Life At Spring Rock

Billy & Emu BFF - Well Maybe ...

2009-11-10T08:33:00.002+11:00

Billy is now as deaf as a post and I'm teaching him sign language. Silly dog could have pretended not to understand what I meant when I pointed to the laundry (the place Billy has to go when he's in trouble), but I suppose a combination of the look on my face, hinting that I wouldn't put up with any gaff from an oversized dog and the fact that he felt so guilty, he immediately slunk off laundryward as soon as I pointed to it. He sits there now, brooding on the unfairness of a world where new, fluffy roosters are imported into the menagerie and an innocent St Bernard isn't allowed a taste.

Emu, the Chinese Silky rooster has come to take up residence in our chook pen. Emu hails from Camden way where he lived with another rooster and a harem of hens on an acre property owned by friends of my daughter.. Unfortunately Emu likes to greet the morning long before sun up each day and does so at the top of his lungs. Neighbours don't care that Emu is a beautiful fellow and is just doing what nature dictates a rooster do. They, the neighbours complained and kept complaining until it was obvious that Emu had to go. Luckily for Emu I was up at Camden the weekend a home needed to be found for him. I was attending my grandsons' birthday party, minding my own business, when without quite realising how it happened I became the proud owner of Emu.

I gently broke the news to Graeme while still at the party. I used to wait for a quiet moment to inform Graeme of any additions to our animal population, but lately I've discovered that confessing in public isn't only good for the soul, Graeme is usually too preoccupied with whatever conversation he is having to really register a protest - or maybe he has finally realised the futility of protesting - whichever the reason, Graeme barely raised a murmur before returning to his conversation about cars and their respective tyres.

So, Emu was transported to Spring Rock and set up home in the chook pen. At first there were the usual sorting out of pecking orders to endure. Emu spent the first week in a makeshift small yard within the larger yard, where Adonis, the resident rooster, and the girls could meet him without getting physical. Emu was used to be the second rooster in the yard so he had no aspirations to move up in the pecking order. After he was released to join the gang, he settled in quickly at the very bottom of the pecking order resigned himself to a boring life being bossed by rooster and hens alike.

Billy had noted Emu's arrival almost as soon as he was released. Billy at first spent every waking hour with his nose pressed against the chook wire, trying to figure out what exactly had come to stay. Billy pays no attention what so ever to the rest of the chooks in the yard. Common old laying hens and accompanying rooster hold no interest for him. Emu on the other hand, looked to good to ignore. Emu didn't help the situation either. One could say he actually encourages Billy to visit daily. While Billy sat staring at the fluffy one, Emu from his little yard, glanced back and wondered what Billy was, I'm sure. The day Emu was set free to roam the entire chook pen was a red letter day for both of them. Billy could hardly contain his excitement. Now he'd get to see exactly what this fluffy thing was and hopefully manage a taste or two while he was at it. Emu seemed eager to help out with these aspirations.

The day Billy began to learn sign language came about because I found him settled in for the day, stretched out at his ease along the outside of the chook pen, eyeing Emu longingly. Billy was staring at Emu with evil intent obvious in every fibre of his being. He was employing his never take your eyes off the target and don't blink stare. Emu, on the other side of the wire was thrilled. You see Emu thinks he's made a new friend. He was sitting on the safe side of the wire, just a few inches away from it in fact, looking back at Billy and clucking quietly to himself (or maybe to Billy, who knows). He looked like he too had settled in for a long and delightful day conversing with a new friend.

Emu firmly believes in the noble side of Billy and would be shocked if he could read Billy's mind. Billy has no noble thoughts where Emu is concerned I'm sure, so Billy was banished to the laundry to think about his sins and adjust his attitude to little fluffy members of the family. Each day Billy can still be found sitting outside the chook pen, drooling over the chicken dinner on the other side of the wire while Emu rushes up to the wire to get close enough to commune with Billy. They sit and stare at each other for ages until I make the hike all the way to the chook pen and angrily point to the laundry. I'm worried that Emu will be tempted to poke his little head through the wire to chat more easily with Billy and Billy will just chomp it off!

It would be such a sad ending to a beautiful friendship.

Lancelot The Scourge Of The Kelpies

2009-10-25T09:27:00.004+11:00

The Kelpies, Juno & Dione being held at bay by Lancelot (He's on the top step out of camera shot)

With the number of pets I have, feeding timeis quite a chore. Every evening I feed the cats, dogs, ferrets etc around 5.30. A ritual has formed, complicating the proceedings and making my job just that bit harder.

About an hour before the designated dinner time, the cats start to feel the first rumblings in their tummy. The fact that dry cat food is available all day in their dish doesn't count when the time for delicious tinned food in approaching. Lancelot decides that subtle hints are needed just in case I forget my most important job of the day. He starts the proceedings by staring at me. He sits in my direct line of sight, even if that means sitting in front of the computer, and stares with the unblinking gaze that only a cat can pull off. If he can, he'll stop glaring and find Guinevere so they can stage vicious looking fights all over the lounge room, or whatever room I'm in, until I get up and get The Tablespoon. This is the spoon I use to dish out the tinned food and Lancelot recognises it from immediately. If I move to another room for any reason, they will stop their battle to the death, follow me and then resume hostilities. Tristan usually rises above the whole feeding time ritual and watches from a distance. There is only one flavour of cat food he will deign to eat and that is only served every fourth day so he doesn't tend to get excited about nightly feeding time.

As soon as they see the spoon peace breaks out and Lancelot then takes on a supervisory role.
Guinevere resumes her lady like personality and sits quietly waiting for dinner to be served but Lancelot is stuck to me like glue. I try to get out the back door without him following me, but I haven't succeeded yet. He escorts me to the laundry where the food is kept, but doesn't come in with me. Instead, he takes up a pugnacious stance on the top step of the back porch, raises the hackles on his back and glares at the Kelpies, Juno and Dione, who desperately want to come up onto the porch for their share of the dog food. Lancelot doesn't move a muscle. He doesn't say anything to the Kelpies, there's no need. At the first sight of Lancelot on that top step they turn into two quivering wrecks unable to think straight or take their eyes off him. They shuffle restlessly from one foot to the other and try to drum up the courage to mount those steps. Occasionally Juno and Dione will have a rush of blood to the head and bound up the steps only to meet with a hiss and a raised paw from their black Nemesis. The quickly cave and bound down the steps faster than they bounded up.

Now I hear you all asking, "Is Lancelot some giant, monster cat breed?" No he's a 12 year old cat showing all the signs of age that the average 12 year old cat shows. He just thinks he's some giant monster cat breed and has somehow brainwashed the Kelpies into believing it too.

I've found the only way to get Lancelot inside so the poor Kelpies can get their share of dinner is to feed Billy, who remains unimpressed by Lancelot's presence, close the laundry door (so I can bring in the ferrets later and the Kelpies can eat without Billy muscling in) and then open the kitchen door and insist that Lancelot go back in the house. He usually shoots one glare and one hiss at the Kelpies for good measure, before complying with my request and stalks into the house. The Kelpies wait until the door is closed and Lancelot is well out of sight before venturing onto the porch. I then feed them and get on with feeding the rest of the menagerie. I keep telling the Kelpies that they are dogs, bigger and stronger than Lancelot (whose threats have all been either via body language or verbal. He has never laid a claw on them - they won't let him get close enough to try), and that there are two of them and only one of Lancelot. Nothing works, they are terrified of him and insist that only one of Lancelot is more than they can deal with. Just the thought of him on the other side of the door is enough to send them scurrying for the porch steps again. I have to wait until they have finished their food before going inside or they will scarper as soon as the back door is open and they see Lancelot on the other side.

Once I'm inside and dishing out the cat food, Lancelot returns to his old mellow self, tucks in with gusto and doesn't give the Kelpies so much as a second thought. If only I could have that sort of power over the menagerie! Life would be so much easier.

Hail!

2009-09-27T06:56:00.003+10:00

Hail as far as the eye can see

No, not as in Hail Caesar - we had a frighteningly severe hailstorm on Tuesday night. The hailstones were huge and quickly covered the ground. It looks like all our crops have been badly damaged (our crops are insured so it's not as bad as it sounds), my garden is devastated and it was just coming into flower. This is a big deal because the only flowers I get all year are in spring. But above all this I had pets out in the maelstrom.

As Graeme and I stood in the middle of the house, yelling at each other over the storm (we have a tin roof and the noise was unbelievable), Graeme worried about the windows breaking or parts of the roof lifting off. All I was really worried about were the animals I couldn't gather in my arms and bring inside for tender loving care. The chooks, galahs and pigeon were out there managing as best they could and I was inside frantic about them. As it turned out the chooks were smart enough to seek shelter in their little chook house - truth be told they were most likely already there, settled in for the night.

Tristan, my ginger cat, was outside when it hit but thankfully must have found shelter quickly. He came home a long time after it finished and was in a sorry state, soaking wet and covered in mud. He was frightened and spent Wednesday stuck to me like glue. He has wanted to sleep with us each night since, but with Graeme's wound so delicate after his hernia operation; I've had to close the bedroom door to keep him out. He spent part of the first night outside the door meowing pitifully and complaining about unfeeling family members who abandon a poor cat in his hour of need.

The Kelpies were beside themselves with fear during the storm but Billy remained as unflappable as ever and looked after them. The two quivering girls moved into the laundry with him and snuggled up as close as they could get to the huge mountain of calmness. He was so undisturbed by all the noise that they calmed down a bit. By that I mean they quivered less than before they joined Billy in the laundry. They were still basket cases mind you, just slightly calmer basked cases.

The birds in the aviary were a different matter entirely.

Hedwig and Hermes (the galahs) were my biggest worry. They have a protected area at the back of their aviary where they can seek shelter in the rain, wind or heat, but the front is all just chook wire - a lovely spot to sit on warm spring days. They sleep out there on a large branch every night regardless of the weather while Nova, the retired racing pigeon, sleeps in the protected part in the darkest corner. During the hail storm I got a torch and looked through the kitchen window to see how they were faring and then started to worry even more. Hermes was being the perfect, if somewhat stupid gentleman. He was literally standing on top of Hedwig with his wings partly spread out. He was protecting her from the hail assault, but he was taking the brunt of it himself. Hedwig looked less than impressed with his chivalry. I can imagine how I'd feel if Graeme stood on my head to protect me from something. I'd be looking around for something to protect me from Graeme's protection. Hedwig looked like she needed a new knight in shining armour to deal with the one she had on hand (or on head in this case). Thankfully he did seem to be a bit protected by the metal post that the branch is leaning up against.

Once the hail was over, and all possibilities of concussion with it, I grabbed an umbrella and went out to the aviary and moved Hedwig to the protected part of the cage. At first she didn't want to budge. She just wanted to tell me all her troubles from where she'd finally been set free from Hermes' protection. After a bit of a chat, in which my role was that of sympathetic listener, she consented to jump onto my hand and be moved to drier and safer territory. She was very upset and it took me a while with soft talking and lots of scratching under her wing (her favourite spot to be scratched) to calm her down. I eventually convinced Hermes to join her. He moved over to the protected area, mumbling under his breath about having the whole situation under control and there being no need for pushy busy bodies coming in after the emergency was over and taking charge.

Nova has more sense than the two of them and had taken refuge under shelter straight away. She usually flies away from me when I enter the aviary but tonight she was staying put come what may. I left the aviary and pulled the shade cloth cover I have for summer over the wire part of the cage in case Hermes moved himself out from undercover, which he did as soon as he could convince Hedwig to join him. I'm having serious thoughts about the intelligence level of some galahs.

The next morning both galahs were still asleep (out in the unprotected area of course). Whenever I checked on them during the day they were still asleep, in different spots around the aviary, but with their heads tucked under a wing snoozing the day away - they had a hard night.

I Think Our Ram Has Learned His Lesson

2009-08-29T07:43:00.004+10:00

Handsome isn't he? Our ewes all thought so.

Last year we bought two new stud rams. We met both of them at the Adelaide show and after I’d had a quiet chat with each of them I convinced Graeme we needed two, not one. The first fellow was up for auction that day and after a bit of fierce competition we were the winners. The second ram was going to auction at his stud’s farm a week later, so we arranged to bid for him over the phone.

The big day arrived and coincided with my quilting group’s day here so Graeme and I had an eager audience as we sat on the kitchen floor with our heads together and the phone in between us. We’d tried to fancy conference setting on our new phones and it worked beautifully until the time of the actual auction, then there was only silence at my end. Some pretty fast and furious bidding took place, with us having difficulty not knowing if our bid was the highest at the time – without the auctioneer staring pointedly at us it’s easy to lose confidence, but in the end all was fine and we were now the proud owner of the auction’s top priced ram. The quilting group ladies gave a mighty cheer in celebration and then returned to their sewing.

We hurried off to South Australia yet again to take possession of our ram and carried him home in triumph. He settled in well and performed well in his first mating season with the girls. He was also soon showing signs of wanting to be friends – always something I appreciate in 200 kg ram. Unfortunately as so often happens with rams I befriend, he developed a bad habit. If he’d confined his bad habits to just being friendly and getting in the way during drafting, like Farrer does, I could live with that. Two overly friendly rams trying to get pats while I was doing my level best to move the rams through the drafting race would have been difficult indeed, but so much preferable to this new ram’s sins.

