Mad dogs and English men

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Rang the next door neighbours (Lance and Karen) today who own the surrounding farm consisting of 1400 acres. They had previously offered to take us for a day on the farm to see the sites and help out, so off we went at the crack of dawn!
We came accross a sheep having difficulty lambing twins which unfortunately did not survive but thanks to a half an hour struggle by Lance (the farmer) and Gem, the mother is now doing fine (i was just taking pictures and urging encouragement from the sideline as a true guy should do!?)
Fantastic experience, got completely covered in mud but learnt the invaluable art of mustering cattle through gates and answers to those questions only known by farmers like whats a hoggit? and how hard can a cow pat really get?
One of the hardest tasks we found was to call to the cows regularly to get them to go through the gates, words such as: here old girl!, hut hut! and my personal favourite mooooooooooiiiiihhhhh! Something which really didnt come natural to either of us, with a voice in the back of your mind saying - oh my,what do you think you look like trying to attract a cow. Once you got through the initial embarrassment you just felt more stupid.

Gem also had a crash course in descending steep hills and how not to do it gracefully, as the terrain in nz is far from flat. All in all a great day.
Ill hand over to Gem now.

Yep really interesting day. Riding on the back of a quad bike up near vertical hills and down into streams and all the time being chased by Lance's sheep dog who was obsessed by the tires of this bike, at points I thought we would run over him but she would dash away at the last minute.

I can't believe cows don't realise they could easily butt us out the way rather than go the way we want them to, they were so relaxed about it, although I did feel a little vulnerable standing at the end of a hill with them hurtling towards me but they always back away.

Apologies to all those lamb supporters out there but we really did try everything to save the two who died, but at least we were able to save the sheep, although she may be a bit sore for a few days, all of you mothers will know about that.

Only a few more days to go till our south island adventure, getting really excited, also I think only 25? days till Elinor, Laura and Simon arrive to tour north island. They have asked for any tips fo things to get them through the long haul flight, any ideas out there???

Will blog again soon, take care everyone and sweet dreams.

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Photos

Ewe 2
Gems nursing experience comes into play

I want one of these!
anyone struggling to think of a present to buy me for Christmas?

Mad dogs
especially Joy, wearing black and white

Comments

[Laura]

fab
Sounds a fantastic experience! I'm proud of you Gem; as well as saving people you are now trying to saving animals! Not long till we are on our way to NZ for our big adventure ......YIPPEEEEEEEE!!!

[PHYSIO DAVE]

sheep terminology
in reply to 'bigbro' comment, so that you can now get some sleep, here comes the lesson: I think it is, Lamb until one year old, Hoggit from 1-2, two tooth 2-3( because they have 2 teeth), three tooth 3-4 (you guessed it they have 3 original isn't it!), then they loose their teeth and can't remember what they are called after that, anyone else?? ??Mutton