July lambs, playing amongst the vines.
Just like this first photo, there was a bit going on in July.
Early in July, I started Jimbo by introducing him to sheep in the yards, a significant milestone commencing his muster dog training. I’ve since followed up with another few short lessons, building his desire and confidence. It took a few lessons for him to come out of his shell as the trainer mob of two older and big (maybe 10x his weight) wethers were a difficult assignment for a young pup, being quite stubborn they’d face up to him, stomping their feet in a threat to charge. There’s still a long way to go with his training journey but I’m proud of this early progress.
Our White Dorper ewes have been busy lambing among the vines. With a significant portion of lambs on the ground now, it’s been one of the better lambings in our 18 years running sheep. It’s refreshing having a great lambing season after a brutal run of seasons during our flock rebuild after heavily destocking during the 2019 drought. During that rebuild we encountered devastating predation from foxes and crows which don’t seem to have come to the party this time. Throughout July we pulled a few lambs which is far trickier than you’d expect but there’s no better feeling than seeing that first twitch of movement in a fresh lamb and handing it back to the ewe for her to do the rest of the work.
In mid-July there was a big week of work, planning and planting out the remainder of our budding orchard which will hopefully bear fruit for generations to come. A few years ago we planted a row of 11 fruit trees and this time we planted another 3 rows with 30 more fruit trees from @mudgeenursery going in the ground. At present we now have 17 distinct fruit and nut types (Apples, Apricot, Pears, Oranges, Grapefruit, Lemon, Persimmon, Cumquat, Mandarin, Peaches, Chestnut, Figs, Lime, Almonds, Cherries, Nectarines and Plums) in the orchard with multiple varieties of each type in most cases. This variety is exciting with over 20 types now represented across the whole farm so perhaps the ‘Mullamuddy supermarket’ may be a more apt name.
On the wine side of operations, we’ve been busy pruning and bottling and were part of the NSW Wine Winter Cellar Door at The Rocks in Sydney.
With the favourable seasonal conditions (good rain and mild winter) our pregnant cows at Coolah have begun calving while at Mudgee after a tough start to the year, our young heifers are really hitting their strides now, putting on condition and kilos in the lead up to October’s joining.