Every night, while we were tucked up in bed, our new ram would find a weak spot in the ram paddock’s fence and go wandering. His wandering always took him to the same place – our ewe paddock. Each morning when Graeme was doing the rounds of the farm, there our ram would be, happily ensconced with a few hundred ewes to keep him company. He always had a very pleased with himself smile on his face and so did a few of the ewes. Graeme and I would return him to the ram paddock at the other end of the farm, then Graeme would check the fence for weak spots and not find any he could identify and the game would start again late that night. We are now convinced that he simply climbed the fence - some rams will do anything to get back with the girls

After a couple of these night wanderings we decided to lock him up in the sheep yards with another ram for company in the hope that he’d forget about the ewes and wherever the weak spot in the fence was. After a week of isolation we returned him to the ram paddocks. The next morning he was not among those present in the ram head count. He was very much in evidence in the ewe paddock though. Sterner punishment was called for. We now locked him in the sheep yards for a month. He and his ram friend lived high off the hog during this time, with unlimited hay and water and the occasional serving of lupins. Both rams settled into their new environment wandering from yard to yard. I’m sure he checked out the fences for weak spots but none could be found.

In the middle of his imprisonment all my grandchildren came to visit at the same time. This is a very rare treat and we made the most of it, working on our fairy garden, collecting eggs from the chooks, passing the time of day with the galahs and pigeon and generally having a great time. We were wandering around the yard this day when Michael noticed some wool on the fence. The conversation got around to shearing and I realised none of the grandchildren had ever been in the shearing shed, so I took them all over to the shed and showed them how we shear sheep. They were very impressed with the shearing gear and the chutes down which the shorn sheep go for a slippery slide to under the shed. It all sounded like great fun to them all. I had to dissuade them all from trying out the chute for themselves. We then walked out into the sheep yards so I could explain how we got the sheep into the shed for shearing. Hannah noticed the two rams in the yards and asked why they were there. I explained that the big one had been naughty, breaking out of the ram yard and wandering around the farm to go and visit with the girls, and he was in time out until he learned to behave himself. All five grandchildren quickly understood the concept of time out, all being quite experienced in the system themselves.

Hannah was indignant. At first I thought she was sticking up for the ram and thought he should be set free, but she soon made it clear who’s side she was on. With a determined set to her shoulders and a stiff little, irate walk, Hannah marched up to the fence and wagged her finger at the ram, giving him a stern lecture on good behaviour. It looked like such a good idea that Michael, Erin and Ethan all joined her and four little fingers were wagged as each child contributed their might to the lecture. Claire preferred to remain safely on my hip and watched the lecture with great interest from this protected vantage point. The ram just stood there looking in disbelief at these tiny people, with a sturdy fence between him and them, telling him off. When Hannah decided that he had learned his lesson she gave her parting shot, "And make sure you behave yourself from now on!" turned on her heel and marched back to me. Without Hannah there as back-up the other three gave a final wag of their fingers and a loud, "Yeah!" in support and quick marched back behind her. The ram continued to stand there looking at where the tiny people had been.

We returned to the house with all four kids feeling very smug. I was very good and didn't laugh once. It was difficult but I kept a straight face through the whole lecture and only gave the ram a sympathetic look when the kids weren't looking.

I think he must have taken Hannah’s and her posse's lecture to heart. When he was released after his month’s incarceration he didn’t go visit the girl’s even once. Of course his earlier visits are now paying off and we are about to have an unplanned lambing descend on us any day now – a reminder of his more irresponsible and care free days.

Cecilia Goes Wild

2009-08-15T08:10:00.001+10:00

A ferret gone wild!

We had a major gaol break here last night. For a while there I thought that I was going to have to tell Savannah that Cecilia had run away and I really didn't want to be the one to tell her she was one ferret short.

I first noticed that the kitchen had one ferret too many running around the floor. Any ferret running around the floor at night when Graeme could come inside an minute is one ferret too many. I rushed out to scoop up said ferret and put her back in the inside cage where they all sleep in winter. Jocie, as this ferret proved to be, went back into the cage peaceably while I did a head count and came up one ferret short. Neither big fat boy ferret can fit through the little opening at the back of the cage and tend to sulk when the females find a way out. I have adjust the bottom bars of the cage from time to time to stop skinny little female ferrets exiting and going on excursions around the house. I began my search for Cecilia noting that the front door was open and saying a little prayer that she hadn't left the building. A quick look outside didn't give me any clues as to whether she'd gone on a big adventure or just confined herself to finding mischief in the house.

I next checked our bedroom and found evidence that a ferret had been in there having a great time upsetting Lancelot who was on the bed with his tail brushed out and a hunted look on his face. Further evidence to the fact that a ferret had been here was that the bin was overturned and all the rubbish strewn over the bedroom floor (ferrets can't resist rubbish bins and love to sift through their contents for treasures). I heard a scuffling in the kitchen and raced out there only to find that this escaped ferret was Jocie making a reappearance because, in my eagerness to find Cecilia, I'd forgotten to close up her escape route. I kept hold of Jocie while continuing my search for Cecilia.

We went outside together to do a thorough search of the front yard, but I realised if Cecilia had gone out there there was no way I was going to find her. Never the less Jocie and I put in a few frantic minutes searching through the undergrowth. Well I put in the minutes searching, Jocie tended to try to free herself so she could get into that undergrowth and cause me more angst. In the end I had to accept that the only way I was going to find Cecilia if she was out here was for her to reveal herself, give herself up and come quietly. Jocie and I went inside to continue our search.

More rooms were examined thoroughly and I eventually gave up and put Jocie back into the cage and was just repairing the escape route when a little face with a black mask popped out from behind the fridge. I sat where I was, my head moving back and forward between the cage needing escape proofing and the ferret needing scooping in before she went further afield, not sure which to attack first. In the end scooping in the fugitive ferret took priority. I added a stern lecture on the wickedness of giving me heart palpitations, said a little thank you prayer and returned her to the cage, only to find Jocie half in half out of the escape route. As soon as she realised I could see what she was up to she froze where she was, obviously hoping that I wouldn't notice half a ferret sticking out of the cage.

I moved to the back of the cage and tried to poke the excess bits of ferret back into the cage without hurting her, while Jocie tried to add to the ferret excess on the wrong side of the cage (or I suppose the right side of the cage from her point of view). Cecilia came to join in the fun while the fat boys just looked on with sour, jealous looks. In the end it was easier to let them both escape while I sat there and pop them back in the front door. Admittedly their hearts weren't in the great escape this time, they knew they'd be returned to the cage as soon as they got out, but if there's one thing a ferret won't admit it's defeat. So I duly scooped them both up, returned them to the front of the cage and dashed back to fix the unintended back exit before they beat me to it.

Thankfully there were no further ferret escapes during the night. Oh there were many break out attempts from the sounds of attempts to prise the cage bars further apart, but the reinforced cage held up to every ferret assault. I imagine the boys settled down for the night with smug little smiles when they realised the girls were just as locked in now as they were.

Billy Has Joined Our Quilting Group

2009-08-01T07:39:00.005+10:00

Billy's idea of joining a quilting group is to roll on his back and offer his tummy for a rub whenever a quilter walks past.

Yesterday Billy decided to join my quilting group. Five lovely ladies and myself meet here once a month usually, but weekly during January. My neighbour Aileen was the only one who could make it yesterday with some of the others still cleaning up after the January fires and others not feeling too well. With the temperatures well into the 40’s Billy usually spends his days lying on the kitchen floor underneath the air conditioning duct. I was a bit worried about inviting him in while I had visitors, but Aileen likes Billy (believe it or not some people are actually frightened of him!!) so I thought I'd risk it.

Early in the morning, before the heat really hit us, I gave each of the dogs a frozen bone, sort of like a doggy ice-block. The standard routine for dishing out bones is to give Billy a huge marrow bone to keep him occupied while I give Shadow a smaller bone and lock her in the laundry so she doesn’t have to stand guard over it while Billy tries to steal it. Then it’s time to give the Kelpies their bones. I manage this tricky manoeuvrer by constantly feinting stealing Billy’s bone so he doesn’t feel confident enough to run down the porch steps and grab the Kelpies’ bones. The Kelpies know to take off with their treats as soon as they get them, and peace reigns supreme to the sound of bones crunching from all directions. Once the temperature hovered around the high 30’s it was time for Billy and Shadow to come inside. I opened the laundry door to invite them in. Shadow wandered over to the back door, sniffed Billy's bone and decided the cool air was the better option and Billy, who had been trying to push past me, turned and made a beeline for Shadow's bone in the laundry.

He then faced a huge dilemma. The kitchen door was open and he was finally being invited in. Did he steal the bone and miss out on coming inside or come inside and miss out on Shadow’s bone? He stood in the laundry door way, a picture of indecision with his head swaying back and forward between the bone and kitchen door. Decisions, decisions. What was a dog to do? Then inspiration struck. Billy lunged at the bone, picked it up in one quick movement and headed for the back door. I was too quick for him and told him to finish the bone first and slammed the door. Once the crunching stopped I allowed the thief to come in and enjoy the cooler air.

All is usually fine once the dogs are settled in the kitchen. Shadow, with one evil glance at Billy as he stretches out under the air conditioning duct, finds a cool spot on the floor and grumbles about huge furry lumps who take unfair advantage of their size and hog all the coolest air, but apart from the Silky grumbles, an air of quiet and calm descends on the kitchen.

Not so yesterday. It appears that Billy didn’t feel quite secure in his being able to stay in the kitchen. It could be he thought Aileen might voice a protest about wall to wall St. Bernards on the kitchen floor, or he might have been playing for the sympathy vote from a visitor, but whatever it was the decibel rating in the kitchen regularly came close to that of a sonic boom. As Billy lay prone, soaking up the breeze from the air-conditioning duct, he began to pant. No problem with that, after all dogs have to pant to cool themselves. He had a bucket of water next to him to help him cool down if he needed it so there was little excuse for all the panting. I even ignored the lolling tongue and river of drool on the floor while he indulged in his panting session. But, did he stop at just panting? Not my Billy. The pants developed a definite grunting undertone and soon it sounded like a mob of pigs had invaded the kitchen. With each pant and grunt the noise level increased until Aileen and I had trouble hearing each other. Graeme, who hasn’t joined the quilting group, but was doing inside farm work today (accounts and such) began adding his grumbles to the general cacophony. Eventually I’d have enough of the noise, say “Billy!” in my loudest, sternest voice and Billy would go back to almost silent panting. Then, sllowly but surely the grunts were re-introduced and the cycle began again.

Aileen, true friend she is, found the whole thing very amusing and had a good laugh. Billy immediately recognised this as a sign of support for his overacting and rushed over to the silver strip separating the carpet in the dining area from the vinyl floor in the kitchen. He knows he’s not allowed to put a foot on the carpet and usually respects this rule. The problem is that with his toes on the silver strip, while he’s technically still in the kitchen his head overhangs the carpet. You can see the problem here can’t you? Billy’s toes aren’t the problem, his toes don’t leak – his head does (or more accurately his huge mouth does). Soon, strings of drool were heading south towards my lovely cream carpet while he smiled at Aileen and tried to garner sympathy for a poor unloved dog forced to live in this heat. I jumped up and pushed the offending head back onto the vinyl area, getting my arms bathed in drool, and reminded Billy of The Rule. The Rule is that when inside Billy has to sit with a towel close by so that it can either catch the drool, or be close at hand to at least wipe it up. The problem with The Rule is similar to the problem with the No Feet On The Carpet Rule. Billy is more than happy to stick close to the towel, if I really insist, so much in fact that he’s usually sitting on it, and again, his back end isn’t the end that leaks! Also, with the weight of a large St. Bernard on the towel, it’s very difficult to retrieve it to wipe up the drool puddles.

Each time Graeme or Aileen wanted to go to the kitchen I’d race ahead, indulge in a sort of one sided tug of war with Billy in an effort to get the towel out from under him, and wipe over the floor. Not because Aileen would complain (although Graeme would!), but because I’m aware that few people are as tolerant of dog drool as I am, and heaven forbid that either Aileen or Graeme slipped on the slippery stuff and landed in a puddle! It just didn’t bare thinking about. Billy was always helpful during my cleaning up sessions. He followed me round pointing out spots I’d missed, while failing to notice that he was actually making these new spots as he went.

When lunch time arrived Billy and Shadow were banished to the back porch until all the food was eaten. This is because Billy is ever the helpful St. Bernard - he’ll tell you it’s in his breeding to help whenever possible, and he’s more than happy to place his huge head on the kitchen counter and sniff the food to make sure it’s hasn’t gone bad. He doesn’t steal the food, mind you, he’s far too well mannered and honourable for that! But, by the time the food has been thoroughly sniffed, no one else seems to want it. So the battle to de-Billy the kitchen began. Shadow is always first out. With the air a of martyr about to face the firing squad Shadow hunches her shoulders and marches out to the oven like back porch. She doesn’t let on that she knows the laundry floor is considerably cooler and where she’ll spend her time until she’s allowed in again, that would ruin the whole impressive martyr act, so with the bravest look she can muster, she leave the kitchen and the fun begins.

Billy develops a strange condition when he comes inside. He can no longer understand humans if those humans are saying, "Outside!" no matter how those humans try communicating with him. I tried verbally, loud verbally, very loud verbally and finally sign language (I grabbed his collar and started pulling). I managed to get Billy as far as the back door and there he stopped. He splayed his legs and just refused to budge another inch. Let me tell you when a 75 kg Billy refuses to budge, budge he doesn’t! So there he stood, spreading drool and winter coat everywhere. I finally decided to resort to bribery and waved a cup of cat kibble in his face. Billy loves cat kibble - he'll even ignore the ferrets for the few seconds it takes him to scoff the kibble. Just like his earlier dilemma with Shadow’s bone and the kitchen floor, Billy was torn between the kibble and the cool air and couldn’t make the decision. He did have the bright idea of trying to get the kibble from my hand while maintaining his hold on the kitchen floor, but apart from having me in stitches at his attempts to stretch his neck as far as it would go while keeping the rest of his body well and truly in the kitchen, we didn’t make any headway towards outside. I eventually had to call in the big guns. Graeme grabbed Billy’s collar and it was all over in a matter of seconds. The kitchen was now Billy free. It did mean I had to empty the teapot on the front garden rather than the back, but otherwise everything was fine and we enjoyed our lunch while trying not to imagine the pitiful sight of a melting giant, outside the back door.

