Sunshine, drafting and no megabytes

Another beautiful day.  Scorching sunshine.  The hole in the ozone and lack of pollution and the rare phenomenon of no wind means when its hot its hot.  The season is changing though.  Six o'clock in the morning was very nearly to dark to start shearing.  In fact we had to have lights on in the shed.
The lack of wind meant drafting was nearly a pleasure.  There was no wind to blow the dust around and the clippies and lambs ran through the race superbly.  The introduction of the abattoir means the sheep are handled much more and are now  used to being drafted  quite regularly.  Today the dogs and I were able to keep the sheep up from the second pen out which meant a lot of time was saved because I didn't have to keep filling the forcing pen. 
Drafting today was to sort the flocks out before they go back to their camps for the winter.  Today we sorted the Phillips' Point flock.  This flock is made up of 600 ewes 5 years and under.  It also contains the ewes that will be used in the AI programme in May.  The second flock sorted today was Twin Ponds.  This is a new ewe flock which was only started last year. Speedwell Island when we bought it was a balanced flock.  A balanced flock contains a big percentage of wethers.  It is generally run to produce wool.  We have removed all the wethers and added two  extra ewe flocks to produce lamb.  It is quite a fine balancing act not to sacrifice one income for another. So far we have managed to maintain our wool income and as with everyones it has increased significantly over the last couple of years because of the rise in wool prices.  We still have a long way to go to maximise our income from lamb.  Hopefully the genetics we are importing will help us to achieve this.  The Phillips Point flock is now in the paddock ready to go back to their camp first thing in the morning.  We didn't take them back today because the dogs had already been out and gathered and brought home the sheep from  Top Twin ponds.  The Phillips Point drive will be difficult so the dogs need to be fresh and so does Christopher!!!!
Lastly no more pictures for a few days.  Our Internet is very expensive.  I pay £60.00 a month for 1,000 megabytes and for every megabyte I go over it costs me 14p.  I am over big style!!!!!