2024 in review

It has been an amazing year for rain this year, it feels like it rained every weekend we went to the markets. (it didn’t really but it felt like it!)   Only one lambing this year – followed our drought plan for 2023 – it was a very dry year and we had been feeding out our home grown hay all year – according to our plan we need ground cover and hay in the shed to allow us to feed the sheep to get us through to the next growing season (grasses) and we did not have enough when the rams were due to join the ewes in August – so no lambs early 2024.

Thought I would go through our old face book posts at check out what we were doing

January – 1st market for they year were humid and wet at both Pomona and Fishermans Rd – we had 115mm of rain for the month on the farm.

February – Collected our new shirts with our new logo embroidered on them, and it rained on the 2 market weekends for us – we had 36.5mm of rain for the month on the farm.

March – A visit to Townsville for my brothers 60th Birthday and catchup with Mum. A gas line on our coldroom compressor broke and we were not able to attend the markets on the 23rd and 24th, we made it on the 30th to Pomona and went to the Duckpond markets on the Sunday.  Mowed, raked and baled the millet into over 300 large heavy (4ft x 4 ft) round bales  – we had 51.5mm of rain for the month on the farm. Put the Rams in with the ewes

Mum

My brothers 60’s Birthday cake – Lindsay can’t believe they used a John Deere

Mowing the Millett

April – 6th the rain held off at Pomona until the markets finished, not so lucky at Fishermans Road on the 7th and on the 20th the rain held off again at Pomona but came down at Fishermans Road on the 21st. Not to forget our cold room was stolen and recovered this month, and the Rams were banished back to their paddock – we had 126.5mm of rain for the month on the farm.

Lindsay trying to drain puddles at Fishermans Road Markets by making a small drain trench with the heel of his boot checking his success.

May – 4th caught sight of the hot air ballon for the first time this year at Pomona, the 5th was our last time at the Fishermans Road markets and the rain held off.  Started going to the Caboolture Showground markets on the 19th and the 18th at Pomona was a lovely day as well! – we had 7.5mm of rain for the month on the farm.

June – was cool and crisp at the markets, visited Farmfest and Lindsay had his first shoulder operation in Toowoomba. We had 5mm of rain for the month on the farm.

July – was another cool and crisp month we had a lovely time with our visitor from Canada who joined us at the markets – I captured an amazing photo of the sunlight hitting a glass vase on the next door neighbours stall we had 11.5mm of rain for the month on the farm.

Sunshine on the vase

the vase when the sun is at a different angle

Sylvia from Canada

August – Lindsay celebrated his 60th birthday our daughter baked his cake and found a really fascinating decorating method to show off Lindsay’s fascination with Anatolian Shepherd’s , and Lindsay made good use of the blankets given to us by our Canadian friend.  Paint smell tainted our meat for the last markets of the month.  Lambing commenced!!!We had 75mm of rain for the month on the farm.

Lindsay checking his eyelids for holes – toasty and warm

September – We have our little truck on the road and can swap the coldroom on and off the tray of the truck to make it a really useful little truck for carting hay, sheep, wood etc.  We had a little “caption the photo” competition, Lindsay and I celebrated another year of marriage as he headed south to deliver an irrigator!  But wait there are more lambs!  And the Rams joined the ewes again. We had 6.5mm of rain for the month on the farm.

Trimmer

October – Our son took pity his mother, I was getting frustrated with writing on core flute signs so he printed a 3D attachment for his “other gadget” that enabled him to “print” the signs for me. He also lasered some eartags for us to give to our regular customers so they can put them on their keyrings and do not need to show their loyalty cards. We were able to use our new (to us) hard hose irrigator for the first time this month to plant approx. 3 ha of lucerne. Which only had approximately a 10% germination rate, ie a failed crop.  Rams drafted out from the ewes and moved back in their own paddock, and did a lamb count 179 ewe lambs and 160 ram lambs  – We had 124.5mm of rain for the month on the farm, of that 106 was in about a 4 hour period overnight on the 9th

Core flute

loyalty key tags

November – It started raining at the markets again on the 16th it bucketed down at Pomona, Caboolture was fine – I bought a herb mix from the “Health Bazaar” another stall holder at the Caboolture Markets to try on our lamb – it was yummy; Wet again at the markets on the 30th and 1st December Lindsay had his second operation on his shoulder, We had 112.5mm of rain for the month on the farm.

“Bush” rub from Health Bazaar

Rack of Bimbury Laamb with Bush rub ready to go in the oven

Rack of Bimbury Laamb with bush rub ready to be eaten

Rack of Bimbury Laamb – the empty plate says it all!