As soon as lunch finished Billy was invited back in. He nearly bowled me over in his eagerness to get the best spot on the kitchen floor again. Shadow followed at a more sedate pace and settled quickly. Not so Billy. He tried first one spot and then another, letting me know that now he’d lost his favourite spot and couldn’t find it. That would teach me a lesson to go wantonly shoving dogs outside in the middle of the day! How could I live with myself now that I was witnessing this pathetic little scene? I cold-heartedly returned to the lounge room after a quick reminder about The Rule, and with no audience to impress, Billy settled in his usual spot to begin his panting and grunting routine. It wasn’t long before everything was back to “normal” and cries of “Billy!” rent the air from time to time to regain peace and quiet, even if only temporarily. All in all I didn't manage a lot of sewing.

And how do I know that this was a special act for my visitor? Billy is lying under the air conditioning duct as I write – there’s not a peep out of him; not a grunt or even a pant to be heard.

Lambing

2009-07-18T08:20:00.001+10:00

Grandson Michael feeding one of last year's bottle babies

I’ve told you all about ram buying and mating here on Spring Rock, now it’s time to initiate you into the wonderful mysteries of lambing.

After the girls have been mated and are proudly walking around the paddocks displaying their blue bottoms (from the crayon the ram wore on his chest when mating was in full swing) things settle down for a while. The girls are left to their own devices to swap parenting stories, wish they could use their wool to make little sets of four booties, and generally eat for a litter of six or seven rather than the single, twins or triplets they are likely to have. The rams return to their paddocks and I imagine their conversation turns to the girls they me, then later on to the ever important topic of the quality and quantity of food to be found.

So life in the sheep stud is quiet and reflective for a few months. We can now turn our attention to the task of sowing the crops and all its myriad of tasks associated with crop growing. I’d like to say life settles down to a quiet routine, but Graeme and temperamental farm equipment never allow that to happen. Crop sowing has a definite window of time when it has to be completed for maximum benefit to the future of the crops, so sowing time is fraught with stress and worry. Farm equipment that hasn’t been used for a year now shows its true colours. I believe that all the larger equipment spend their downtime wrecking important components of their workings just to spite us for ignoring them for most of the year. Emergency dashes to town and hundreds of phone calls to repair shops with minute description of the symptoms are an integral part of our day. But I digress; we are discussing lambing, not cropping.

A few weeks before the girls are due to pop they are brought into the sheep yards to be injected for various nasty diseases that they and/or their lambs may contract if left unprotected. The ewes are never enthusiastic about this assault on their burgeoning bodies and many loud complaints are bleated and indignant sheepy glares are directed at us. Once the girls are injected and assured of another healthy year of life, they are turned out into a paddock close to the sheep yards so they can be mustered and sorted yet again a few days before they are due. If you have read How To Run A Sheep Stud For Fun And Profit you may remember that we synchronise our joining so all the ewes are due to deliver their cute little bundles within a very hectic, two week period. Before their due date the sheep shed is set up with individual maternity rooms made from steel fencing linked together with tent pegs. Each mother-to-be gets a private room nestled in amongst all the rest. The ewes can chat to each other over their pens and compare notes on the size of their tummies and what sex lamb they are hoping for.

When the big day finally arrives for the first ewe the atmosphere in the shed becomes electric. All the girls realise that a new arrival has put in his or her appearance and they begin to ponder their own offspring’s arrival. Ewe faces take on a serious, getting down to business look and before too long more and more lambs are popping out. The older mothers take this all in their stride. Usually they pop out their twins or triplets, clean them up and go back to the serious business of eating, taking time out occasionally to feed their lambs or chew their cuds with their babies snuggled into their sides. All is at peace in their world.

First time mothers can be a whole different kettle of fish. A number of them have no idea what has happened. It’s not uncommon to see a first time mother looking askance at the slimy little thing that has just appeared in their pen. The ewe may stand up and pop her head over the pen to discuss this strange happening with her next door neighbour. I imagine a conversation something like this:
New Mother: “Hey, look what just moved into my pen! Have you ever seen anything like this before? Is it dangerous? Should I be worried?”
Next Door Neighbour (if she’s an experienced mother): “It’s alright dear, it’s just your baby. Just clean him up and you’ll find a cute little lamb under all that slime.”
New Mother: “Clean him up! How?”
Next Door Neighbour: “ You lick him all over until he is dry and white. It’s not too bad, you’ll get used to it.”
New Mother: !!!!!!!

The conversation is a little different with two first time mothers in adjoining pens:
New Mother: “Hey, look what just moved into my pen! Have you ever seen anything like this before? Is it dangerous? Should I be worried?”
Next Door Neighbour: “Good grief! What is it! I hope it doesn’t come in here!!!”
New Mother: “I know! I know! What am I going to do with it?”
Next Door Neighbour: “I have no idea, but keep it away from me!!”

These mothers usually require a short course in cleaning and caring for their babies. We rub down the baby with a towel and then encourage the mother to join in and help. Sometimes they do sometimes they don’t. The next step is to get the mother to stand still while the lamb tries to drink. New born lambs have a lousy sense of direction and will suck on any part of their mother’s (or anyone else’s close by) anatomy. We usually leave the lamb to its own devises and eventually it locates the teats and with a bit more good luck, the ewe stands still while it drinks. Once again these first time mothers can be a different story entirely. Many of them jump each time the cool little mouth touches their warm udder. They not only jump, but dance around the tiny pen acting as if they have had ice cubes put down their back. The lamb tries to follow and latch on to the teat again but this is a forlorn hope. We often have to intervene and hold the mother still while baby has his first drink.

Then there are the lambs who take their dreadful sense of direction to extremes and no matter how many times you push it in the direction of the teats, it will swerve to the left or the right and try to suck on a leg or their mums’ stomach, or our fingers, or anything things else as long as it’s not the teat. Helping these lambs takes on all the attributes of an all in wrestling match, especially if it’s a first time mother with a baffled lamb. The gentle bonding scene between mother and lamb slowly dissolves into chaos and first lamb, then mother and finally we begin to roll around the less than pristine straw on the floor of the pen trying to attach the lamb’s mouth to the reluctant ewe’s teat. Needless to say we wait quite a while before we decide to intervene. Thankfully, the majority of lambs know what to do and the most efficient ways of doing it.

Occasionally, for one reason of another I end up with a bottle baby or two. Before taking this big step towards drastically reducing my free time, we try to encourage another ewe to adopt the orphan baby. First, we cast our eyes around the likely adopters, looking for a ewe with a kind face (well I look for a ewe with a kind face, Graeme just looks for the closest lambless ewe), amongst those who have recently lambed and either lost their lambs or have a single lamb at foot. After choosing our candidate we then rub the lamb all over the ewe’s back end and the afterbirth if it’s still in her pen (usually it’s not). This messy procedure is to get as much of the ewe’s scent as possible onto the ring-in lamb in order to trick her into believing she had simply misplaced this lamb and it has now come home. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Either way there is usually a performance similar to the one described above of attaching the lamb to the teat.

A problem that rears its head all too often amongst Suffolks and White Suffolks occurs when a confused ewe believes she has lambed simply by watching the ewe next door lamb (oh if only childbirth were that easy). The befuddled ewe is eager for her lamb to get away from the ewe next door and come home where it can be loved properly. The real mother is just as anxious that the lamb stay right where it is. The trouble arises when the mother ewe has twins or triplets. While she is busy giving birth to number two or three, the bewildered ewe next door takes this opportunity to entice the lamb over to her pen with promises of ever flowing milk and lots and lots of love. Lambs don’t care who their real mother is. They are just in it for the milk, so these promises usually work straight away. We have tried to place the bars of the pens close enough together to prevent the lambs escaping, but with little success. Part of our time in the shed is involved with re-introducing lamb and real mother over and over again. Most times the real mother will be quite happy to see her offspring again and give it a quick clean up to remover the foreign smell of Mrs Next-door, but on some occasions the real mother will no longer have anything to do with her lamb. So where’s the problem you ask? Why don’t you just let Mrs Next-door have the lamb and add it to her compliment of babies to be raised that year? Ah, it’s not that simple. There are three ways this situation can go:
1. Mrs Next-door can take the lamb to her heart and love it and her own offspring as well when they arrive shortly after
2. She can take the lamb and love it, but reject her own offspring when they arrive because … I don’t k now - who knows why ewes do the things they do.
3. She can realise her mistake as soon as her own babies arrive and reject the baby she stole.
As you might have guessed, outcomes 2. and 3. are much more common that 1. and the result is another bottle baby or two added to my quota.

Of all the reluctant mothers in the shed, I am the most reluctant. Bottle raising lambs gets exponentially more difficult with each lamb that is added to the brood. Each lamb gets exponentially more boisterous and insistent on being fed first with each additional lamb added to the brood and so it goes.

Oh the joys of bottle feeding lambs. I’ll tell you all about that some other day when I’m feeling strong enough to relive the experience.

Well We Survived

2009-07-04T09:22:00.000+10:00

We had had dust storms all day. Dust storms in July are unheard of, but coming out of the drought, there were still plenty of empty paddocks and dry dirt roads for the winds to whip up into a dust storm. Later in the afternoon, the dust storm turned into rain. With the amount of dust in the air, it was more like it was raining mud that water, but at least the dust was settled. Then there I was sitting in the lounge room, thinking pleasant thoughts about the wind and rain outside when all hell broke loose. The child like storm outside had whipped itself up into a fully-grown, vengeful mini tornado. The house began to groan in protest. The window flexed and made that scary noise windows make when they are on the verge of shattering. Our corrugated iron roof joined the party, making noises like a roof about to leave the party.

I not unreasonably decided that my spot on the lounge near the windows was not the best place to be. I quickly joined Graeme and Justin in the kitchen where we waited until the violence abated before doing a quick check of all the windows in the house, before Graeme checked our roof for damage. The roof held up well, but when I went in to check our bedroom, I found a small rivulet of water cascading down the wall, adding a water feature to our room causing our bedroom to be soggier than I would have liked. Mum-Puss and Guinevere had been sleeping on the bed during the tempest, and as soon a I walked into the room Guinevere made a dash for safer environs. Mum-Puss, the stoic old lady that she is, toughed it out even objecting loudly when I forcibly removed her from the bedroom to give Graeme and Justin elbow room to staunch the flow.

Apollo and Shadow were locked up in the laundry and only Billy was roaming at large. Apollo wants it stated for the record that he wasn’t the least bit afraid. These violent weather phenomena are meat and drink to a brave guarder of the sheep (even if he is retired). Shadow was just grateful not to be face to face with the storm and also to have that Rock Of Gibraltar, Apollo for comfort. Billy wasn't sure, but he thought the end of the world had come and took off around to the side of the house, when various items stored on our back porch were sucked out into the garden. We managed to coax him back and I coaxed him into the kitchen with promised of a safe harbour until he calmed down. Graeme quickly laid the dining room chairs down to provide a barricade thus locking Billy into the confines of the kitchen where he proceeded to make a mess of the floors with his great muddy paws. Thank goodness for Graeme’s quick thinking.

Let me tell you, you don't want an over-anxious St. Bernard confined to a kitchen, especially once he's discovered that his arch nemeses, the ferrets are taking shelter there too in their inside cage!! Miette and Albus galvanised into their regular Billy repelling stance and dared him to start anything. Billy, who’s quite used to this reaction when he wanders over for a chat with the ferrets ignored their blatant threats and continued to try to find a way into the 30cm and 150 cm cage. He thought he'd found heaven when he looked up from inviting the ferrets to come out and play and saw Guinevere and Lancelot sitting under the dining room table on the other side of our makeshift barricade. To Billy’s credit he didn’t attempt to scale the chairs to reach the cats. It wouldn’t have even been a challenge for his long legs, but he dutifully stayed on his side of the chairs and tried to entice the cats to join him in a game of chase. Needless to say the cats declined to accept his offer. The only problem now that he knows where all the fun animals live is that I don't know if I'm going to be able to keep him out of the house in future!

My poor garden seems to have taken the brunt of the damage with large amounts of trees are lying all over my front garden. It was only just getting back on its feet after the drought. The rest of the farm came off relatively unscathed. It appeared that the true violence was confined to the house yard and its environs. I don't think God wants me to have a garden at Spring Rock. I don't know why He has taken this attitude, I've always built lovely gardens at my other homes, but every time I begin to get the garden where it looks more like a garden than a disaster area, something comes along and wrecks it. I just might have to stop trying now. If God is going to send mini tornados to stop me gardening then I hate to think what He'll send next time!

The sheep weathered the storm in their normal calm, cud chewing manner. Only one set of twin Suffolk lambs became separated from their mother. Graeme braved the elements and reunited this little family. He returned to the house looking very much the damp hero and I’m sure the Suffolk mother was eternally grateful that she didn’t have to venture out from the safety of the flock to retrieve her young. Graeme conducted a damage assessment of the farm the next morning. He found that no damage was done further a field and that Mahala was calm and in charge of the situation. Mahala had been my biggest worry now that her mother Christie has died. Mahala always looked to Christie for reassurance and protection in trying times. By the way, next day Billy looked like he has been swimming in mud. I don't know how he's managed it, but there is hardly a clean spot on him. He's spent the day after the storm sitting at the back door waiting for us to go out to the toilet and then he waylaid us. We come back inside looking like we've rolled in the mud ourselves. The sad part of this is that Billy needed a very thorough grooming to restore his coat to its usually glossy appearance. And you know what grooming Billy entails!

