Went to the garden for an hour after lunch. Finished weeding the small seed patch. The garden is looking good after a slow start and gale force winds that battered the potatoes within an inch of their life. The recent rain and warm days have seen them come on good. Took my i-pod with me, turned it up full volume and sang along at the top of my voice. I love loud music. I believe my singing is pretty horrendous but whos to hear.
After the garden with the day still being so calm and hot I went and sat on the beach bank waiting for Christopher to come back. No wind is a rare treat in the Falklands and with my i-pod off all I could hear was sheep baaing, the wind turbine swishing, a variety of birds and the sea breaking on the beach. Eventually even the turbine stopped turning due to the lack of wind.
At 5:15pm we headed over to Barren to draft the sheep. I sat on the bow of Theo listening to my i-pod. Drafting was hard work. The sheep usually run through the pens and race really well but not today. Matters were made even more difficult by the fact that the forcing pen gate had no hinges, just a bit of wire strapped around the top to keep it tied to the post. Because the sheep wouldn't run the gate still had to be dragged open and shut all the time to keep the sheep forced up to the race. Tempers were becoming more then a little frayed. The problem appeared to be that we had had an excellent lambing with 198 ewes bringing in 323 lambs. Percentages like this are few and far between. The lambs had not been through the race before hence the difficulty drafting. We had expected to be away no more then 2 hours but in fact didn't get home until 8:15pm. At least the shearing shed is full and the ewes will be all shorn by early afternoon tomorrow.
The day turned into a beautiful evening and again I sat out on the bow of Theo during the 15 minute trip back across to George island. The water was so calm and clear you could see jellyfish in it. That and the penguins did wonders to sooth my frayed temper.
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