Nature does the job

3y.old enjoying the colder weather

We are well into Autumn, and have already had a couple of cold, frosty mornings.  A storm last week coupled with high winds caused some damage in the paddocks, but fortunately dropped branches and entire trees into the paddocks rather than on the house, fences or on the animals!

We have a row of huge gum trees that have died due to die-back, and we are slowly getting through felling them. The wind saved us a job with a couple of them, they were pulled out by their roots!

16y old (6ft1') standing next to the roots

Luckily this tree fell across the paddock, missing the fences, and landed across other stumps

This one fell straight into the paddock, luckily the 'pacas weren't in there!

Doesn't look like much, but this was the mess to clean up in many paddocks!

I had to clear the road of tree debris so that we, and our neighbours could get out.  I dragged huge branches off the road as 3y old cheered me on from his carseat.  Later, when Hubby came home, we had to chainsaw up the bigger branches and stack them against the fence...what a mess! 

Work continued up in the back paddock which is also fringed by huge gums.  My stick rake came in handy and I was able to clean up most of the mess before having a huge fire.

Fireman Sam!

I have moved Adlin out of the main paddock, with Sherman (wether) and put him in with Eclipse and Shinook.  Adlin's fighting teeth have yet to emerge, and Eclipse's teeth have previously been clipped.  I was worried about how dominant Eclipse would be, but after he had established himself as the 'man', and Adlin has demonstrated his acceptance of where he lies in the scheme of things, the four boys got back to their main job - eating!  After researching, I think it will be OK to keep the boys together, as long as they are out of sight of the girls.

Adlin and Sherman, eating with the big boys!

Eclipse (R) makes sure Adlin knows his place.

Now, we are coming up to the part of the year I hate...weaning.  Hubby and I are arguing about what is the best thing to do.  This year, none of my feeding Mum's are pregnant, so we are wondering if we need to separate the weanlings.  KayJay is already kicking off Chance (6 mths old), and Chester is a whole month behind in age (5mths).  Hubby thinks we should let them wean naturally this year.  My feeling is to separate them, as I can then halter-train them all without their Mum's interfering.  I do feel sorry for them though, the constant humming and looking for their Mum, (the Mum's reactions can be anything from total anguish to 'woohoo...girls night out coming up!!')

Thank you to everyone who gave me feedback on my previous blog and the fleece.  I am going to take my new 'pacas to the show and see what happens - though I have to wait until October!  Hopefully we will have some luck like last year and get some good feedback :)