De-Grass Seeding Billy

2009-06-21T07:32:00.006+10:00

An example of the offending grass seeds - the natural enemy of Billy's paws

Ah the joys of summer. The flies, the heat, the lack of rain and top of my list … removing grass seeds from Billy’s toes.

As many of you may remember, grooming Billy is fraught with all sorts of dangers (for those of you who are new to my blog and don’t know about the ways not to groom a St Bernard, you can read all about it here http://lifeatspringrock.blogspot.com/2009/01/good-grooming-can-be-health-hazard.html ), and let me tell you de-grass seeding Billy is even more hazardous to my well being! Grass seeds have to be removed from Billy’s toes because the seeds will eventually work their way into the delicate skin between his toes or between the pads underneath and begin to work their way up his leg, forming abscesses on their way. This happened last year on Boxing Day and ended with an emergency dash to the vet’s where the vet, with me assisting, crawled around on the floor of the surgery removing numerous grass seeds from Billy’s legs and more delicate parts while Billy was under sedation. We crawled around the floor because the vet declared Billy just too darn big to lift onto the table. Even though I acted as vet nurse the procedure still cost us a couple of hundred dollars.

It all begins when Billy is found gently gnawing away at one of his massive paws. Billy is getting very sneaky, after numerous de-seeding sessions, and tries to munch surreptitiously while my attention is somewhere else. But eventually he’s discovered chewing away at one of his paws. He immediately tries to change the subject by jumping up and inviting me to play a game of Knock Rosemary Over but I won’t be distracted from my mission. With a huge sigh I gather my tools - my reading glasses, small scissors and tweezers and return to the back porch from where more often than not Billy has completely disappeared.

Billy is sadly handicapped when it comes to lying low. I usually come across him trying to be invisible in the shadows of some bushes or trying to blend in with the scenery somewhere. As soon as I spot him he hunkers down in an effort to shrink his bulk or better still disappear altogether. When neither miracle happens I wrestle, pull, push or anything else that works to get Billy back onto the porch for his pedicure. Once the porch is reached and I regain my breath and composure while keeping a firm hold on his collar, the next job is to turn Billy onto his side from a standing position. I am seriously out classed here. I’m 5’ 3” (heaven’s knows what that is in centimetres, but I bet it’s not much) while Billy is nearly 3’ tall on four legs and somewhere around 6’ tall on two. Not that big you say? Well you have to remember to pack 70kgs of muscle and fat around those vital statistics, and let me tell you, Billy has every gram well packed.

I approach this delicate task the same way with the same technique I used when turning sheep over back in my sheep turning over days. I kneel down, take hold of the two legs furthest from me and pull. Now this worked about 90% of the time with sheep. Sheep are dumb and when they find themselves slightly off balance they fall in a confused heap and wonder what the hell just happened. Billy on the other hand, while often giving the impression of having little more brain power than a sheep, is actually quite an intelligent dog. When I pull his legs in the time honoured fashion, he lowers his head into my shoulder and knocks me off balance. Then over I go in a confused heap wondering what the hell just happened while Billy stands nearby the picture of concerned drooly innocence, offering his back for me to lean on to help me up again. This goes on for a while until finally Billy takes pity on me and drops to the ground. Once he’s on the ground I once again regain my breath and composure before the next step in the proceedings.

Just because he’s feeling sorry for me doesn’t mean that Billy will actually co-operate in the removing of grass seeds. Oh no … Billy’s role in the entire process is to put as many spokes in my wheel as he can. I pick up the massive, soggy, chewed paw and try to hold it in my left hand. This paw is big enough for any full grown lion to be proud to call its own and holding onto it is made extremely difficult by Billy thinking I’m starting a game of tug-of-war. After an initial tussle where Billy wins most of the rounds, I end up sitting on as much of Billy as I can while holding my body at whatever uncomfortable angle is best for seeing the spot where the grass seeds might be. From time to time Billy will quickly draw his leg out of my hand to the safety of his body where he will do all he can to protect it from any more maltreatment on my part. Billy often stoops to manufacturing even more drool than normal and threatening to spread it as far over my person as he can reach while still protecting his foot. Sometimes he pretends that he needs the foot for some other vital job like having a scratch or covering his eyes, whatever he thinks I will believe. I don’t believe anything a wussey St Bernard says during de-seeding of paws, although the drool threat does give me pause for thought. When these ploys fail to stop the clean out operation, Billy becomes very helpful and constantly inserts his head between me and the paw in question. He assures me it’s just so he can get a closer look at my technique and show me where it hurts, but I have my doubts. Trying to work around a massive head with strings of drool hanging off each side of its jowls certainly puts a dent in my already pitiful enthusiasm for the job, but ever the masochist, I persevere.

As with any activity involving Billy getting the worst of the deal, the ferrets stand at the front of their cage offering advice and volunteering to help anytime I’d like to see the seeds removed with sharp little ferret teeth. I can almost hear the shouts from the ferret cage to allow audience participation. I really do believe this is the ferret’s favourite time of year.

Eventually I manage to clean out all the grass seeds between each toe and pad and move on to the next foot. Most of the actions described above are repeated three times at least. Thus after the better part of an entire day has passed, Billy ‘s feet are once more in pristine condition and ready to go out there and gather more seeds. Which is exactly what he does as soon as I set him free. The ferrets return to their naps or whatever they were doing pre de-seeding and I’m left with a pile of seeds big enough to sow a fair sized paddock (always given someone wants to sew a paddock down to weeds that is), clothes covered in St Bernard hair and drool and an aching back. There are possibly a few bruises to show for my efforts too, but out of loyalty to Billy I refuse to acknowledge them.

The only variation on this procedure occurs if Graeme hears me rousing on Billy (or pleading with Billy if I’ve been at it for a while) and comes along to help. He then takes over the de-seeding operation while I hold Billy’s head and distract him from what is going on down at his feet. Billy still offers some resistance, but with Graeme’s strength and my efforts to prevent his head getting between Graeme and the seeds, Billy is severely hampered in his efforts. This means that Graeme will get the job done in a disgustingly short space of time with minimal effort. Graeme doesn’t understand why I find the job, when practiced solo, so difficult.

And so Billy’s feet are once more seed free and I can rest up for a while … Excuse me, I have to go now, I just saw Billy chewing on his paw.

How to hug a baby Billy style.

2009-05-30T08:20:00.002+10:00

When it comes to hugging babies, Billy has his own method. He can't brag that it's successful or wins friends, but he makes up with enthusiasm what he lacks in finesse.

Step 1: Billy spots a baby (or in his case toddlers. They are more thick on the ground - babies tend to be kept up high out of his reach). Spotting the toddler usually makes Billy stop whatever he is doing and do a double take. He seldom sees toddlers on Spring Rock, but when he does he's always ready to offer a paw of friendship.

Step 2: In order to get this friendly paw closer to the toddler, Billy makes a dash towards said toddler (hence forth to be referred to as the hugee). One of two things happen after this. Billy either fails to stop in time and knocks the hugee over or the hugee loses all confidence in the face of so much dog and jumps backwards on very unsteady legs, usually landing on his/her well padded bottom.

Step 3: Either of these results puts the hugee in the perfect position to receive some drool just prior to being sniffed all over in an extremely enthusiastic manner, while Billy professes his love and undying loyalty.

Step 4 (in theory only): The next step would be to do the proper St Bernard thing and help the hugee up, then proceed with the hugging bit, but for some reason Billy’s never been able to proceed to this step. He's discovered that toddlers, when knocked to the ground by large, friendly dogs, tend to cry and adults come running from all directions and remove said toddler from the love fest, thus removing any chance of the hug actually taking place.

This failure to follow through hasn't discouraged Billy though. He still tries to complete the whole mission each time a toddler gets within bounding distance. He's hoping that when toddlers grow up to be children he'll have more success. After all children are harder for adults to lift and remove.

Only time will tell.

I Love Farming

2009-05-15T07:05:00.002+10:00

I love farming, I really do. If I keep telling myself that over and over again I just might remember why. I've had a traumatic experience recently that could only happen to those living on a farm. Now that I have sufficiently recovered to be able to talk about it, here’s what happened.

I was sitting at the computer, having a friendly chat session with a friend when Graeme came tearing up to the window and shouted, “Sheep in the dam! Ring Justin and come and help now!!!” With a very dramatic “Got to go” message to my friend, I disconnected, rang Justin and followed Graeme to the shed, with pictures of half our stud flock wallowing up to their necks in sticky mud.

As you most probably know (I think I’ve mentioned it once or twice) “Spring Rock” is currently drought ravaged. Most of our dams have either dried up or are in the process of drying up. When a dam is in the process of drying up the edges become very sticky with sloppy mud up to a few metres deep. This is not your average, brown innocuous mud, oh no – this is slimy, oozy, very smelly, stagnant water, black mud, and it is this wonderful stuff that sheep seem to find irresistible. Once a sheep puts two feet into the mud they are trapped and being sheep they do whatever it takes to make their situation worse and the task of getting them out as difficult as possible.

I caught up with Graeme while he was loading whatever he could find that might act as a sheep extraction tool into the back of the old Range Rover (our paddock basher). One look at Graeme and I knew this wasn’t going to be simple case of pulling the ewe to the edge of the dam where the ground is firm. Graeme was caked in the black, smelly muck up to his knees, with generous splatters reaching up to the top of his head! I tried not to breathe too often during the drive as we headed for the dam.

On arriving at the dam I was relieved to see only one ewe stuck there. She was up to her very generous middle in the stuff. Getting this ewe out was going to take a Herculean effort. She is one of our larger ewes and heavily pregnant with what looks like twins. At that moment she was resting with her two front legs on top of the mud, but with her back legs deep in the mire and no where to be seen. She didn’t look at all distressed; on the contrary, she looked for all the world like a drinker propped up at a bar and all she needed to complete the picture was a glass of beer in front of her. Her position in the mud explained Graeme’s mud caked clothes; he’d managed to turn her around and extract her two front legs by himself. Graeme lowered the gate he had brought onto the mud beside her while I scrambled down to the ewe, slipping and sliding in the garden clogs I’d slipped on for speed and regretting that I hadn’t taken the time to change into my farm boots. The ewe seemed to agree with me about my inappropriate footwear because she took one look at me sliding down the side of the dam, rolled her eyes and looked away with a pained expression on her muddy little face. While Graeme once again ventured onto the sloppy part to extract her back legs, I remained on firmer ground holding the ewe’s head out of the mire and offering reassuring words to keep her spirits up. Whenever we have a ewe in crisis I'm always there with soothing words and moral support.

Then Graeme gave me the bad news. He expected me to reverse the Range Rover down the side of the dam wall so that he could tie a rope to the gate and the tow bar and then I was to slowly, REMEMBER SLOWLY!!! drive back up the slope in low range and voila! the ewe would have a sled ride out of the mud. This plan was fraught with potential danger and difficulties. The side of the dam is very steep and I’d be heading straight for Graeme and the ewe! I took a deep breath, put on my stoic farmer’s face and did as I was instructed.

Of course the first thing that happened was that I found just how difficult it is to back down the slope of a dam. I managed this manoeuvre by keeping my foot on the brake and sort of reverse kangarooing down the slope – move a little bit, jump harder on the break and clutch, move a little bit, jump harder on the break and clutch. My technique left Graeme (an ex-rally driver) less than impressed, but I got to the desired distance from Graeme and the ewe without mowing them down or landing the car in the sticky mud in the process, so I was more than satisfied with my backing down the dam wall technique.

The gate was tied to the bumper bar and the next difficulty presented itself. How to drive “Slowly, REMEMBER SLOWLY!!!” up the side of the dam wall. Of course on my first half dozen attempts I went too fast (all of about 1 km an hour) and the gate simply slipped out from underneath the ewe leaving her and Graeme stuck in the mire behind. My attempts to convince Graeme that I was driving as slowly as I could without actually slipping backwards, were met with less than polite disbelief. I said a silent prayer that Justin would get here quickly and once again left the car to wallow about in the mud in order to help Graeme set up the gate/sled apparatus. The monotony of this procedure was sometimes alleviated by Graeme accidentally sinking his foot into the mud up to his calf. We then spent a few minutes trying to extract Graeme, rather than the ewe, from the quicksand like goo while he shouted at me to stand back because he didn’t want me stuck in the stuff too. At first I thought this was an example of how much he cared about me, but Graeme ruined this rosy dream by adding that he didn’t want to have to spend hours trying to extract me too!

Then, just when I was thinking that Justin had decided to seek out a non-farming family to adopt him rather than come and help us, I heard his car at the gate. With a little cheer (I didn’t have the energy left for a big cheer), I sat on the dam bank and waited for him to arrive. Justin, bless his cotton socks, had left the party immediately to come to our aid. The only problem with this was that he wore his brand new, very snazzy leather pants and shiny Doc Martins to the party. So here he was in all his glory, dressed to the nines and ready to help us if not enthusiastically, at least resignedly. He sort of blanched when he looked at the muddy state of his parents, but brave fellow that he is he slid down the dam wall to join us without hesitation.

