More sunshine and dissapointment

Another beautiful day of sunshine.  Christopher took the ewes back to Phillips' Point.  Twin Ponds is also back out, it has 575 ewes under 6 and 25 under 7.  The 25 are actually this years cull.  This new flock was originally started with 400 2 year olds and 200 culls.  There is no option when starting a new flock other then to use culls as you can't buy young ewes.  Really pleased that this year from the original 200 culls that had to be used to start the flock this year we only had to put 25 out.  Next year hopefully we will not have to use any.  The problem with using culls is they often don't bring in a big strong lamb,  they usually have a light fleece and it is not unusual for them to have black spots in the fleece.
This afternoon has been spent sorting lambs.  Ones that are ready for the abattoir, ones that will be run over the winter and some that need culling because they were born to late or have lost mothers etc and are never going to make sheep.
The cull ewes from Twin ponds and Phillips Point are now ready to go to Top Twin Ponds ready to go to the abattoir in March.
Tomorrow we will gather the Sandgrass again and take of the culls from there and put in the replacement 2 year olds.

Christopher riding in the gymkhana at the Christmas races in Stanley

Christopher riding the mechanical bull at the Port Howard sports (totally useless)

Lastly I am disappointed because I would have liked to go to the horse racing.  Tomorrow Sports week starts.  Sports week is a camp traditional that marks the end of the shearing season.  Each year there will be a sports meeting on both the West Falkland and East Falkland.  This year the west meeting is at Fox Bay and the east meeting is at Goose Green.  I would have liked to go to the east sports.  On Saturday and Sunday they are having horse racing and gymkhana,  they also have mechanical bull competitions, children's sports etc.  On the west they have a shearing competition, peat cutting competition a rover rally, mechanical bull and gold cup racing, football etc.  Its a opportunity for farmers to get together and a lot of people from Stanley attend them to. A lot of beer will be drank over the coming week.