December – what an appropriate way to finish the year than with rain at Pomona and Caboolture markets and a visit from our daughter (she lives in Toowoomba and we talk often on the phone but nothing beats a HUG) Lambs weaned, and 208.5mm of rain. In between the showers of rain Lindsay planted Rhodes grass to improve our pastures.

Total rain for the year 881.2mm double the 422.5 we received in 2023.

And so we start 2025 being grateful for all the provisions and blessings from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in 2024.

The fortnight that was November 10th

Well, I think I am going to have to write down what we did each day, when you string 14 of them together and try and recall what you did it is a bit difficult.

We (the royal we, meaning Lindsay) brought the rams, ewes and lambs into the yards. The Rams were drafted off and taken to the ram paddock – they have done their job for now and will get a rest for about 5 months. We had some friends come and help with the marking and tail removal of the lambs we have 179 ewe lambs and 160 ram lambs that were made into wethers – oops best not forget our 2 little bottle-fed ones – one ewe and one ram.

Lindsay has been using our hard hose boom irrigator to water where we planted the lucerne – he is concerned about not having a good strike rate (it appears not much lucerne has come up) time will tell very soon. It is very disappointing to purchase good quality seed, spend time and money to plant the seed and then spend money on electricity to water the crop to have nothing come up! Not only is it disappointing it is a costly exercise with the seed costing just under $900, I am waiting for the electricity bill, and I have not figured how much the fuel was. So we take another breathe and keep going!

Offset paddock 5 in preparation to plant Maxa millet.

Chisel plowed the balance of paddock 2 may plant soya beans here.

We try and grow all our own fodder for the animals, as part of our business plan we do not plant crops that cannot be fed off at any stage of its grown to the sheep. There are certain plants (grain sorghum) that can be poisonous to animals if the plant is stressed or fed off at the wrong time in its life cycle.

The usual trips to take the sheep to be slaughtered and then across to the butcher for processing, then our trips to Pomona and Caboolture for the markets on the weekend.

Lindsay often goes off to help our neighbours unfortunately there have been a number of feral dog attacks recently and Lindsay will go out at nighttime if our dogs are barking.

Jack (our son) has been business with his Bimbury Design business etching our livestock tags (NLIS tags, with our PIC (property Identification code) this assists with traceability of livestock within Australia) currently our tags for sheep are not required to be electronic, so the tags represent the year of birth (by the colour of the tag, this year is black) if the animal is a boy it goes in his left ear and girls go in their right. As we lamb twice a year the first lambing get one tag and the second lambing get 2. This enables us to tell at a glance if the animal is male or female, what year it was born and what time of the year it was born.

The week that was 26th October 2024

Lindsay finally got the lucerne seed planted in part of paddock 2 (see lower Bimbury map) It was all set to be planted and then we had 100+mm of rain in a couple of hours that washed some of the topsoil from one end of the paddock to the other (on the 10th of the month).

Once the soil had dried out enough to drag it back into place and get it ready for seeding we planted Lucerne.

Lucerne (or alfalfa) is a legume which has a large taproot, this allows it to access nutrients and water at depth and helps to make it drought resilient. The tap room also serves as a storage organ for nitrogen and carbohydrates (sugar and starches) that are required for the plant to regrow after grazing and cutting. Lucerne has high crude protein and low fibre, lambs can gain 300g / head / day.

Getting ready to move the irrigator under the watchful eye of Koda

Our week in review 12 Oct 2024

Yay, sort of! We received 105 mm in 3 hours on Wednesday evening, always grateful for rain however this time it has caused some damage – thankfully nothing major but it will require some effort to restore the fence and move some soil back across the paddock.

We (by the way when I say “we” I usually mean Lindsay!) had mowed some grass to allow for green pick to come through with the storm burst it picked up the grass cuttings and hurled them at the netting fence, making a mini dam wall which then gave away over about a 20m section as the force of the water and more grass cuttings hit it.

The same thing happened between us and our neighbour so we will (meaning Lindsay) will try to remove our fence from his topsoil and when it is dry enough for him to get on, he can use his dozer or tractor and bucket to reclaim his topsoil and spread it back across his paddocks.

In the meantime, Linday will also have to salvage some of our topsoil that has washed from paddock 2 into paddock 3 back into paddock 2 (see maps page) and go through the preparations again for planting some lucerne. Paddock 2 was ready to be seeded when the storm came and hence why the topsoil has washed, thankfully we had not planted the seeds, or we would have lost the seeds.

There is a fence between the Blue Arrows, it is currently taking a break and lying down on the job under the weight of the grass debris!

Rams and Lambs

Well another financial year draws to a close and some little fellas couldn’t wait to be counted… We have started lambing early this season. Not sure if the ewes were frisky or thought the rams were getting better food, but what ever the reason they broke into the ram paddock to be with the good looking fellas!