Graeme took a minute to bring Justin up to speed on what we had tried and failed to do. Justin nodded wisely, offered suggestions and agreed to take over the driving of the Range Rover. Right there and then I was ready to write everyone else out of my will and leave all my worldly possessions to this wonderful boy. I swear I could see a halo shining over his head, but then again it could have been lack of oxygen to the brain from my exhaustion. Justin got into the car, started the engine and made ready to drive it up the bank. It was then that I realised that I didn’t want any child of mine, balancing precariously down the steep side of a dam wall with my husband directly behind the car. I shouted out something along these lines and Graeme nodded and moved a few steps to the left, and reminded me that the little bit of dam that still had water in it was very shallow and besides there was no way the car would reach the water if it slipped down the dam wall. It would bog up to the axles in the mud! A very comforting thought.

So with this reassurance ringing in his ears, Justin began to move the car up the side of the dam. I wish I could tell you that his first attempt was successful, but I’m afraid it was far from it. The sun had well and truly set before success was finally achieved, but achieved it was. The poor old ewe couldn’t believe she was on solid ground at first and just sat there with the same vague look on her face. Graeme and Justin mustered enough energy to help her to her feet. She realised she was free and with astounding ingratitude, took off with all the speed her tired body could muster (and she could muster more speed that any of us could), and headed back out into the paddock, meaning that Graeme was going to have to go find her and move her into another paddock so that we didn’t have to do this all over again in the morning.

After cleaning up as best he could, Justin gave us a quick goodbye and was gone before we had a chance to find some other fun way of sharing the night with him. Graeme headed back out on the bike to find the ewe and persuade her to move to a dam free paddock. I thought longingly of a hot bath, but with the lack of rain we’ve had I settled for a quick shower, organised a quick dinner for Graeme, and fell into bed without dinner.

I love farming. I really do … now can someone remind me exactly why I love it please?

Winter Is Almost Here

2009-05-02T08:17:00.003+10:00

Winter is almost here at last. The days are getting shorter, the air has that sparkling, icy-misty look that only freezing winter days can produce and the countryside is finally turning green after months of brown. The reason I’m waxing lyrical about the cold weather is that winter is my favourite time of the year. In my opinion the only good thing about summer is the cricket matches. Take that away and all I’m left with is a menagerie of over heated animals all vying for the prime piece of real estate on the kitchen floor under the air conditioning duct.

In winter my thoughts turn to keeping the now decidedly chilly menagerie warm. The ferrets bring new worries as the days grow colder. They no longer lie in their cage looking like they are at their last gasp, rather they hibernate in their quilted polar fleece sleeping bag, coming out only to have dinner, seek the warmer climes of the house or, during one of Billy’s assaults on their cage, threatening to give Billy the thrashing of his life, if only he’d show some spunk and come into their cage and say that!

I have now added a hand spun, hand woven woollen table runner I made years ago during my spinning and weaving phase, to their bedding. I try to wrap the ferrets in their sleeping bag in this runner to add that extra layer of warmth. This entails going out into the freezing back yard, well after the sun has set, quietly opening the cage door, feeling around for the table runner without disturbing the sleeping furry ones and tucking them in for the night. If I disturb them Miette will come struggling out of the sleeping bag to find out what is going on in the hope that it’s Billy coming to start something. When she sees it’s only me, she’s perfectly happy to settle in for a chat. Persuading her to return to bed so I can go back into the warm house, is a lost cause. There’s nothing to be done but, return to the house and have another go in half an hour – when the night air will be even chillier. If I am very careful, I manage to tuck them in without disturbing the sociable Miette and once this little chore has been done, I go back inside with a clear conscience with only the TOD the duck and the galahs to worry about. So far I haven’t figured out a way to keep these feathered pets any warmer than they can keep themselves. Graeme assures me that the ferrets have thick winter coats to insulate them against much colder weather than any Australia can throw at them. He also says that the quilted sleeping bag with two layers of polar fleece and two layers of wool batting top and bottom, would be enough to keep me warm should I want to spend the night outside. This could be a veiled threat, but I’m too busy sorting out the cats to give it much attention.

Mum-Pus, Lancelot and Guinevere have different needs when the weather turns chilly. They spend their summer days lying on the kitchen floor within close proximity to the fridge and freezer’s cold blasts of air – always providing that Billy isn’t having an inside day. If Billy is amongst those present, the cats retire to the dining room, an extension off the kitchen with only the metal strip where the vinyl and carpet meet to indicate where the kitchen stops and the dining rooms begins, to poke their collective tongues out at Billy who’s not allowed to put one paw onto the carpet. Their winter days are spent following the sun around the lounge room carpet and cuffing any other cat who seems to have a better spot of sun. I repeatedly tell Mum-Puss that she is in dire need of parenting classes.

“No mother worth her salt,” I say to Mum-Puss, “digs her claws into one of her children because it has the softer chair or warmer patch of carpet.” Mum-Puss glares at me with her one beady eye and asks for help disengaging her claw that seems to have somehow become hooked into the body of her daughter or son.

Now don’t imagine for a second that Lancelot and Guinevere are the innocent parties in all this. They have far too much of their mother in them to be above such things as starting fights with mother or sibling just for the sheer hell of it. Their combative natures have led them to developed a very subtle way of letting me know it’s dinner time. For some unfathomable reason, as soon as 4.30 p.m. rolls around, the cat version of World War III begins in whatever room i amy be in. All three cats will wander through the house, in perfect friendship, searching for me. Once I've been located all hell breaks loose in the cat world. One minute all three cats are the picture of domestic bliss. Three little furry bodies intertwined in shades of black, white and grey lying on their pillows in front of the heater with not a thought in their heads except familial love. As soon as the clock indicates the dinner hour is approaching the peaceful scene is shattered with snarling, scratching and the most foul cat language you have ever heard. Heavens knows what it is they are saying to one another, but whatever it is it’s guaranteed to be R-rated! It’s times like this that I’m grateful I’m mono-linguistic. All this aggression disappears as soon as dinner is on the table (or in the cat’s case on the floor). Each cat has its own bowl and own space on the plastic place mat. Dishing out the food is an exact science. Others have tried but failed to master the intricate pattern required for all three cats to get their fair share of food while keeping peace in the feline community. I won’t go into the lengthy description of how to successfully feed the family, buy suffice to say it’s taken quite a while to perfect. Once the three tummies are full of the tinned food du jour they return to their fireside pillow, intertwine themselves once again and settle in for the night. Ah peace at last. The Spring Rock Terrors have settled down for the night and won’t return until 4.30 tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime they will keep up their strength with the never empty dish of dry cat food available to be munched at all times. Now all I have to contend with is Billy’s Winter Pass Times.

Billy, ever true to his Swiss heritage, is in his element in the winter time. This unfortunately means that while the rest of the pets are only interested in finding sunny spots around the yard or house and hibernating until summer, Billy is at his metabolic peak resulting in excess energy and mischief making. He spends his days between terrorising the chooks, stalking TOD, our drake and seeking out other less than desirable (from my point of view) ways of amusing himself.

The chook/duck chasing isn’t too bad when compared to his other pastimes. The hens are safely tucked away in their chook pen with seven or eight feet high wire between them and Billy, but this simple matter of logic hasn’t occurred to them yet. As soon as Billy begins his mad run from the back porch down to the chook yard, ears and jowls flopping as he goes, the chooks begin their crazy, panicked flight to anywhere other than where they are. Given that we have nine hens and one rooster, a fair bit of the chook pen is taken up with chooks when they are as we might term “at rest”. Therefore when these chooks (and rooster) begin literally flapping about they tend to ricochet off each other, the chook wire, hen house and the odd tree in their yard. This in turn causes them to panic further, taking fright at the sight of each other panicking and so on. It’s my belief that one day they will end up bouncing off each other and the various objects in their yard ad infinitum. Add to this TOD’s mini-panic on the outside of the chook yard and our winter back yard is definitely not a peaceful refuge for the summer haters among us.

When Billy’s other winter past time is considered though, I’d choose the panicking chooks and drake any day. With the longer nights Billy has searched for a new form of amusement that can be safely conducted from the confines of the back porch. He’s tried bowling Shadow, the Silky Terrier Type, over and sniffing her from head to tail while she’s in her prone condition. Needles to say Shadow doesn’t take this lying down – well actually she does take it lying down, but as soon as she can get up she takes her little fluffy dog revenge, bailing Billy up against the porch wall while snapping and snarling to let Billy know how she feels about his new found past-time. Billy, squashed against the wall, looking down at the little ball of fury, has all the appearance of a bully brought to book for his sins, promising never to harm undersized little dogs again.

Eventually, Billy turned to other, less risky ways of passing his winter nights. Billy has taken up singing, or in light of his Swiss ancestors, possibly yodelling. Now you’d be forgiven in thinking he’d be a baritone – what with the size of him and all, but no, Billy is a male soprano. He sits on the back porch yipping and howling to his heart’s content, happy in the knowledge that not only is he enjoying his own musical interlude, but he is bringing a little joy into the cold winter nights for his family. It’s obvious that Billy sees us in his mind’s eye sitting in our lounge room, tenderly smiling at each other while commenting on the beautiful musical tones emanating from Billy’s oversized lungs. He is so sure that we are as happy about his new-found talent as he is. When one of us goes outside to let Billy know our true feeling about his impromptu recital he turns towards us, leaves off his singing often mid yodel, and invites whichever music lover in his family who has come outside, to join in. The hurt look on his face when growled at to be quiet is truly heart rending. Maybe with a professional’s help, just maybe we could turn those teeth grating yowls to something bearable?

I’m off now to go and look through phone books to try to find coaches for Swiss yodelling.

Billy Joined My Quilting Group

2009-04-25T07:48:00.003+10:00

Yesterday Billy decided to join my quilting group. Five lovely ladies and myself meet here once a month usually, but weekly during January. My neighbour Aileen was the only one who could make it yesterday with some of the others still cleaning up after the Junee fires and others not feeling too well. With the temperatures well into the 40’s Billy usually spends his days lying on the kitchen floor underneath the air conditioning duct. I was a bit worried about inviting him in while I had visitors, but Aileen likes Billy (one of the quilt group members is actually frightened of him!!) so I thought I'd risk it.

Early in the morning, before the heat really hit us, I gave each of the dogs a frozen bone, sort of like a doggy ice-block. The standard routine for dishing out bones is to give Billy a huge marrow bone to keep him occupied while I give Shadow a smaller bone and lock her in the laundry so she doesn’t have to stand guard over it while Billy tries to steal it. Then it’s time to give the Kelpies their bones. I manage this tricky manoeuvrer by constantly feinting stealing Billy’s bone so he doesn’t feel confident enough to run down the porch steps and grab the Kelpies’ bones. The Kelpies know to take off with their treats as soon as they get them, and peace reigns supreme to the sound of bones crunching from all directions. Once the temperature hovered around the high 30’s it was time for Billy and Shadow to come inside. I opened the laundry door to invite them in. Shadow wandered over to the back door, sniffed Billy's bone and decided the cool air was the better option and Billy, who had been trying to push past me, turned and made a bee line (b-line?) for Shadow's bone in the laundry.

He then faced a huge dilemma. The kitchen door was open and he was finally being invited in. Did he steal the bone and miss out on coming inside or come inside and miss out on Shadow’s bone? He stood in the laundry door way, a picture of indecision with his head swaying back and forward between the bone and kitchen door. Decisions, decisions. What was a dog to do? Then inspiration struck. Billy lunged at the bone, picked it up in one quick movement and headed for the back door. I was too quick for him and told him to finish the bone first and slammed the door. Once the crunching stopped I allowed the thief to come in and enjoy the cooler air.

All is usually fine once the dogs are settled in the kitchen. Shadow, with one evil glance at Billy stretches out under the air conditioning duct, finds a cool spot on the floor and grumbles about huge furry lumps who take unfair advantage of their size and hog all the coolest air, but apart from the Silky grumbles, an air of quiet and calm descends on the kitchen.

Not so yesterday. It appears that Billy didn’t feel quite secure in his being able to stay in the kitchen. It could be he thought Aileen might voice a protest about wall to wall St. Bernards on the kitchen floor, or he might have been playing for the sympathy vote from a visitor, but whatever it was the decibel rating in the kitchen regularly came close to that of a sonic boom. As Billy lay prone, soaking up the breeze from the air-conditioning duct, he began to pant. No problem with that, after all dogs have to pant to cool themselves. I even ignored the lolling tongue and river of drool on the floor while he indulged in his panting session. But, did he stop at just panting? Not my Billy. The pants developed a definite grunting undertone and soon it sounded like a mob of pigs had invaded the kitchen. With each pant and grunt the nose level increased until Aileen and I had trouble hearing each other. Graeme, who hasn’t joined the quilting group, but was doing inside farm work today (accounts and such) began adding his grumbles to the general cacophony. Eventually I’d have enough of the noise, say “Billy!” in my loudest, sternest voice and Billy would go back to almost silent panting. Then, sllowly but surely the grunts were re-introduced and the cycle began again.

Aileen, true friend she is, found the whole thing very amusing and had a good laugh. Billy immediately recognised this as a sign of support for his overacting and rushed over to the silver strip separating the carpet in the dining area from the vinyl floor in the kitchen. He knows he’s not allowed to put a foot on the carpet and usually respects this rule. The problem is that with his toes on the silver strip, while he’s technically still in the kitchen his head overhangs the carpet. You can see the problem here can’t you? Billy’s toes aren’t the problem, his toes don’t leak – his head does (or more accurately his huge mouth does). Soon, strings of drool were heading south towards my lovely cream carpet while he smiled at Aileen and tried to garner sympathy for a poor unloved dog forced to live in this heat. I jumped up and pushed the offending head back onto the vinyl area, getting my arms bathed in drool, and reminded Billy of The Rule. The Rule is that when inside Billy has to sit with a towel close by so that it can either catch the drool, or be close at hand to at least wipe it up. The problem with The Rule is similar to the problem with the No Feet On The Carpet Rule. Billy is more than happy to stick close to the towel, if I really insist, so much in fact that he’s usually sitting on it, and again, his back end isn’t the end that leaks! Also, with the weight of a large St. Bernard on the towel, it’s very difficult to retrieve it to wipe up the drool puddles.

