Spring - a time of new life but it seems to be death around here.

Our first spring at Sheihalean is warming up already and we are waiting with great anticipation for harvest to start. Flowers are blooming, baby birds are chirping and the world abounding with new life. Except for a few unfortunates.

First there are the 12 sheep we sent to market, they could well be living it up on someone's farm but it seems more likely they are presenting themselves on many people's tables. We rejoice in the knowledge that we are helping to feed the world.

Moving house, building dog runs and chook yards has put us a little behind schedule and we are yet to shear our remaining sheep. On our last check we found a couple with flystrike so we brought them home, shore and treated them and put them in a small yard to recover. Unfortunately one didn't recover so I turned my attention to the remaining one, hoping she would make a full recovery but for some reason she didn't seem to improve. I know they can get an infection from flystrike but I thought that if this was the case she would have gone the way of her mate. I treated her again, put wound dressing on her and waited.

Nearly a week has passed and she still isn't picking up but today I discovered why, she was pregnant. Nature is very good at taking care of her own and so the little lamb was born way before time to hopefully give her Mum the strength to recover. It was quite gross to discover the aborted fetus but at least now I know what is going on. I should hopefully start to see an improvement fairly quickly.

Our final fatality was a big old bobtail. I wish they would learn not to go in the dog run. I am thinking of putting fine mesh all around it to stop them getting in. Not sure what to do at the gates though.

So let's move on with spring and focus on the new life not the lives that have passed.