Summer is supposed to be dry here. It was wet. Very wet.
The bonus of that was that the native grasses grew nicely and we had some more feed.
The downside is that remaining dry grass and clover has all the nutrients leached out so the quality of it drops markedly. The other major downside was the running battle with flystrike in the sheep. The wet weather over the Spring had damaged the fleeces of the crossbreds especially and that sort of fleece became prime targets for flies. We ended up with quite a few “poodle sheep” and we got more experience than we would have liked in using the handshears and the machine shears. That’s life….
Another downside is the very real risk that all that rain in summer is “too early” and then you get the dry spell – in autumn. When you don’t want it because you’re wanting the grass to grow before the winter slowdown. Tricky….!
So here we are, enjoying cooler nights now but just hoping we don’t get too many dry cool changes before long.
