I left Dear Richie in charge at home on Wednesday and went off to work. When I returned at the end of the day the guests spotted me and came over to tell me what a great day they had, the kids in particular as it turned out.
As soon as I heard the words “Dora” and “guinea fowl” I expected the worst. But proud mum showed me a video of her seven-year-old son running crazily around the yard chasing the guinea fowl, with Dora of course his number one accomplice. What could I say?
I heard a child’s voice coming from outside calling, “Dora, DORA, DORA!”
“Was Dora chasing the guinea fowl?” I asked the eight and ten year olds who had been playing ball with Dora for the past couple of hours. “Yes,” they reply and their eyes widen as I call Dora in a very loud voice. She comes straight back but there’s not much I can do except warn her that if it happens again she will be going on the chain for the rest of the day.
I tell Maxim and Levena to let me know if she does it again. I grin to myself thinking about the number of parents who drive four to six hours or sometimes more to bring their children to the farm so they can see the different animals and learn about farm life. But nine times out of ten, after going for a drive around the farm and feeding a few sheep and calves, the children come back to the house and play with the dogs for the rest of their stay. Children under five are favoured by old dog Crystal who is only to happy to spend time getting her ears pulled if it results in food that they sneak out for her, or that she steals from them. Children over five mostly choose Dora as she is adventurous and willing to play all day.
I checked my emails this morning to find a request for a booking at the end of the month asking for a roast dinner with their stay. I reckon they must have read Jenel’s Southern Living in which I wrote about my favourite, roast lamb of course!
Dora and I attended Tammie and Rick’s working dog class last week, along with four other participants. Dora once again was off to a good start showing everyone how clever and fast she was moving the sheep in circles perfectly both ways and without crossing me. She was so fast I got so dizzy trying to watch her and was in danger of fainting!
We moved onto the next step, moving the sheep down the paddock along the fence line but once again, this wasn’t so successful. Dora just wanted to run in half circles then, in front of as well as behind the sheep. Persistent yelling at her ended badly with Dora telling me to shove it where the sun don’t shine and going off to explore the woods. So it was back to the yards where we walked around the edge but this time with a waddie (plastic stick) hitting the ground so Dora stayed behind. I just need to practice at home to reinforce this before the next lesson.
The next Working Dog School for beginners is on Sunday, 25 February. Each participant can take two dogs if they have two to train. Tammie and Rick are fantastic teachers and I guarantee you will come away with more knowledge than you can poke a stick at, and have a lot of fun to boot! The cost is $100 per participant. To attend phone Tammie on 0415 475 239, or Rick on 0497 307 262. Alternatively, you can join the page Marshall’s Working Dogs on Facebook.
Just before Christmas I purchased four three week old beef heifer calves locally and was a bit shocked to discover that the price of milk powder had gone up to $170 per 20kg bag. At that price it isn’t really economical to raise calves this way, however, because they had already had a good start I have managed in a month to only use three bags of milk powder on the four calves and they are now eating enough calf crumbles to wean.
Normally I would use two bags of milk powder per calf, good soft oaten or barley hay, as well as calf rearer crumbles. The aim is to get them eating 1kg of crumbles each per day and at that stage they should keep growing at a good rate without the milk. They are doing this now at around seven to eight weeks, so this weekend they will go out into a bigger paddock, but I will still feed them crumbles and hay for another few weeks. The grass here doesn’t have enough nutrition to keep the calves growing at a good rate without the grain. I will keep feeding grain up until around six months old.
I have been very slack in organizing A.I. to get the cows back in calf again. They are as fat as mud out in the paddock and even Marnie, the Hereford heifer, is way past big enough to go in calf. They are such spoilt cows though and don’t cooperate when being taken to the yards. They hate going in there and are even worse when trying to get them in the crush. That’s the trouble with spoilt, quiet cattle.
We have had some good rain and the farm and is looking as good as it ever has. The dam, however, has been slowly going down as water is released downstream for the cotton, leaving so much mud it is nearly impossible to go kayaking. We have had it good for a few years now and it’s a bit sad to see it going down. I believe they stop letting water out at the end of January, so if we get some good rain the chances are it will come up from it’s current level of 66 percent. Fingers crossed!
I hope readers have all had a great start to the new year.
Love Judy
