Sometimes decisions are made for you.

There is still a lot to be done in the garden.  I never really seem to be completely on top of it, and so when I venture out into the garden for my daily session of green fingered goodness the decision of where to start can often be overwhelming.  The grass I didn’t mow last time because it was too hot, a few days later now looks more like it is ready for haymaking.  The grass I did mow – it feels like I needn’t have bothered because it is back to where it was.  I should think about popping in some more succession crops and make plans for the winter garden.  But I really don’t like to think about the winter garden in the middle of summer.  Then there is always weeding, or I could clean the glasshouse, or tidy the shed.

However today the choice was made for me and it all began with the cry from the kids “Muuuummmm – a lamb is trying to get onto the deck! Come quickly.”  This isn’t an ideal state of affairs as all lambs should be nicely secure in their paddock.

We don’t have many paddock options for our few animals as I took down all the fences to make my raised beds.   Out the front we have two fields either side of the driveway and normally we move the lambs back and forth allowing each field to recover.  However we haven’t had as much rain as it seems we’ve had because the grass hasn’t really bounced back when the lambs are on the other side.   Hence the escapee. All it was doing was looking for a lush snack and found it on the front lawn.

We couldn’t just put the lamb back where it came from because it didn’t solve anything.  We needed to do a bit of fencing.   The goats have a very large paddock that we had professionally installed.  There is a half fence that almost divides the paddock in two and it was our intention to build a wee house for the goats to fill the gap, but with doors on both ends so they could have shelter no matter what side they were in.  It will look fabulous – once we build it.  But for now they have free reign over the whole area.  Well they used to.

In order to give the lambs a green feast we grabbed a roll of lamb fencing we had left over from when they were tiny and used it to stop the gap.  In a great mend and make do fashion, we tied the roll to the existing fence with rope, and made it stay upright with warratah posts.   This is where the garden comes into it.  All the warratahs are currently in use – holding up tomatoes, raspberries and providing support in the garden.  But we needed some and so I had to make a choice.  I was umming and erring over which ones to take until I saw a couple, leaning over in a jaunty angle not supporting the peas at all.  Which I guess was ok as the peas were well past it and removing them was just one of the jobs on the list.  So I whipped out the posts and took them down to Hubby the Un-Gardener who was trying to uncoil the roll of fencing, keep the goats on the right side of it and avoid having his butt nibbled by curious but well-meaning goats.

Once the fence seemed secure enough to keep the goats on one side, we moved the lambs by attaching leads to them and walked them to their new home.  The first two went well, but the third decided to lie down and play dead halfway between the old field and the new field.  But we got them there and they seem happy enough, and my garden now looks a lot more orderly with absence of pea plants languishing in their final stages of demise.

It probably isn’t the way a proper farmer would have dealt with the situation, but we are quite proud of ourselves as we got the job done in the best way we knew how – by giving it a whirl.

Come again soon – I’ve got some bare earth and I’m wondering what I should do with it.

Sarah the Gardener  : o)