New Chickens
On Thursday we bought six Australorp/New Hampshire point of lay pullets. They're still timid and flock together. The other two chickens and Ericson are giving them a hard time but I'm sure they will stand up for themselves when they've grown a bit. One of the photographs below is the new chickens venturing into the grass jungle of the chicken's new area.


New Weaving Project
After hours of dreaming and planning, pouring over books and purchasing my cottolin, I finally started winding a warp for my first attempt at weaving tea towels. I have chosen a waffle weave pattern and my tea towels will have 469 ends! So, as I said, I have only just started winding the warp. I'll have to do it in a few stages, and I've done about a third so far. I'll include a photograph once I have set up the loom and I've woven the start of the pattern.

Mending Fences
Star, one of our Murray Greys, forced herself through yet another fence and so Paul and I were out there this afternoon adding another wire to the Dam Paddock fence. There is plenty of grass in the Dam Paddock, so I don't know why she pushed through the fence. Last week Paul and I rethreaded the wires in the fence at the top of the hill on the eastern side (Unslashed Paddock) through the star pickets and added another two wires for good measure. Paul also reinforced the small fence at the top of the hill near the gate with extra star pickets and rethreading the wires through the holes. All this was because Star pushed through this fence too.

Cows Resting
Paul pumped water to the tank at the top of the hill from the front dam. There were about three rungs already in the tank and we pumped until the tank was almost full with seven rungs. Even though the dam only had about a foot and a half of water in it to start with, this pumping only made the level go down by a few inches. That's pretty amazing. That water in the tank will be enough for the animals for about 7-8 weeks, and perhaps more now that Lady is not here. I have included a photo of our beautiful cows sitting down resting after a busy morning eating.

Another New Fence
Last weekend we put up the top half of the middle fence and moved the sheep into the top half. Paul finished off some extra tying of the hinge joint today. I have included a photo to compare with the photo in the previous blog about the fence.

Lots of Rain
I have included the rain gauge readings for the last eight days below:
22 February - 30.0
23 February -
24 February - 5.5
25 February - 4.0
26 February - 19.0
27 February - 8.0
28 February - 16.0
1 March - 30.0
After the first lot of rain the front dam just looked damp but by the end there is now 1 foot (as measured by Dad's depth gauge).
The shed tank hit a peak after 1/3 (seen by debris on walls) but today I took a photo showing how much water we have lost (due to leakage) since then, in only two days.