The young fella learns the ropes.

Year 10 work experience weeks are mostly about sitting in bank or law offices learning how to file or get the take away coffees. Not for my 15 year old. He is spending the week at the Coggans' Poll Dorset Stud, Logancrest. He will be shearing, fencing, weed spraying, mustering, motorbike riding, drenching and spotlighting for rabbits and foxes. All in all it should be a great week up at Crookwell.

Sandstone relief sculpture Fox and Hollybush by Midlands sculptor William Bloye, 1927-8. Originally over the entrance to the Fox and Hollybush pub, now demolished, in Birmingham, England.

I have been collecting images of the 'sheep in art' as perhaps I should not be 'celebrating' the fox, nor the kangaroo, cockatoo or wombat. It has always amused me that Australians are the only nation who eat both animals from their coat of arms. I do like this sandstone relief though and the holly is almost seasonal. Anyhow, I am hoping that they do bag a few rabbits and foxes this week.


Harvested a huge bagful of Daramalan rocket yesterday and made big batches of rocket pesto for the freezer. Great with pasta, on roast or boiled new potatoes, with bruschetta and as a marinade rubbed into lamb. As the rocket is almost wild and self set from last year's it has a really strong pepper piquancy that is quite a surprise. Will make a vegetable soup next week with a dollop of pesto for every serve.


Bon appetit!

It's joining time!!

Well Osiris and Hermes are doing their 'stuff' and each has 75 stud ewes to mate with. So far about half the ewes have coloured marks on their backs from the ram harnesses. That's pretty good going and hopefully they will complete the task by Easter. Obviously the reproductive rate (number of lambs marked per breeding ewe) is the most critical factor for Daramalan's profitability. In some operations ewes are not joined until two years old but we join our one year olds too. Research has shown that breeding ewe lambs will increase lifetime productivity of ewes, but it requires a higher level of management and feeding than if ewes are handled more traditionally. Breeding a ewe as a lamb can often increase her lifetime lamb production by as much as 15 to 20 percent.

Ewe lambs can be mated successfully providing they achieve a threshold body weight within the breeding season. It is possible  to get as high as 95 to 100 percent of the ewe lambs bred but in some years we may only get 10 to 40 percent bred. In general, ewe lambs must weigh approximately 65 percent of their mature body weight at the start of the breeding season in order to insure a high percentage of them breeding. Because we have had such good feed this season we will be okay.

In sheep the oestrus cycle is about 17 days and 'standing heat' lasts about 30 to 40 hours with ovulation occurring during the last half of heat. During a 35 day breeding period a ewe should have had the opportunity to cycle and be bred two times. A 60 day breeding period will allow the ewe three opportunities to become pregnant. We have chosen 60 days this year but as Border Leicesters are a British breed the ewes begin to cycle as day length decreases and all we probably achieved was ram teasing and excitement!

Typically multiple lamb bearing ewes will have slightly shorter gestation periods. It is not unusual for individual ewes within breeds to vary in gestation length by 3 to 5 days. We will scan the ewes in July and cull out any dry ewes over two years old. No point giving dry ewes the best pastures.

Gestation is about 150 days so we should commence lambing last week of August and finish mid September.

Last year when the ewes were at Sylvia Vale the lambing 'season' took over a month and we want to have that tightened up. Ewes with multiple lambs will drop a little earlier. With our 'guard' alpacas in paddock we are hoping to get a lambing percentage of 130% or more. That means almost 200 lambs from 152 ewes.

Last year's flock rams are going up for sale on November 5th so we will need to shear them in mid August and we are already looking at a busy time again.

The above photo is of artist Jean-Luc Cornec's 'wire wool' sheep made from old telephones for a show at Frankfurt's Museum of Telecommunications. Neat way of recycling.

Ciao!!

Mike Lyon's technological prints

“Jessica Turning”, woodblock print, 11 state reduction, graphite on Yamaguchi Hosho paper approximately 10″ x 7.5″ (chuban) completed October 21, 2003.

"This was my first experiment with graphite. I bought a one pound bag from Daniel Smith for about $10. Used about a teaspoon to produce these fifty-two 11″ x 8″ sheets (later trimmed to 10″ x 7.5″). Mixed the dry graphite into alcohol, then mixed that into rice paste and printed as usual. Not surprisingly, these little woodblock prints have the character and ‘feel’ of little pencil drawings. The figure is approximately 3.5″ tall. Very tiny!" Quote from Mike Lyon.

Mike Lyon is an American printmaker who uses technology to the nth degree. The above print is an early experiment in printing with graphite rather than ink and is one of my favorites in our collection.

Mike Lyon also produces stunning woodblocks, often printed from over 12 blocks. The detail is amazing and made possible by using technology. The cherry blocks are cut using a computerised router and printed using an automated Lyon designed press. The original images are usually photographs. Often criticised for overusing technology I think Lyon is at the forefront of contemporary printmaking and well worth collecting.

Megumi Naitoh's digital mosaics

"Artist Megumi Naitoh has always been fascinated with traditional mosaics and draws inspiration from Byzantine and Roman tiles to reanimate the media with contemporary methods.  Naitoh says, “I am interested in exhibiting visuals that articulate the overpowering of current technology.  For the past five years I have been working with pixilated images that are a reflection of the fast-paced and frequently uncontrollable aspects of technology.”

Beginning with digital photographs of friends, Naitoh downloads the images to her computer and separates the colors to make a silk screen which is glazed onto clay.  The piece is then fired, cut into thousands of tiny tiles and mounted onto Plexiglas in grid formation, similar to pixels in a digital photograph.  The resulting works are mosaic with over twenty layers of prints and six colors of underglazes.  The color, size and texture combine to create unique mosaic portraits that reveal intimate details about the subject, artist and viewer."

Madelyn Jordan Gallery statement

This is such a clever merger of technology and art and the ceramic pieces are really beautiful. One day will get the kiln fired up and have a try!!

Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living

Have just finished Carrie Tiffany's book, which is quirky and poignant. It is the story of the people who travelled on the Better Farming Train that toured Victoria's Mallee in the 1930s. Seems quite surreal that such a thing existed but she has brought the journey to life and written a really good fictional account of the era. Also a cautionary tale on the absolute reliance on superphosphate and plant breeding when drought hits.

A dazzling first novel and deserved its prizes and all the hoopla. Also a welcome relief from Nicholas Skakespeare's biography of Bruce Chatwin that is finally read. Published by Picador and available in all good bookshops....and my local Op shop!!


http://www.theage.com.au/news/books/tiffanys-natural-order/2005/08/06/1123125938051.html

The Shepherd EP

The Vagabonds EP is available on iTunes from the above link. The sales on iTunes have been pretty good over the past 18 months and singles have been downloaded in the US, UK, France and Singapore. Also got some good reviews and feedback, particularly after the generationnext concerts at the MCA in Sydney last year.
With all 5 guys in their HSC year the opportunities for playing live or meeting up with Sony again have lessened. They have enough material written and rehearsed for a good one hour show or debut album. We'll see what happens later in the year and maybe we will book some recording time at Studio 301 with Richard Lush to get some tracks onto CD for 2011 distribution.
The music is original and complex - just think Supertramp meets Angus and Julia Stone via The Whitlams. Really good so please visit iTunes and buy!!