Each time Graeme or Aileen wanted to go to the kitchen I’d race ahead, indulge in a sort of one sided tug of war with Billy in an effort to get the towel out from under him, and wipe over the floor. Not because Aileen would complain (although Graeme would!), but because I’m aware that few people are as tolerant of dog drool as I am, and heaven forbid that either Aileen or Graeme slipped on the slippery stuff and landed in a puddle! It just didn’t bare thinking about. Billy was always helpful during my cleaning up sessions. He followed me round pointing out spots I’d missed, while failing to notice that he was actually making these new spots as he went.

When lunch time arrived Billy and Shadow were banished to the back porch until all the food was eaten. This is because Billy is ever the helpful St. Bernard - he’ll tell you it’s in his breeding to help whenever possible, and he’s more than happy to place his huge head on the kitchen counter and sniff the food to make sure it’s hasn’t gone bad. He doesn’t steal the food, mind you, he’s far too honourable for that! But, by the time the food has been thoroughly sniffed, no one else wants it. So the battle to de-Billy the kitchen began. Shadow is always first out. With the air a of martyr about to face the firing squad Shadow hunches her shoulders and marches out to the oven like back porch. She doesn’t let on that she knows the laundry floor is considerably cooler and where she’ll spend her time until she’s allowed in again, that would ruin the whole impressive martyr act, so with the bravest look she can muster, she leave the kitchen and the fun begins.

Billy develops a strange condition when he comes inside. He can no longer understand humans if those humans are saying, "Outside!" no matter how those humans try communicating with him. I tried verbally, loud verbally, very loud verbally and finally sign language (I grabbed his collar and started pulling). I managed to get Billy as far as the back door and there he stopped. He splayed his legs and just refused to budge another inch. Let me tell you when a 75 kg Billy refuses to budge, budge he doesn’t! So there he stood, spreading drool and winter coat everywhere. I finally decided to resort to bribery and waved a cup of cat kibble in his face. Billy loves cat kibble - he'll even ignore the ferrets for the few seconds it takes him to scoff the kibble. Just like his earlier dilemma with Shadow’s bone and the kitchen floor, Billy was torn between the kibble and the cool air and couldn’t make the decision. He did have the bright idea of trying to get the kibble from my hand while maintaining his hold on the kitchen floor, but apart from having me in stitches at his attempts to stretch his neck as far as it would go while keeping the rest of his body well and truly in the kitchen, we didn’t make any headway towards outside. I eventually had to call in the big guns. Graeme grabbed Billy’s collar and it was all over in a matter of seconds. The kitchen was now Billy free. It did mean I had to empty the teapot on the front garden rather than the back, but otherwise everything was fine and we enjoyed our lunch while trying not to imagine the pitiful sight of a melting giant, outside the back door.

As soon as lunch finished Billy was invited back in. He nearly bowled me over in his eagerness to get the best spot on the kitchen floor again. Shadow followed at a more sedate pace and settled quickly. Not so Billy. He tried first one spot and then another, letting me know that now he’d lost his favourite spot and couldn’t find it. That would teach me a lesson to go wantonly shoving dogs outside in the middle of the day! How could I live with myself now that I was witnessing this pathetic little scene? I coldheartedly returned to the lounge room after a quick reminder about The Rule, and with no audience to impress, Billy settled in his usual spot to begin his panting and grunting routine. It wasn’t long before everything was back to “normal” and cries of “Billy!” rent the air from time to time to regain peace and quiet, even if only temporarily. All in all I didn't manage a lot of sewing.

And how do I know that this was a special act for my visitor? Billy is lying under the air conditioning duct as I write – there’s not a peep out of him; not a grunt or even a pant to be heard.

Please Take Care When Using Our Facilities

2009-04-17T06:43:00.002+10:00

We are expecting visitors in the next week or so and Billy is going to be so excited with all these people staying here! He just loves visitors. Shadow on the other hand will retire to the laundry and grumble at anyone who has the temerity to use the toilet.

Toilet visits here are fraught with problems. There is little privacy when a visitor wants to use our one and only toilet, which is located in the laundry on the porch outside the back door. It is wise for visitors to announce their intentions to us so that we can take the necessary actions to safeguard their visit to the loo.

When a visitor needs to use the "facilities" we have to de-Billy the laundry first. This is harder than it sounds. Billy likes nothing better than to accompany those visiting the loo and offering any form of assistance they might (or even might not) want. Putting his head in their lap and looking up at them with mournful eyes, while they are seated is his favourite way of helping out, meaning that one rises with a patch of wet drool on one's bare legs. He then leans against you while you try to wipe this off and "adjust your clothing". Billy has been known to knock people sideways during this delicate procedure. Luckily no-one has landed in the actual toilet bowl, although I did come perilously close one time (Don't ask! I don't want to talk about it.).

Lately he has developed a new strategy that is only slightly more acceptable than his head on the lap technique. Billy now sits down beside whoever is unfortunate enough to be using the facilities and looks for all the world like he's planning on behaving himself. As soon as you are lulled into a false sense of security Billy begins his new line of attack. He slowly stands, still not looking at you, and backs up. Before you know it you are up close and personal with Billy's back end, his tail wagging somewhere around your knees if you are lucky, somewhere around your face if you are not. The first worrying thought is that Billy is preparing to back up with a view to sitting on your lap while you are a captive audience. You can rest easy on this score. Billy has never yet actually sat on someone's lap while they are visiting our toilet. No, what Billy wants is that special spot at the base of his tail scratched. If you refuse to participate in this favourite pastime of Billy's he believes you haven't had enough encouragement and begins to back up closer and closer until you are leaning back as far as the cistern will let you. Occasionally Billy will look over his shoulder with a "What's wrong back there? Why isn't anything happening base of tail wise?" look on his face.

I've tried pushing his rump out of the way, I've tried ignoring him, I've tried rousing on him. Nothing works. Billy continues to live in hope. Why don't I put him out when I enter the laundry you ask? Because I am such a sucker for a pair of big sad eyes that promise to stay right where they are, along with the rest of the dog, on the floor over near the washing machine and far, far away from the toilet. Sometimes he actually does stay put leading me to hope that that will happen again next time. It rarely does.

Once you survived whichever stratagem Billy has chose and you have redressed yourself it's time to wash your hands. You have to negotiate the distance from one end of the laundry to the other - a total of about three feet. This is much harder than it sounds because Billy is there with you all the way. Exchanging pleasantries and doing a lot more leaning as you try to move those few vital feet to the sink. Giving Billy a pat and telling him he's a good boy (an out and out lie, but by this time you are desperate to wash you hands and get out of there!) will only result in Billy dropping to the floor in front of you and exposing large areas of tummy to be rubbed. For such a huge dog he always manages to perform this little feat with surprising agility, meaning that he is on the floor in no time flat, taking up all the available space including where your feet are at the moment. This results in the toiletee once again being in grave danger of falling over. The bright side of this you quickly see is that you have plenty of soft, squishy St Bernard to land on when you do reach the floor. The downside you only discover when you land. Billy is ever helpful (it's the St Bernard Way!) and is more than happy to give you some welcoming licks as you land with a thud, and lots of drool to be going on with. As you struggle to regain your feet, you realise that Billy is using his front paws to bat at you in an attempt to pull you back down for some reason. Then it dawns on you - you haven't patted his tummy and this is his subtle way of telling you so.

So you give his tummy a rub, climb back on to your feet and finally gain the longed for laundry sink. You are able to wash your hands and leave the laundry with only a few pawing motions from the supine Billy making you buckle at the knees.

Is it any wonder we rush out to de-Billy the laundry before visitors enter?

And what is Shadow doing all this time? She is lying on her bed, glaring at the visitor and grumbling about this invasion of her personal territory as I mentioned earlier. She is blames the toilet user for all this mayhem and offers no sympathy what so ever. Shadow expects bad behaviour from Billy at all times so she tends to blame those who actually supply Billy with the means to behave badly, rather than Billy himself. She leaves visitors in no doubt that they should show some self control and wait until they get home to relieve themselves - regardless of how many days they are visiting here!!

Now, who else would like to come to Spring Rock for a visit??

The Birds & Bees & Rams

2009-04-03T06:57:00.002+11:00

One of Spring Rocks' handsome Suffolk Rams (not SR
he wasn't here long enough to get a name or have a photo taken)

We’re home again after our travels with another Suffolk ram in tow. This ram is to replace the ram we bought last year who, as a stud ram, was a dismal failure. Just let me tell you about last year’s ram. He wasn’t here long enough to get a name so we’ll just call him SR (for Suffolk ram of course).

We first met SR at the farm in South Australia where he was being auctioned. He had everything we were looking for in a ram (or so we thought) – a good head, lovely strong legs for chasing the girls around the paddocks, he was well grown and fit and a very handsome ram. In other words just perfect for what we needed. We settled into the auction with only one thought – get that ram! When he came up for bidding we obviously weren’t the only ones who had that thought, but after a fiercely fought battle of flying bids where no auctioneer was safe from the nodding, finger lifting or eyelid fluttering, depending on each bidders technique, we emerged the victors and the owners of one gorgeous ram ready to make the trek back to Spring Rock.

His arrival at the farm was uneventful. We took the trailer into the ram paddock, introduced him to our other rams, opened the trailer gate and away he went, anxious to make new friends. If only we had stood watching him for a few more minutes we might have got some inkling of what was to come. As it was we were delighted to see him apparently settling in well and definitely on the way to making new friends in the sheep community. With light and happy hearts we turned our tired thoughts to the house and our bed.

A few months later it was time to introduce SR to the girls who would be ready, willing and able to whisper sweet nothings in his ear and make him the happiest ram on earth. These days we synchronise the ewe joining. I won’t go into the scientific details here but all it means is that we know which ewes will cycle (be ready for mating) on each particular date. We arrange it so each ram in our mating shed has six ewes to serve in the one day. I know , I know, it takes all the romance out of it for the poor ewes. No honeyed words in the days leading up to the big event, no being followed by a love struck ram just waiting for her to give him the nod. Just tossed into a pen with the ram and left there for 24 hours while he casually dealt with each of six ewes all more than ready, willing and able! Then turfed out, back with the ewes with an embarrassing red, dot on her bottom where the ram’s raddle (harness with a crayon in it) has left it’s tell tale mark.

But back to the particular pen where SR was to meet the girls for the first time… We bunged the six ewes into the pen with him, wished him luck with his first forays into love and sex and left him to it, believing that privacy would be very welcome to the ram as he perfected his technique. Unfortunately when we entered the shed the next morning, each ewe was exactly how we’d left her, with the exception of a frustrated look in every eye. No tell tale red dots on the bottom. Ahh, we thought, the raddle crayon is too hard, or too dirty or too something else to have made a distinct mark. We vainly searched every fibre of wool on each girl’s bottom in the hope of finding a red streak or two. No red streaks appeared. We tested the crayon on a ewe’s side just to be sure it was working – it was. There was no getting away from the fact that the blame seemed to be levelled right at SB’s door.

Not a problem we told each other. We’ve had young innocent rams before who have taken a while to get the idea of what’s required. We left those six ewes with him in case any of them were still cycling and added another six to his harem for variety’s sake. With a wink and a few ribald comments to help get him thinking the right way, we once again left him to get on with it in private. The next morning the only difference from the morning before was that we now had 12 frustrated ewes instead of 6. All other rams were making their way through their allotted 6 ewes each day with little more than a leer as the old guard was returned to the paddock and the new girls were hustled into their pens. SR watched this with interest, but basically ignored his new allotment of ewes as they entered, giggling and nudging each other in excitement as they saw this handsome fellow so close. Right, we thought this time, he’s used to large paddocks and the free life. He probably feels too restricted to get to work with all these walls around him. So we let him and his ewes out into an adjoining paddock, gave him a few last minute instructions regarding the birds and the bees and once more left him to get on with it.

The next morning alarm bells started to ring for us when we saw that he had forced his way through the fence back into the ram paddock, where he was making up for lost time carousing with his friends around the dam wall. Hmm, we thought this time, maybe he needs a role model. With that we drafted off one of our old teaser rams (a ram that has had a vasectomy – no really that is what a teaser ram is. Honest) to show the young fellow the ropes. The idea behind this is that the young ram will soon get the idea and try to muscle in on the old ram and take over the serving of the ewes. At which time we would remove the teaser ram and go inside for a well earned cup of tea.

I’ve been involved in the stud equivalent of a porn movie before. We once had a young buck who was totally inexperienced with their girls. We introduced an experienced and highly oversexed ram into his harem and had a great time trying to stop the experienced ram serving the does, while trying to encourage the new comer to get in there and do the job. Ultimately we had success but not until we’d made a mortal enemy of the experienced buck who vowed never to forgive us. So we felt quietly confident that the introduction of the teaser ram would work, and without any of that unseemly intervention of us to try and stop him mating with the ewes.

Then we were faced with the stark reality. SR stood back and watched the proceedings with an interested look on his little woolly face. The light bulb went on and SR new what he had to do. He chose his new beloved and … sidled up to the teaser ram!!!! Yep, our new boy was gay. Unfortunately for him the teaser ram definitely was not. Not only was he not gay, but he really, really found SR’s tender attentions annoying while he was trying to sweet talk a particularly nubile ewe. With a murmur of, “Wait right where you are my dear, while I deal with this annoying little upstart and I’ll be right back.” He turned his head and tossed SR a few feet before returning to the now admiring ewe. SR wasn’t to be put off that easily. Oh no. He’d finally found love and by God love he was going to give.

