This Little Lamby Went To Market

People talk about farming not being a job but being a 'way of life' and it really is. There is very little down time, weekends while we try to spend time together as a family, it is often spent doing farm jobs together. Don't get me wrong we definitely do lots of other stuff too, and get out and about off the farm, but 'there is always something'. At the moment we are in the process of sending all our Wether Lambs to the Sale Yards for selling. Before we send them we have to draft off the fattest lambs which will gain us the most money (in theory).

As the sales are on a Monday often on a Sunday afternoon you can find us in the sheep yards weighing lambs. We draft off an amount of them to weigh, then we run those ones through the race into the scales where they are individually weighed and the heavy ones are kept separate to send to market and the lighter ones are sent back to the paddock for further fattening.

The Muddy Kids all love weighing lambs, they get their spot and either sit and watch or get up close in the action if they can. Muddy Bubby has just started to be allowed out of the pram for weighing and didn't hesitate to get in amongst it all. Really it's not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon together.

Gratefuls from my thinking time

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This week has been an absolute whirlwind, I have spent so much time in the car travelling here there and everywhere that today I am so Grateful to be home - ALL DAY!

As I have travelled in the car I have had lots of thinking time and so I have lots of little things to be grateful for this week:

I am grateful for my car, it's comfort it's easy riding on the road, it's multiple cup holders and bluetooth in the radio.

I am grateful for my wonderful family for stepping in for Muddy Hubby and I while we were away.

I am so grateful for having fabulous friends and them stepping in to lend a hand when needed or simply being there to listen.

I have been grateful this week for my resilient Muddy Kids who have coped and been relatively well behaved while I have been missing in action.

Grateful also for the wonderful Preschool Director who listened to my concerns about my Muddy Pixie and didn't hesitate to say 'I'll keep and eye on and it let you know what I think by the end of next week'.

We had my Muddy Organiser's school concert on Wednesday and I have never been so grateful for the choice we made in schools, for the wonderful job the teachers are doing and continue to do and for watching my little girl up on stage speaking into the microphone and dancing, two things I didn't think she would have the confidence to do, it just warmed my heart.

Today though I am most grateful for being at home, for the mundane, the washing, the vacuuming, the ducks, the sunshine and the normality.

Linking up with Maxabella at Village Voices for 52 Weeks of Grateful. Make sure you head over and check it out!

Hay Work

It’s that time of year again, time for new life, with lambing starting. As it hasn’t rained and feed is becoming a little thin on the ground we have been feeding out hay and grain to our Ewes that are currently lambing or are feeding baby lambs. This helps to keep them strong and in good condition for looking after their baby lambs and providing them with enough milk.

We load up the truck with big round bales and cart them out to the mobs of Ewes that are lambing. The Muddy Girls love getting up on the truck and trying to help push them off. Then they help unwrap the netting from around them, round and round in circles they go til it’s unwrapped and the sheep are able to get at the hay. The hay we’re feeding out at the moment is Sorghum hay, which was made out of a summer crop. We can also feed them Oaten Hay that we produce from early winter Oat crops.

We also have a feeder bin that we put on the back of one of the utes and this feeds out a strip of grain to the Ewes for them to eat, which will also help keep them in good condition. Muddy Bubby loves watching the Ewes come up and chase the ute as we start to feed them.

The Muddy Girls have also discovered a new trick with the Big Round Bales while we’ve been busy feeding the Ewes – They make a great stage!

 

The Running of The Ducks

We've had our Indian Runner Ducklings for a couple of weeks now and we've started to let them wander around the house yard during the day, then we put them back in their box at night with a warm light so they don't get cold.

 

They are getting bigger and cuter by the day and they must think Muddy Bubby is alright, as they tend to follow him around, they let him share their water dish and come looking to him when they're hungry.

 

There is still one that's a little bit of a runt, her name is 'Sprinkles' and all the Muddy Kids want to hold her and pick her up and put her in the box at night. I'm hoping she gets a growth spurt soon, otherwise she'll be left in the box alone at night as the others are growing too big!

