Playing tag with calves...

They chased me down! :)





I've been enjoying farmsitting though it's very quiet. I've been doing a lot of baking and talking to the animals (in the kind of way you do when you get cabin fever). My mornings have been a bit quiet as the two lambs under my care died of bloat, BUT another orphan was found so I have another morning (and afternoon) chore! The thing is, this lamb is a bit older and feistier. It wiggled it's way out of the initial paddock it was put in and found it's way to the calf paddock. This paddock also has two ewes which are pet lambs. They aren't afraid of people...in fact, they come baaing and running after me when they see me arrive. Naturally, you'd think that if you put a little orphan lamb in with two young female sheep, they would look after it and accept it into their group but they weren't having any of it. If a ewe doesn't recognize the scent on a lamb as being her own, she will chase it down and butt it away and that's what was happening here, poor little lambie (I've since moved it to another paddock).

One of the mean hoggets...

Yesterday I went into the paddock with a hot bottle of milk to feed it. Ideally, the lamb should be in a small enclosed place for the first few days, just so it can get used to you bottle feeding it and you can catch it easier. I knew this was going to be a funny task. I'm certain that anyone driving by got a good laugh. Picture this....me, with a bottle in my hand, running through a huge field after this lamb with a herd of calves and two big ewes trailing around behind me...all kinds of mooing and baaaing going on, thinking it was their feeding time. Then I started to think that the calves were ganging up against me because I was chasing the lamb. They were charging around me and kicking their hind legs up like they wanted to trample me (but really I think they were just playing). I was about to give up because the milk was starting to go lukewarm when the lamb managed to get itself cornered in a fence and I dived to tackle it. I had to pry it's mouth open to take the bottle but once it got a taste I let go of it and it was feeding on it's own.

The wool shed...

I'm also in dog heaven here...there are 6 total....I've fallen in love with a sweet little year old pup. I will take a pic tonight and you'll see why. :)

Pretty-faced Song (but not my fave!)



A couple more days here then I'm off to Te Anau...