had a dozen. Fasting doesn't have to be painful. If you keep busy you seem to notice the lack of food.