Happy Farmer and his wife ….

Update from HF and his wife ….
The mealies are looking good. We have not had an abundant amount of rain, it has been patchy but has arrived at the critical stages which has been great. The maize is tasseling now which needs further rain but things are all flowering and looking good. The male part of maize is the tassel on the top of the maize plant and the female is the silk at the top of the cob on the plant. With pollination the cob grows and develops. So the factory is all there and going well now it must just fire …

We did an aerial spray with the crop duster with a fungicide and an insecticide so hopefully that will be the last spray this season. At the moment we are still on track to take off the silage at the beginning of March.

The veld has started to turn a bit sour with the cooler mornings and so the cattle are forever trying (and some times they are successful) to break into the hay lands or the meailies – much to the unhappiness of the HF.

He is growing the hay and the meailies to get the animals through the winter … Our 30 year old baler has been hard at work but is still soldering on with the odd limp !

The driver of the baler sure knows his way into town for running repairs and maintenance. Working on the hay lands brings out various bird species and we have seen lots of storks around. The pivots have also been requiring running repairs and have kept staff on their toes.

The staff including management took well deserved breaks over the holiday season and a lot of staff have taken their annual leave over this time. Working with the seasons !

The calves are looking good. We have just sold our cull heifers and our long yearlings. The prices for beef have improved and are holding firm. This can be attributed to the lack of supply because during last years drought a lot of beef was off loaded onto the market.

During the loading process one animal was totally freaked out and escaped while loading onto the double trailer. We have still not found the animal – it may be lost in the tall maize or run through the farm …. we are still looking …

On the “bull power” front. The dairy bulls have all been pulled out but the beef bulls are still active and loving life.

With the sheep flock things have not been looking so good. Over the past 10 days we have lost 5 animals. One to lightening, two to jackal and two were sick and have since died. When there is a storm brewing they often bunch up to the fence. If lightening strikes the fence ….

THE JACKAL ARE BACK …The other day HF was heading home for lunch and he chased a jackal out of the sheep camp. How brazen is that?

till next month ….