Just another day drafting

Decided at 6 pm yesterday perhaps I should go out and see how Christopher was getting on with the gather. I probably should have seen him coming home at about 5pm.  Sometimes it just isn't worth gathering if the wind is in the wrong direction and it appears this was one of these times.  One of the good things about gathering clippies  is how fast they run.  Run they did but every time he left one lot to go to another they all ran the wrong way.  Twice they went right back to where they had come from.  When I met him he had just put his motorbike on reserve.  This pretty much says it all as he would normally get several gathers out of one tank of fuel.  I have to say however that when I joined him they seemed to be behaving pretty well.  I think they had just given in to the idea that they were going home whether they liked it or not.  We eventually arrived home with them at 7:30pm.  A good hour and a half longer then it would normally take with clippies.

Ewes and lambs on Barren Island

Today has been spent drafting.  Drafted brilliantly, the first run through doing a three way draft of 1,200 clippies and 1,000 lambs took just over an hour and a half.  Drafting today to see how many flock ewes we have, how many cast ewes need replacing.  Taking 300 of the best ewe lambs of for this years replacement and drafting all the rest of the lambs to see how many are ready for the abattoir now and how many need a bit longer.  Pleased with the results 400 plus are ready now.