 

We also said goodbye to our pigs this week, they've gone away to become Christmas Ham and Pork Roast so we don't have to worry about losing our Ducks to the pigs the way we ended up losing 3 chickens. My next addition will be restocking the chooks, so we can get some eggs coming back in!



 

 

 

Constructing a Truck Cake for Muddy Bubby

I mentioned on Friday I was going to make a proper birthday cake for Muddy Bubby to appease my mother guilt. I had ummed and ahhed about just what to make. The wonderful Jo at Country Life Experiment and her talented Country Boy had made their two year old a fantastic truck cake for his birthday. So using this as my starting point I made a truck based around our truck (see photo below).

 

It was really pretty simple to construct, because I made two trailers I needed 4 loaf cakes. I made a butter cake and froze them, so they were easier to cut to shape. Then I crumb iced it, before putting on the final coat of icing and the decorations, including two trailers with jellybeans.

 

Overall I was pretty happy with it, and I think Muddy Bubby and Muddy Hubby were too! The hardest part was definitely the gel icing for writing and drawing. No matter how hard I try I just can't get it to come out without blobs in it!

 

 

 

 

 

Athletic or Unco?

When I was younger (and really still now) I was a bit unco-ordinated when it came to sport or any sort of gross motor activity. I'm not sure whether it's lack of exposure or whether it's ingrained into me to suck at most physical activity. Either way, sports carnivals were not my favourite event at school, except for the fact that it was a day out of the classroom. I have been hoping that my Muddy Kids inherit Muddy Hubby's enthusiasm for sport more than mine, so I was interested to see how my Muddy Organiser would go at her first Athletics Carnival. We rugged ourselves up on a windy and cold afternoon and settled in for the fun.

 

As it's only a relatively small school, they ran it for just over an hour on Friday afternoon and the kids had a ball. They had a running race, a sack race, 3-legged race, jelly bean on a spoon race, dress in footy jersey and funny hat race and a tug-o-war. After watching the whole carnival, I think it's safe to say that my Muddy Organiser has inherited my gross motor skills (poor thing) but she had a blast and not once did she stop smiling, which I thought was the best bit. As long as we can keep encouraging her enthusiasm and making sure she doesn't stop trying I'll be a pretty happy Mum.

 

How do we make that happen though? Is it a matter of lots of positive reinforcement and encouragement, is it a matter of getting out there and practicing with her to make sure she's not afraid to give anything a go, or is it something inbuilt into them to keep giving everything their all with a smile on their face?

 

Do you have sporty kids, or are they like me and a little un-co? Do they keep trying and how do you keep them smiling and having fun?

 

Grateful for Organisation

Muddy Bubby turned One this week and to be honest it was a little subdued, I didn't make him a cake, we used the leftovers from a cake I had for a meeting (he still hooked into it and there wasn't much left).

I had a mild panic attack on Wednesday when I realised I had no presents for him. Then I stopped and breathed and had a light bulb moment 'I bought his presents months ago and hid them' HOORAY! He had a lovely Tonka Bulldozer to unwrap and a beautiful book and Care Flight Bear, all sorted.

So this week I am grateful for organisation and forward planning. Without Organisation and Forward Planning things would be a lot worse in our household! My house may be a shambles, my floors may not be clean and the toy room looks like a bomb's gone off, but I can still be organised. I make lists and try to stick to them, and I am always packing and repacking days before we go anywhere, which drives Muddy Hubby insane, but keeps my sanity intact. It's the little organisation beforehand that helps reduce my stress levels when we go anywhere which makes for a happier Muddy Family. It also means my Muddy Bubby actually had a present to unwrap on his birthday.

I still plan on making him a cake of his own, with a family lunch this weekend, to appease for my mother guilt in almost letting his birthday slip by unnoticed, but for now he is a very happy One Year Old pushing his Bulldozer around.

Linking up with Maxabella for 52 Weeks of Grateful at Village Voices. Please take some time out to check out the lovely Grateful posts, they will put a smile on your face and warm your heart.