We ended up removing the teaser and SR, turning all the Suffolk girls out into the paddock with the mated White Suffolk ewes and rejected Suffolk ewes from the two previous days. Here the Suffolk ewes could all commiserate with one another and try to ignore the smug looks from the White Suffolk girls. We then returned to the house to have a cup of tea and a re-think about our Suffolk mating this year. We only have one Suffolk ram for breeding, and he can only breed with the ewes for two years before his daughters are old enough to go into lamb. Once that happens we need to buy a new ram, which we use for two years and so it goes. Just a small digression here, if you think we actually get rid of the old Suffolk rams, you don’t know me very well. When we first had to replace an existing ram Graeme was all for sending the old one to the sale yards where his likely fate would be dog food. I wouldn’t have a bar of this. I told Graeme that the rams had worked themselves to the bone providing us with beautiful lambs suitable for selling as stud rams and we were not going to be so ungrateful as to condemn then to ending up as kibble. Graeme knew when he was fighting a losing battle and that’s why our ram paddocks are populated with geriatric Suffolk and White Suffolk rams, enjoying a well earned retirement.

Now back to our breeding problems. We couldn’t use either of the retired fellows because they were father and grandfather to a lot of the ewes. We rang the person from whom we’d bought the ram and told him our troubles. He was very understanding and offered us an old stud ram of his as a replacement for that joining and a full credit to spend at his next sale (the one from which we have just returned). We drove back to South Australia lickety split, picked up the very experienced and very heterosexual ram and introduced him to our girls at the first opportunity. To say he was willing to accommodate even the most blatant hussy in the mob is to understate the case. He was thrilled to be back among ewes again, and to find that every ewe he met was immediately willing to entertain his most erotic demands was sheer heaven! All was well on Spring Rock once again.

I’m afraid all wasn’t well for SR. I pleaded his case long and hard. He could live his alternate life choice with the rams, I said. He wouldn’t be any trouble. He wouldn’t eat much. He was only young and couldn’t be condemned because he liked boys instead of girls. What about sexual discrimination?? What about a bit of the milk of human kindness for a ram that had a different sexual orientation to the majority?? What about … I was starting to run out of what abouts by this time, but that didn’t stop me. I simply started again from the beginning. I’m sad to report that none of my what abouts had any effect on Graeme. He didn’t want SR “bothering” the rams so he said SR had to go and he stuck to his guns. I think he was worried that SR might convert a few of the rams to his way of thinking and that could have been disastrous, so poor old SR took the short ride to Wagga Sale yards while I quietly mourned him at home.

And the new ram you ask? Is he all that a ram should be? Has he shown an interest in the girls yet? Well, we’ll have to wait and see. It’s not mating time yet. But you can be sure that Graeme and I will be watching his performance with interest. Excuse me for a minute. I’m just off to tell the new ram this whole sad story. Hopefully he will think twice before making any snap decisions about his sexuality.

It's Not My Fault!

2009-03-27T06:32:00.002+11:00

Feather Duster, my ancient rooster, is getting dottier all the time. Feather Duster is approximately nine years old. We've had him since he was an egg in Justin's Year 10 Agricultural project to hatch and raise a clutch of eggs. From his early adolescence Feather Duster was a pain in the neck. He bullied the ducks until I had to move them to a safer yard for their own protection and he bullied the hens. He didn't threaten the hens' lives as he did the ducks', but he still needed stern talking to's about his behaviour on a regular basis. In fact I named him Feather Duster to remind him that if he didn't get his act together and find some chooky compassion for his fellow fowls his beautiful feathers could be put to another use. It was an empty promise and he knew it.

As time went on and he matured his attitude mellowed a bit. He took a vow of peace and love for all. Life became peaceful in the chook pen for a while. Then the girls saw an opportunity for revenge and turned on Feather Duster and he had to be removed for his own good. I attempted to return him to the chook yard from time to time and he kept his vow and refused to fight back until on one attempt to reintroduce him to the chook pen he lost his resolve momentarily and pecked back at one of the chooks as she moved in for yet another peck. After that they left him alone and peace was restored.

In his old age he has a spring/winter romance. He's in love with a tiny black Chinese Silky named Pepper and then he became totally reformed. He became a SNAR (Sensitive New Age Rooster). He could be found wherever Pepper was in the chook pen every day, looking after her and protecting her from the perils of the chook pen. You never know when a worm might get vicious! Yesterday he took his SNAR duties to a new level.

I collected the eggs yesterday and Pepper is going broody again. Chinese Silkies go broody at the drop of a feather and Pepper spends as much time trying to incubate eggs, while we try to steal them from her without incurring physical violence from Pepper. The first time she was broody Feather Duster was broody along with her. He sat in the nesting box with her all day and whispered sweet nothings in her ears. When he realised she was going to spend so much of her life in the nesting box contemplating chickens that were never going to be (Feather Duster is just too old and past all ideas of fatherhood), he left her to her own devices during subsequent broody sessions. He did visit Pepper during each confinement to exchange compliments and I love you's but mostly he stayed out in the yard doing what rooster do when the love of their life isn't by their side. He scratched around looking for tasty morsels in the dirt.

Well, he's gone one step further in becoming a supportive and caring partner. I forgot to collect the eggs on Wednesday so there were eight eggs to collect yesterday. Eight full size chook eggs are too big for one little Silky to sit on no matter how she spreads her feathers out so ever the gentleman, Feather Duster took four of the eggs and sat on them for her! I found him sitting there by Pepper's side both snuggled up together and murmuring private conversations. When I tried to steal the eggs Pepper was indignant and looked to Feather Duster to protect their potential brood. Feather Duster tried a few stern words to make me see the errors of my ways, but when that didn't work he decided to sit firm and make getting the eggs as difficult as possible. And believe me it's very difficult to get eggs out from underneath a rooster! He's heavy!!! At last I had what I hoped were all the eggs and left the chook pen. Pepper and Feather Duster stayed in the nesting box and I expect they'll be there this afternoon for round two. I just hope they aren't planning anti egg theft strategies while they sit and wait for my next assault.

I keep saying, "It's not my fault!" but Graeme goes right along with my kids' theory that I take perfectly normal animals and make them wacky. I repeat It's Not My Fault!

Farrer Is A Bad Influence

2009-03-21T08:12:00.003+11:00

I helped with a lot of drafting last week in preparation for scanning our lambs for our LambPlan data, and got my quality time with Farrer our most friendly stud ram again. We only needed to draft off the ram lambs so in an act of self preservation Graeme had excluded Farrer from the sheep yards and Farrer was sitting outside the yards all on his own. If you would like to know why it was an act of self preservation on Graeme's part go and read Sheep Drafting Spring Rock Style, my 19th January blog entry. Other big rams were excluded too, but they didn't take it personally. Of course I walked over to Farrer before I got to the yards to give him a pat and have a chat. As soon as he saw me he jumped up and hurried away from me. I thought our beautiful friendship was over, but all he was doing was trying to get to the gate before I did so I could let him in thus putting him front and centre for more pats in the yard during the drafting. Graeme vetoed this idea and manoeuvred Farrer away from the gate, so I gave Farrer some sympathy along with pats and head scratches and promised more when I had the chance. Farrer just waited patiently outside the gate, plotting his evil plans.

When we'd drafted off the older rams I opened the gate to let them back out into their paddock. Farrer imitated a salmon swimming upstream and dove into the mass of exiting rams, headed the other way and managed to get himself into the yards. From there it was a simple matter to stalk my every move and offer his head for scratching. Drafting was seriously slowed down, but I didn't mind. Farrer is such a gorgeous ram it's hard to resist him, well it's hard for me to resist him, Graeme finds no problem resisting him at all. Graeme had a moment of panic when he saw that one of our newest stud rams decided to find out what Farrer was up to fraternising with a human, and came up to see what I was up to. I shared the love between the two of them and the new ram, Ash, found having his head scratched rather pleasant. I ended up with two rams to pat and love while trying to help draft the rest of the rams. At least Ash, unlike Farrer, didn't plant himself directly in the path of the rams we were trying to move. Still, Graeme was not impressed with a new addition to my pet stud rams.

Drafting was eventually finished. All ram lambs in a holding yard and nearly all larger rams back in their paddock. Ash followed the last lot of older rams out of the yards and into their paddock but Farrer held out hopes of more love and attention if he just stood still and looked hopeful. I literally pushed Farrer out of the sheep yards and told him the love fest was over for another day. He reluctantly strolled off to join the other rams when it became obvious that the pressure on his rump was my gentle hint for him to move off and join the boys.

It remains to be seen if Ash comes back for more pats and scratches next time we draft the rams. Graeme is hoping against hope that he forgets all about it and returns to being a normal, scared of humans ram, but I think that as soon as he sees Farrer lining up for the pats and head scratches Ash will make sure he's close by for his share.

I have a dreadful feeling that drafting at Spring Rock is going to be even slower from now on!!!

Hannah, Billy & The Gum Boots

2009-03-14T07:23:00.004+11:00

Billy is sorry. Truly he is. He doesn’t know how it happened. One minute he was being his usual friendly self and the next minute he was chewing on a small, yellow gum boot for consolation. He just doesn’t know what came over him.

Frances, Joshua, Hannah and Erin came to visit last weekend and Billy was thrilled to add more family to his list of those to be drooled on. He made himself very busy getting close and personal right from the start. As Josh and Frances fought their way out of the car with armfuls of small children, Billy was there as the advance guard of the welcome wagon. He bustled about, doing all the things expected of a good host, the obligatory tail wag; the welcoming bark; the attempt to get as close as possible to everyone as they were trying to wend their way to the door; the apology for getting too close and nearly knocking someone over – in short he didn’t stint on any of the niceties.

Once they’d gained the shelter of the house, Hannah hit the ground running and a great time was had by all the humans. Billy once again found himself on the wrong side of a closed door, but with his usual sangfroid he heaved a heavy sigh and settled down for the night.

The next morning Hannah, Frances, Erin and I ventured outside to inspect the new lambs. Hannah takes a keen interest in new lambs and their mothers and is always anxious to get to the lambing shed and disperse food, hugs and positive comments to all the inhabitants. I took the precaution of locking Billy in the laundry before we headed for the shed because he too enjoys a chat with the new mothers and babies to the point where he can induce hysteria in a normally placid ewe. After Hannah had spread love and lupins from one end of the shed to the other we returned to the house and I let Billy out for a bit of social interaction with the short people.

Billy was thrilled to get this chance to catch up with Hannah. He hadn’t really had much quality time last night to have a good chat with her, what with the tail wagging, general welcoming chit chat and apologies, he found that he soon ran out of time for really personal exchanges. He began this tête-à-tête with a big lick and a smile.

This proved to be a big mistake. Hannah was left with the unalterable impression that Billy was in fact having a taste prior to getting down to the business of eating her. She therefore not unreasonably, began to cry and request to be lifted out of the reach of that huge mouth. Billy tried to explain that there was some misunderstanding here and that he’d like the chance to properly explain himself. Hannah wasn’t in the mood for further explanations, so we decamped to the lounge room where Hannah soon regained her composure. We settled down to some serious sewing (Hannah, at two years old, is a budding quilter already) and tried to forget the whole sordid incident. Billy’s name wasn’t mentioned and peace reigned throughout the house.

Little did we know that outside on the back porch dreadful atrocities were being performed on Hannah’s footware. Hannah in true farmer style had left her gumboots on the back porch when she came inside and it didn’t take Billy long to find them, smell Hannah all over them, and begin to console himself by snuggling up the to them while he tried to figure out how things had gone so terribly wrong. Unfortunately snuggling wasn’t all he did. At sometime during his cogitations Billy began to absentmindedly have a chew on one of the boots while he pondered the capriciousness of dog/little girl interactions and how wrong things can go when there is a misunderstanding of an innocent dog’s intentions.

I found the thoroughly chewed boot when I next went outside. Billy tried to explain that he didn’t know how it had happened. One minute he was treasuring the boot and the next he found he had a mouth full of plastic! It was a total mystery to him as to how this came about. Billy listened attentively while I had a few words to say on the matter, nodding at my more insightful phrases and commenting that boot munching was definitely a bad habit he thought he had kicked months ago.

I then returned to the house to apologise to Hannah on Billy’s behalf. Hannah was shocked that there was a dog in the world who could take a bad situation and make it so much worse. We decided the best course of action was for Hannah to give Billy a victim’s impact statement concerning his vandalism and we’d all move on from there.

Hannah came out with me to give Billy a piece of her mind about boot eating. She chose the cleverly strategic position of sitting on my hip up high out of Billy's reach. Or so we thought. Billy was so glad to see she'd forgiven him his two indiscretions that he raised his paw in a friendly wave and managed to scratched her foot!!! Hannah couldn’t believe the perfidy of this large dog. First he tries to eat her, then when that evil plot failed he settled for second best and ate her boot and now, here he was scratching her bare foot (and why did it have to be bare we ask ourselves – because Billy ATE HER BOOT, that’s why!!) in an obvious effort to knock her out of Nanna’s arms and have another attempt at Hannah eating! More tears and a hasty retreat to the lounge room and Billy/Hannah relations were severed for the rest of her visit.

Billy was still on Hannah’s black list when they left the next day. He tried to get close enough to once again explain how all these misunderstandings had come about, but I thought Hannah had endured enough of his clarifications – her foot and boot still bore the scars of some of these, so I kept a firm hold on his collar while Hannah was safely ensconced in her car seat. Once they were all safely on their way back home, Billy and I had a heart to heart about big dog/small child interaction and once again Billy sadly agreed with all I had to say. It was clear that Billy needed to do something and quickly to get back into Hannah's good books if it was at all possible. I braved the drool and we put our heads together to come up with a suitable apology, all the safer carried out from a distance of about 500 kilometres away.

