Curly Sedge Creek is a seasonal soak that drains much of the northern half of the property. Because it tends to have better soil moisture, a few years ago I decided to plant trees, shrubs and sedges in it. I did the preparation, and had the lines "deep ripped" to break through the clay barrier layer in my sandstone soils. Unbeknownst to me or the ripper, he cut through both of the water lines spanning the creek multiple times as he followed my planting line contours along the line of flow! The year that happened was a wet year, so the leaking pipes didn't show as surface puddles, and the soil held the cut pipe ends close enough together to keep the line pressure from dropping completely. So, I couldn't tell they'd been cut, until I got a $5000 water bill three months later. Ouch. I pleaded a combination of idiocy and environmental benefit (Curly Sedge empties into the Jordan River a few km from my boundary) and for a wonder, the water corporation let me off the hook. Then I decided I needed to put netting up all along the boundaries to keep the hares out. Another year passed, and it became hard to see the ripped lines. I then got another friend to re-disk the lines, so we could see them, and two years ago I tried direct seeding the lines. Zilch. As far as I know, not a single seed turned into a plant. We're talking 7.5 km of planting lines all up, and 5 km directly seeded. Another year passed, too dry to even THINK of sowing or planting seedlings, and now we have what is undoubtedly the best set of circumstances I've had since I started the project about 7 years ago. SO, once it dries up a bit, I'm going to go for seedlings, and hope that some of the seeds I planted 2 years ago may decide this is their time in the sun! Today, I thought it would be nice for the flock to have a graze through the top ⅔ of Curly Sedge--nice fresh feed, and plenty of it. What I didn't factor in was just how soggy most of the reserve is, still. By the time we finished to-ing and fro-ing for 2 hours, the sheep couldn't wait to get into the main part of the Racecourse, onto dry ground! In hindsight, it wasn't a particularly bright choice of circuit, as one of the traverses of the creek bed was quite muddy and now I have sheep with muddy hocks heading into shearing in about 3 weeks. Oops. Nevertheless, it was a good morning, and I always enjoy my time with the sheep. A warning--there's lots of wind noise on the videos--you might want to turn the volume down!
Video V1 above. Sorry about the wind noise in the microphone!
Video V2 above.
P1: Marooned on the south side of the creek.
P2: Vicki followed me across the culvert, and everybody else followed her.
Video V3 above.