[Ag-eq] SPRING? it can't be!

[Jewel]

Here in Southland, we are having the most incredible run of spring-like weather.  If this is *global
warming* in action, you won't find me complaining!
According to tradition,  * winter
has, scarcely, begun  and as today is the shortest day/longest night, there should be a heap of cold 
weather  still to come, but old man winter is playing it pretty warm, but we must remember that the 
old coot may still have a  sting in him yet!
I have had the ewes shut into the barn/orchard area for a couple of weeks, feeding them a diet of
hay and sheep nut/crushed barley-molasses mix, but the soil is, abnormally, warm  and has been for a
week or more, so I reckoned that there had, probably, been a bit of grass growth, so I let them out
for a green nibble, but they are back inside again now for another week or two.
Last winter, I couldn't get the feather-brained madams to eat the, perfectly, good hay that I had 
bought for them,
but this year,  they are gobbling it up as good as gold [it is the same hay
that they refused last year]!  Like some people, me amongst them that like matured cheese, the ewes
seem to like matured hay!
I am trying to train them to come when I give 3 short blasts on my dog whistle, and they do seem to 
be learning what it means.  Mind you, when I blow the whistle when I have put the hay in the racks 
in the morning and  the sheep nut mix in the feed troughs at night, they are getting a bit peckish, 
so I doubt that the "Grub's up!  come and get it!" whistle training will have any meaning to them 
when they are out in the paddocks again on a 24 hour basis, only time will tell there!

          Jewel