Our lambs are all here. Very odd year…nearly all twins, nearly all black, nearly all male.

Only one death, and an inexplicable one. A big healthy lamb died overnight, no sign of injury or illness. Its twin was fine, its mother good to both of them. No bad weather to chill them to death….

We had them later to avoid the August rain. As it turns out, it didn't rain like it did last year in August…(or September or October, for that matter). I tossed and turned about the later delivery, as by September the foxes are looking for food for their own young, and are more likely to take a lamb.

But no foxes this year. I suspect we are in a temporary fox lull. There's been a dead magpie on the riverfront for two weeks. Foxes often travel through that line, being out of sight of the house and relatively protected, but the magpie's corpse has been slowly decomposing with nothing claiming it. To me that's clear evidence the fox numbers are down.

And maybe our goose paddock really is, finally, secure. The geese are nesting all over that paddock, and there's been no fox attack.

Despite the signs of no foxes, we kept up the practice of nightly moving the sheep and lambs into the secure goose paddock. The upside to the poor autumn and us selling off half our sheep was that the total number being moved is small. That means the grass in that paddock lasted longer, and I had to cut less greenery and supply less pellets for them. The youngest lamb is now three weeks old and I think we should be able to leave them out soon.

That they were all twins, and none were rejected by their mothers, tells me that the sheep think it’s a good season, despite what we think. I guess, again, reducing the flock made things less competitive. Over winter our cows get skinny, despite the extra feed, but our sheep thrive on our poor pasture.

As to the maleness of the flock…? Last year we had mostly females. Not so conclusively biased, but certainly more.

And why they were mostly black is a puzzle. The father, now somewhere else, is a stock –standard Dorper genotype….stocky body, white, with a black head. Previously he's sprung some spotty lambs, but this year went all out. Who knows…..

With 20-odd lambs, the fun is just starting. They are up to the group race stage…15 or so of them race up and down along the edge of an embankment, pushing each other up and down. They get to the end, mill about then turn back and go again. It's very funny to watch. They chase roosters. Boof adults and run off. But not the geese, the geese fight back, and the geese have no qualms about laying into a bewildered lamb.

The geese are pretty riled up this time of year. Two pairs have hatched goslings, and in both cases the males have charged me, blustered and threatened. I haven't been attacked so far, but I have a better feeling for how close I am allowed to go. There's another four pairs sitting on nests.

You can tell the goslings are due any day now. You just have to see the kookaburras sitting above the nest…..waiting.