s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

So, on Saturday we drove up to Palmie for a meeting on alpacas hosted at Thief of Hearts. Jennifer, who is quite interested in alpaca fiber and colors, and Kerry, who was really bored, elected to come along. We went up a bit early so we could look at Hettie, a cow just up the road for sale. Hettie was a 1/2 highland freemartin. Freemartin is the term for mixed-sex twin births, where the mixed hormones in the womb make both offspring sterile. We were considering a cow-beastie as a way to help with pasture management, especially during the spring flush.

After looking at the cow we had a few minutes to kill, so decided to drive to “the end of the road”. The map we have is obviously not entirely accurate, as 20-minutes later we were heading further and further out into the wops. Fascinating, really, as a lot of work had gone into that road. One day we will have to go back and find out where it goes. We did discover a nice plateau in what looks from a distance like steep hill country, a plateau with a sheep and beef station on it, no less.

We were only a few minutes late for the meeting- where we discovered that both Tam and I had botched out intelligence tests- the meeting was Sunday! Doh!!! So we drove home, feeling really guilty about dragging Kerry and Jennifer along. When we got back Steve came over and we managed to get the front gutters hung on the shed, which was a good thing.

Sunday Tam drove back up to Palmie for the actual meeting, while I went off and played war-games. She learned a good bit about estimating dry-matter content in pastures, and generating feed budgets for animals, especially in winter. Useful stuff.

We also decided that Hettie was not for us. I talked to Lloyd, our neighbor who raises beef cattle, and he suggested against a single cow. Lots of maintenance issues for an animal that will not be able to do much about the lush spring growth. They figured with break-fencing the horses are a better bet. Oh, well, no Kew-Beastie for us, for now. Tam would have been happy enough to bring her home, but as the animal-wrangler on the place, her large size (500kg) and big horns made me a bit nervous.