Dam report 2023

 Greetings from the waterside this summer.

The dam is continuing to improve, after filling to capacity and beyond during Spring, we wanted to hold as much of the water as possible. Marty talked to a previous owner of our property who had the dam built. He explained that the dam had never successfully held water above the natural soil line despite it being re-lined with clay shortly after it was made. We decided to try adding bentonite clay, just one bag, around the edges where the leak might be. We waited a week, and as the water level dropped, we checked the back of the dam wall for moisture and targeted the opposite side of the wall for another bag of bentonite. Repeating this over the span of a couple of months, we have narrowed down the problem area to just the south east corner, and concentrated spreading the clay to that area. We're happy to say that the water level has never been this high at this time of year before!

See-through water, can you see fish?

I have read that the sealing of a dam is mostly attributed to an anaerobic layer of muck at the bottom, and the trick is to encourage that condition. It is said that fish poo and organic matter helps in this regard, so here's hoping the abundance of little fish are helping. The clarity of the water is helping the plants grow, as is the addition of a few buckets of shell grit (usually for chickens!) for calcium and pH buffering. The first bucket of shell grit went into the floating island, and the plants responded by growing like crazy!

This year a pair of diver ducks hatched 6 little ducklings, we've seen turtles, lots of little fish (of course) and dragonflies galore. The dragonflies have to be my favourite critters for their work eating the mozzies that were in crazy numbers after the wet spring. It was certainly a sight at dusk to see the dragonflies en mass, especially over the sheep!

We have lots more projects on the go, I'll be sure to update when I can.

Until next time!

January 2023

 The summer is finally warming up, and although we don't love the heat, there are many plants that do. The summer growing grasses in the pasture are now happier, and the rain that overwhelmed the ground earlier has left some areas quite hard. Still, we can see an improvement since we started grazing only a year and a couple of months ago now. I have read that things become much better by year 3, though.

The photo above was taken earlier in the season while the spring grasses were dominant. The sheep love to rub all over their shelters and rest under them. They're light weight enough that we carry them to each new grazing area that doesn't have a good sized tree, which is most areas still!

We named Sharon's lamb Vicky Winters, she's on the left in the picture above and growing up very fast. Her Daddy, Chilli is right next to her, with Star and her (and our) first born ram in the background. He's almost 5 months old now.

The flock heading over to chow down on some fresh prickly lettuce. There are 13 here now, and we're still expecting a new ewe.. her arrival date has been pushed back to the 18th of January. She's coming all the way from South Australia, and there have been some logistical issues and flooded roads causing the delay. No worries!

This is the new mineral feeder, made from an old pallet, replacing the old greek yoghurt containers. We keep the rubber flap off when there's no chance of rain. It gives everyone a good opportunity to casually choose what they'd like to eat. The most popular supplement is still the kelp meal, but the copper was essential during the wet spring. I credit the copper for keeping the flock free of worms, we haven't needed to "drench" and everyone is alive and healthy.

The second ram lamb born, we nick name the ram lambs Rammy the First and Rammy the Second. This little guy is just over 3 months old and already looks like a mini version of his dad, with wrinkles on his nose and a love of scratchies!

Vicky is 4 days older than Rammy the Second, and she's looking great and is very healthy. Her Mum is eating prickly lettuce in the picture above, right beside her.

Chillie is great, we got lucky to have such a lovely mannered ram. He just loves scratches and would just about stand around all day getting them. It makes life so much easier having very tame sheep. If there's a seed (or 100) bothering them, we can get them out. If they need some foot care, we can get close enough to tip them upside down. When it was very wet, there was a couple of sheep who's hooves needed a trim, and we did it right there in the paddock without having to stress them out. No need for sheep handling facilities or races, and it's funny, but they forgive us pretty quickly, especially when they feel much better after having it done.

Moving the sheep to a new area is as easy as reeling up the fence a bit, calling "Sheep Sheep Sheep!" and they bound over and race in to see what new food they can find. We could manage pats and scratchies when there were only 4 or so that enjoyed it, but now nearly everyone enjoys some attention. Each sheep has their preferences, some like neck scratches and others prefer the other end. They're all intelligent and individual, but thankfully they do tend to follow Dark Wether when he leads. There have been quite a few times the fence has been knocked over by kangaroos, and the sheep aren't where we last had them. It's no stress at all to call for them when Dark Wether comes to us with the rest of the flock in tow.

It's exciting to see our land is still pretty green when our neighbours properties look as dead as ours use to be at this time of year. Sure, much of the green is "weeds" but the sheep don't seem to mind. Right now we're giving them large areas and moving them daily to keep the impact fairly light, just a bite off the top of the plant and move on, where-as in Spring we had them in smaller areas moving many times a day, to create more of an impact and putting much of the grass on the ground. It works out well for us too, moving once a day, about an hour before the sun goes down and things are cooler.

So, our lives right now consist of lazy summer days and enjoyable sheep moves in the evenings. Mornings are when I get some gardening done, watering before it gets hot, planting, repotting etc. I feel like we're getting away with something..! ;)