Poll Dorset Rams

Poll Dorset rams are used over our merino ewes to breed prime lambs. This is the first time in recent years that we have done the prime lamb thing, and it has worked very well. The last lot of lambs sold for $4.80 per kilogram dressed weight, which averaged out to over $100 each, which is a fantastic price. That was the highest price we have received so far, but it may increase as the season gets older. It is just a pity that we don't have about 10,000 of these lambs...
The rams have just been taken out of the ewes after the mating season. So in a few months we'll have new baby lambs on the ground.

These three rams were brought home from Wattle Creek on the back of the ute.

Clearing Sale

Roger has been wanting a new (second-hand) 5-in-1 seed and fertiliser bin so he has looked at the classified advertisements in the Farm Weekly and he has scanned the clearing sales. He went to a clearing sale a couple of months ago but instead of buying a bin he bought an old motorbike and some other random junk as is so easy to do at a clearing sale. This week there was a reduction sale at a farm just near home, so we went along and he bought an old 5-in-1 bin. It was a lot cheaper than he had budgeted for (but he will need to do a fair bit of work on it before he uses it.) And as an added bonus he also bought the truck that it was mounted on, for only $1,000!! You can probably guess how old the truck is. It needed to be jump started and have the brakes bled before he could drive it home.

The auctioneer selling the truck

The proud new owner...

A little bit of rust...

Yannick and Fabian (helpX) checking out the new purchase

The truck and bin

A detail from the sale

Hugh took his tricycle

Farmers at the sale

Getting the truck started

bleeding the brakes

Roger wasn't tempted to bid on the field bin...

or the tractor with front-end-loader...

or these...

Neglected Blog

A section of new fence

This is a bit of a catch-up blog, as I have been running around so busy lately that I haven't sat down to blog.
The season has changed, with the mornings being cool and damp. We had rain on the 22nd of March, which has resulted in the paddocks turning a greenish colour, after the hot summer months of brown. It is a welcome change, as the rain also replenished our tanks and filled the dams. And it settled the dust a bit.
Although we welcomed the rain it came with a storm which caused widespread damage, not so much at our place but in the metropolitan area of Perth there was millions of dollars of damage. There was flooding, trees uprooted, rooves damaged, windows broken with hailstones and cars thoroughly pitted by hailstones. I have seen pine trees with hardly any leaves left after they had been battered by the storm. My sister says that she has never seen such big hailstones, and she was surprised because they weren't round, but jagged - like there had been a thick sheet of ice which broke up and fell out of the sky.
On the farm Roger has done a lot of fencing work. (No not with an épée!) The French guys who have been with us in the helpXchange program were kept busy too. They did about two kilometres of boundary fencing, as well as taking down some other old fences that need to be replaced. And then after the rain they had to repair some sections that got washed away.

Where the creek ran over the road when the drain blocked

Water! (Better than dust...)

My mother surveying the water damage

Hugh helping Roger to clean up, supervised by my father

Roger removing a log so he can repair the fence

Basketball Grand Final

Bonnie's basketball team played in the grand final tonight, and they came out victorious. Bonnie's basketball skills have really improved during the season, and she contributes well to her team. It was a well deserved win, and a very tight game. It was the defending that defined the game, as the scores reflected.
Next season Bonnie will have to play with older kids, which will extend her even more. This time she was one of the big kids!

Hugh at school.

This is one of a series of photos I took for the Darkan Primary School to celebrate its new status. The school is no longer a district high school, so all children over the age of twelve must go away to school to continue their education. Most high-school age children were already going to boarding school, and we have sent Sophie away in year seven this year.

I haven't been blogging about the farm much lately. It is not that nothing is happening, but just that I haven't had time to blog. It is after midnight now, and I have another very busy week coming up. I have been spending time doing my photography in my studio in town, and I have had a few days tied up with children's activities. Sophie's swimming carnival was last Tuesday (she is not a strong swimmer so only swam 25 metres of freestyle in a 150 metre relay race), Bonnie's swimming carnival last Thursday (she was equal runner-up year 4 girl) and Bonnie's basketball final last Tuesday evening (her team is in the grand final on Tuesday night).

I have Stephanie from France helping me in the house (thank goodness!) and there are two French guys (Yannick the cook and his friend Fabien) helping Roger on the farm. They have drenched sheep, pulled weeds, taken down a fence, and tomorrow they will start to put up a new fence. Most of the time I am not here to photograph them working!

On Friday we all went to Wagin to the Woolorama (the agricultural show), and Roger and I went again on Saturday. We saw lots of displays, Odette won $3 for a picture she exhibited, and we were well entertained. On Friday night we all had a go on the "bucking bull" ride and I am glad to say I survived for ten seconds and didn't injure myself! Of course I didn't have my camera to take any photos for proof.