Monday Evening... Me and the moos

I spent a lot of time last night in the paddock with some of our mcmoo team. I had just feed Abby Rose with her bottle for the evening and her gave her a brush and the others decided they would come and request a cuddle and a brush too...(just as well I remembered to bring the brush out with me!!!) I had to give Janny T a brush first as she has become the herd boss !! just like her mum. Obviously in the genes. Then over to Peigi...well young Janny was not keen on that. She needed the firm voice of "no" to remind her she needed to share. She took that on board and stood their in disgust, while Peigi had her turn. Then over to wee Georgie. Janny decided to try butting in on her brush as well, so received another 'no' from me, and this time she decided she would give up and go and carry on eating. Young Georgie stood there lapping it up, happy in the knowledge that Janny had moved off and wasn't going to get bossy. As I was brushing down her front she turned round and laid her head on my head and licked my hair..... she is such a sweetie.

Standing there amoungst these guys, on a gorgeous Monday evening, all I could think, was how lucky I was to be able to enjoy these beautiful animals and receive their love back with licks, nudges, moos and a big big cuddle.

A great way to end the day and very "de-stressed"...

Lesley

Pauatahanui Lamb & Calf Day - 7 November 2009

The Lamb and Calf day is a great day we try to attend each year. It is held at the Pauatahanui School. and also run by them. It attracts approx 4-5 thousand people each year and a day many come from quite away to attend.

We took a few young animals and set up camp with our Marquee in the lower playground and basically didn't stop till the end. This year we took Abby Rose, Peigi and Georgie. We were going to bring Montague instead of Georgie, but on Friday night when coaxing them down to the barn for the night, Montague decided the grass out on the driveway was far more interesting than the bucket of nuts we had. Georgie however thought they were alright and decided to follow. So we decided that we could give her ago, even thou she has never been in a big crowd before. But if need be we could put her at the back of the Marquee so she wouldn't too threatened by all the crowds but she wasnt having any of that.... up the front please and let these people pat and pamper me !! She was amazing. For a girl that had only had a couple of days halter training and usually pretty quiet in the paddock, she was just lapping it all up. Constantly patted and played with, she was a treasure.

Peigi was fantastic too, now more used to the noise and hands, since her time at Carterton and of course darling Abby Rose, sooo used to it all, she just wanted to lie down and sleep while little ones clambered all over her.

We had a huge amount of people asking all about them and even a few ask what they were... yaks, buffalo ??

So once again... a great day and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, meet lots of lovely interesting people.... and the weather played ball by being lovley and hot.

Heres to next year !!

Carterton A&P Show

CARTERTON A&P SHOW

8November 2009

Well we have had another busy

weekend this weekend, being the Lamb & Calf day.....

But before I tell you about that, I should really up date you on our weekend at the Carterton A&P show, held on the 31st October and 1st November.

We had the opportunity of having a display tent there this year which

we decided to take. So over the week we got all our display gear together and I got photos and information all ready to display in our Marquee. We were also going to show 4 of our animals that we wanted to

put in our display tent, so needed to get them all sorted as well. Friday dawned in a disgraceful way, cold and pouring with rain !! Joy !!

Anyway once over there we had great helpers, John,Bruce, Ivy & Harriet, give us a hand to put the Marquee up in the dry intervals.... once up, I headed back to the Hutt Valley to pick up kids from school and head back over to Carterton and met Greg back at the Camp Ground to settle in for the night.. (we had a cabin, no tenting for me !!)

Saturday dawned a nice day... so off went Greg to feed Abby Rose (who is still on a bottle twice a day) and we followed a bit later. Down at the grounds we sorted the animals and then went to the Marquee to set out all our display stuff. Once sorted, back to the stalls to wait for the showing to begin. Our friends and other breeders, Rod and Harriet Brown had arrived with their crew of moos, McKenzie McMoo and 6th month calf Conal McMoo and McGee McMoo. We bred these guys and Harriet and Rod brought them from us about 18mths ago. Conal is the first calf for McKenzie and a gorgeous boy.

Now, to cut a long story short, Harriet and Rods crew did amazingly in the ring. McKenzie with Conal, became Champion Female Lifestyle Animal and McGee became Champion Male Lifestyle Animal. This meant that both had to go in the ring to compete together to see who was going to be Supreme Champion Lifestyle Animal. The unusual thing here is, that McGee is the Sire of Conal, so it was a family affair in the ring, which is a real rarity to have them all in the ring together.

McKenzie Mcmoo was chosen as the Supreme Champion of Lifestyle.... and then went in the ring with the other winners of the other beef breeds, ie: Simmentals, Red Polls, Herefords etc to compete for the Meat & Wool Cup.... and guess what....She and Conal Won... ya whoo!! Absolutely amazing... I cried, as you do.... !! What a day.

The rest of the weekend was great at the Marquee ... we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Our lovely friends Ivy & Bruce, were absolute treasures and helped with all our background stuff of cleaning and grooming the animals and keeping them all feed and watered. Thanks SO much guys.. you made the weekend so much easier for us.

Right, I will do the next blog on our Lamb and Calf Day.

cheers Lesley