Our fields are dry but we do get a dew in the mornings so fields with no stock are green in color but not with grass growth.
I fenced off our lawn around the house so the ewes could graze some fresh grass.
To give you an idea what it is like living in a microclimate, I had heard last week that 6 to 8 weeks ago there had been 2 fields sown with grass seed 24 hours apart by the same contractor. One just up the road has had a half inch of growth the field 6 miles away had 6 inches of growth. This is what it is like, when all around you have rain and don’t know what your talking about when your land is bone dry and dusty. So now feeding rams a sheepnut maze mix, ram lambs sheepnuts and apples and giving hay to the horses. The ewes are mostly on grass and windfall apples, yesterday I started feeding them a few sheep nuts to prevent condition loss before breeding. I’m saving the best fields for flushing, when the rams go in with the ewes.
Last night on twitter several farmers in neighboring County’s were talking about how they needed rain as well and we tweeted about doing rain dances. They all got rain during the night and this morning to the South West and to the North West, but again we got none. So I decided drastic measures should be taken and asked some Zwartbles to put feathers in their wool and do a bit of a rain dance. I hope this works….. I choose Willow as willow trees love water, then Whisper as I don’t want floods but a nice rain to soak into the land and finally the ewe lamb Asarah named after my friend Sarah as friendly rain would be nice.
I open the gate through the wood to the lawns below for the dancing sheep rain dance.
Finally Asarah knew what was needed and with feathers in her wool set off doing the Zwartbles rain dance.