I love this time of year, it used to be planting for me, when we begin sowing a dozen or so thousand acres into oats, barley and wheat...but now its just lambing time.

Its when half of our beautiful Hairy Damper sheep add to Australia's dwindling sheep flock with cute little bundles of puppy like lambs. Unlike tradtional Australian wool breeds our sheep only have hair like dogs and therefore will never need shearing, crutching or muelsing....and get to keep their tails.

So far our flock in Sydney which keeps the lawns of the Australian Canine Sports & Training Centre bowling green perfect and our sheep dogs well trained have had half a dozen lambs, mostly twins. But tonight whilst I'm in Queensland preparing for another Ministerial Meeting with the Health Minister, I'm hanging on the phone to hear how our grandest sheep 'Maureen' is going. To put it bluntly she is massive, as in small cow massive, and we even have a competition on facebook to see how many lambs she has in her bulging belly.

So things in Sydney are looking great, our herding classes are full with a waiting list, our fields green and our dams brimming with water stored for the winter, however, up on the Stations in Queensland things are not so rosey. With intense fears of a dry winter livestock prices have plumeted resulting in our recent sale of sheep bringing in a fraction of their worth and sending shudders through the farming community, with my parents among many who need to offload large numbers of excellent breeding cattle into an already depressed market place. 

Its crazy to think that just a few months back we were flooded unable to get our sheep out...which lead to the much later than usual sales, and my folks having to fork out hundreds of thousands to keep their fallow weed free. Here we are now with the feed turning, the soil moisture profile waining and prospects for a winter crop very bleak.

So goes the story of the Australian Farmer, bogged in mud one day, bogged in bulldust the next....for me its just keeping the faith and enjoying the births of our healthy little lambs.