I would buy Hannah a new pair of gumboots and Billy would write Hannah an apology, sign his name and hope that he could be forgiven. He gave me the gist of what he wanted to say and I typed the letter for him (his paws are just too big to type correctly on small human keyboards). The letter was duly written and signed "Billy". I then had the great idea of adding Billy’s paw print. Like a lot of my great ideas involving Billy, it was fraught with problems. If you’ve ever tried to rub a very friendly St. Bernard's huge paw on a stamp pad and them print it onto a letter you'll know it's a near impossible job!

Billy was less than co-operative. I’d lift one huge paw off the ground and try to pull it in the general direction of the stamp pad while Billy valiantly tried to return his foot to its original position on the ground. The ensuing tussles resulted in nothing but an inky back porch. It would have been fun for anyone watching! Imagine if you will one slightly unwise Rosemary, one large, friendly, but determined not to co-operate St. Bernard, and add ink to the mix and you might begin to see the chaos that ensued. As usually happens when I try to make Billy do something he’d rather not, I found myself on the ground with Billy standing over me smiling and spreading drool far and wide. It’s not as if Billy actually gets me in a judo hold or anything, he just resists for a while and then sneakily gives in, resulting in my toppling over. Billy is always anxious to help me up and start all over again. After all a dog’s got to have some fun from time to time. I was tempted to get the paw print by rubbing the paper over one of the many paw prints on the tiles, but that would have made the letter far too grubby for a little girl to handle. After a few more fruitless attempts and a promise to myself to clean the tiles later, I gave up, dusted myself off, wiped off the more accessible drool and looked about for a suitable picture of a paw print that would do the job. I found one (it’s a cat paw print, but don’t tell Hannah), enlarged it to St. Bernard size and added it to the letter.

I then added a photo of Billy's saddest face. St Bernards have a naturally sorrowful look so finding a Billy photo where he looked suitably repentant wasn't difficult.

Hannah has received the letter and gumboots now and is prepared to forgive Billy everything. I have a feeling that the 500 kilometres has a lot to do with her easily won forgiveness and I don’t hold a lot of hope for it lasting more than a few minutes in Billy’s company next time she visits, but you never know, miracles might just happen.

In the meantime, I’ll be trying to impress on Billy the need to treat little people and their possessions with more consideration, not to mention less drool.

Billy's sorry photo He sent to Hannah. Who could resist that sad face?

My Friend Jane's Giveaway

2009-03-11T17:56:00.000+11:00

My friend Jane has a giveaway running at the moment. If you'd like to be in the running to win a lovely bag go to this site http://five-minutes-of-fame.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html and scroll down to her 600th post. It will tell you there how to enter the competition for her giveaway.

Good luck.

How Not To Catch A Mouse

2009-03-08T18:39:00.002+11:00

A few nights ago Tristan, otherwise known as The Red Head, decided that 5 am was the perfect time to catch a mouse outside, bring it in to tell us about it and let it go in the lounge room, bringing any hope of my getting more sleep to an end. Despite Tristan's early morning start; we've discovered that all three cats are not morning people. Graeme got up to put Tristan and his catch outside (he knew if I got up I'd try to rescue the mouse), words were exchanged between man and cat (the mouse had no say in the discussion), Tristan with his mouth full at first. When he put his mouse down to speak more clearly the mouse took off. There was a lot of insults being traded between Tristan and Graeme, centreing on who was the more responsible for the escaped mouse, then Tristan decided that kibble in a bowl was worth two mice under the lounge and there being only one mouse there, he wandered out to eat his kibble and left Graeme to take care of the mouse.

Graeme was having none of that and removed the kibble from under Tristan's nose. Tristan just glared at him while Graeme carried him back to the lounge room. I was still in bed, but listening carefully to the proceedings and thought back-up might be called for so, I pushed Lancelot off my bed. Big mistake. Lancelot stalked out to the lounge room to air his grievances at being woken so early and found Tristan playing with Graeme, well Lancelot thought it looked like a game. Lancelot lost no time in starting a fight with Tristan and both cats were put outside. Guinevere slept, or pretended to sleep on the lounge (the one the mouse wasn't under) through the whole ordeal and ignored all the angry males both feline and human.

So the end result was that Tristan stalked off to one of the farm buildings and didn't put in another appearance until he'd forgiven Graeme, Guinevere continued her uninterrupted nap on the lounge, Lancelot returned home and slept on my lap for most of the morning and Graeme was heard muttering about useless cats from time to time. I did offer to let the ferrets have a run in the lounge room, promising that they would catch the mouse. Graeme actually toyed with accepting my offer, but stopped just short. A good thing too - I was actually counting on that. I hate seeing anything killed.

We leave the front door open at night so the cats can come and go as they please. Yes, I know that's to blame for the Red Head with the mouse incident, but it's easier than trying to sleep through their demands to come inside at all hours of the night. Sadly, despite this inviting open door being available for the last few days as a mouse exit, we still have a mouse in residence somewhere in the loungeroom. We discovered this yesterday when Lancelot began acting more like a cat than a sloth and started trying to get behind our large wall unit. He appeared to be quite desperate to squeeze his not so sleek body into the little gap between the unit and the wall. I thought of camels going through eyes of needles, but refrained from making comments. Lancelot is a bit touchy about his girth (I've been teasing him for years, so I know he's touchy). I pointed Lancelot's attempts out to Graeme and Graeme immediately joined in the hunt. Now don't get me wrong, Graeme couldn't fit between the wall unit and the wall either. Being human and possessing opposable thumbs did give him a slight advantage. He used a long stick to try and shoo the mouse towards Lancelot's waiting jaws at the other end of the wall unit. This might have worked if the mouse wasn't able to dive under the wall unit completely out of sight.

Both Graeme and Lancelot put in a bit more wasted effort to winkle the mouse out of its hiding place, but in the end Lancelot admitted defeat and went to see what was in the feed bowl. Graeme was made of sterner stuff and continued to bash the wall unit, the wall and anything else that might give the mouse concussion and make it wander, dazed out into the open. I began to feel sorry for the poor little mouse and it's inevitable fate and thought a quick kill might actually be preferable. I had hoped that it would just leave peaceably during the night, but seeing that it had stayed put for a couple of nights already, I wasn't confident that it would ever leave. So, I once again offered the services of the ferrets.

Working ferrets, not my pampered pets, but other people's ferrets, made their living by going down long winding rabbit burrows and flushing out rabbits. Surely one little trapped mouse wouldn't be a challenge once my ferrets' instincts kicked in. When the ferrets visited inside they loved nothing better than playing behind the wall unit and ambushing the other ferrets or me if I got close enough. This should be easy. I felt dreadful for the poor little mouse, but I realised it had to go. Graeme thought long and hard about my offer this time, looked at his soon-to-be-the-target-of-ferrets'-interest toes and finally agreed. Going for maturity and life experience rather than youthful enthusiasm, I brought in the two adult ferrets, Horton and Jocie, leaving the over excitable and inexperienced baby ferrets, Byron and Cecilia in the cage. I ignored the babies' pleas to take them along too and hurried back to the house.

I decided to try the ferrets in order of oldest to youngest and stuffed Horton into the gap. Horton had other ideas and back pedaled as fast as he could only to find himself once again pushed into the small space. Being the laid back fellow he is, Horton decided to go with the flow and see where the tunnel led him. He couldn't believe his luck when he found Graeme's toes at the other end!!!! This discovery was soon followed by yells from Graeme for me to "Come And Get This Ferret!!!". I came and got the ferret and tried Jocie instead. Jocie was a bit more willing to go into the desired gap and even went under the wall unit to explore the entire area. The mouse made a dash out from under the unit only to see Graeme at one and me at the other. The mouse then decided to sit firm and trust in God. It worked. Jocie ran straight passed the mouse, who quickly went back under the wall unit, and headed for Graeme's toes. Once more I had to detach a ferret from those oh so tasty toes and try again.

Don't ask me what it is about Graeme's toes. I've spent years wondering myself. I've owned seven ferrets now plus the two babies I'm baby sitting and Bec owned two ferrets who used to visit - making 11 ferrets in all and everyone preferred Graeme's toes to any other treat we could offer them. Strange huh?

I tried playing on their competitive nature and put both ferrets in there together. All that resulted from this tactic was that Jocie and Horton had a lovely time playing under the wall unit together while the mouse once again waited near the wall too far in for Graeme to reach it.

OK, I thought, I'll give the babies a chance. Maybe their killer instincts are better honed than the older ferrets who have lived a very sheltered life for so long. I put all four ferrets into the cat carrier so I could pull out whichever ferret I wanted to put on assignment and leave the other's locked up away from Graeme's toes. Byron had his turn and squeezed in to the gap did a lap of the wall unit's length, dived under the wall until, met the mouse and came rushing out to me to tell me all about it. Graeme heaved a sigh of relief because even though the mouse hadn't been caught on that try, he toes remained unmolested.

I then sent Cecilia in with instructions to make it quick so the poor little mouse didn't suffer. I think I must have pleaded the mouse's case too strongly. Cecilia made a bee line for the mouse, nose down following its scent. I screwed up my eyes and waited for the worst. The worst didn't happen. Cecilia dived under the wall unit and then fun and games were heard coming from that general area. They were playing!!!!! There were no ferret squeals threatening the mouse, there were no panicky squeaks coming from the mouse. Just running and shuffling noises and no sign of either combatant. Finally Cecilia came out, thanked me for introducing her to her new friend and mooched off in the general direction of Graeme's toes. I scooped her up before more damage was done in that area and as I scooped, I saw the mouse, who had obviously come out from under the wall unit to wave goodbye to its new friend, leave via my now abandoned end of the wall unit and run out into the other part of the house.

We have no idea where it went. I lost track of it as soon as it scooted along the wall into the dining room. Unfortunately all the doors to the rest of the rooms were open as was the front door. I suspect we still have a mouse in residence. I have no idea where it may be living now, but something tells me that its found a comfortable, cat free zone and is settling in for the long haul.

I suppose I'm going to have to start providing food and water for it now. After all I feel it's almost a member of the family after all we've gone through together. And how could I face Cecilia knowing that I'd let something dreadful happen to her new friend?

A Day At The V- E- T-'s

2009-02-27T06:52:00.002+11:00

Now that the whole sorry, sordid affair is over and Shadow is ensconced in the laundry, seeking solace under her blanket and mumbling to herself, I feel it’s safe to tell you the whole truth.

It all began yesterday afternoon when, while side-stepping one of Billy’s amorous swipes at my legs in an effort to fell me so he could tell me how much he loves me, I inadvertently tripped over Shadow. Now when I say tripped over I don’t want you imagining one little flattened Silky type covered in bruises and graze marks. My foot barely made contact with her – honest!! Shadow yipped and continued to yip for quite a few minutes after this dreadful mauling and even after Billy and I had duly examined her for cuts, bruises and even felt all over her for broken bones (well, she insisted I take X-rays and I just don’t have the necessary equipment!). In the end I put it down to a case of hypochondria, one of Shadow’s specialties, hardened my heart and left her to Billy’s tender care.

When I gave her dinner last night she was still behaving like a dog about to draw her last breath. Yelping any time I tried to touch her and generally looking very woebegone. I checked her all over and found that her tummy while, it still had it’s normal overstuffed look, was in fact quite hard to the touch. Shadow had assumed her pained martyr look for this examination and determinedly stared off into space trying to think of better times to come. I called Graeme in for a second opinion. As soon as he arrived in the laundry Shadow heaved a resigned sigh and knew that this was the end of her time as an invalid. Graeme re-checked the tummy area and pulled and pushed various Silky type limbs only to pronounce the patient well and fit in his estimation. When I directed his attention to the rock hard tummy, Graeme grunted agreement that it was indeed more like a rock than a tummy and suggested we give her a dose of oil “to shift a possible blockage”. I dished out the olive oil much to Shadow’s approval and gave Billy some too so he didn’t feel left out.

By this time Graeme was back inside and doing his best to forget about Shadow and her troubles by getting back to the accounts. When I came in from distributing olive oil, I insisted that if Shadow wasn’t any better in the morning we’d be taking her to the vet.

“I’m sick of taking that dog to the vet,” was Graeme’s immediate reply.

“What do you mean sick of taking her to the vet?” I asked, “The only time she’s been to the vet was to have those grass seeds out last year.”

“We got her desexed too!” came his quick rejoinder.

“That was nearly 12 years ago!” I said. “Well …” and that was the end of that argument.

This morning Shadow didn’t seem much improved so off to the vet’s we went. I decided to take Billy as well so that he could have a much overdue micro-chip implanted. What is it about getting ready to go to the vet’s that animals can pick up on? Shadow is usually the first one of us to get to the car whenever she thinks we might be going for a drive. She sits close to the front passenger door and gives me that “I’d really like to go for a drive today, nothing much is happening here and I just know a drive would make me feel so much better” look, which is soon replaced with the “how could you leave a little Silky type here on the side of the driveway while you go away to have fun without her?” look. Billy, while not particularly wanting to actually get in the car, is always determined to escort me to it so that he can give me a rub or two with his face to make sure I take a little bit of his drool with me to remember him by. In short, when Graeme and I head for the car we always have a full compliment of doggy escorts tagging along.

Today on the other hand, both dogs sat on the back porch and looked the other way as we headed towards the car. I returned to the back porch and personally invited them to follow me to no avail. Shadow looked at Billy and Billy looked at Shadow and a silent agreement was reached to sit firm and not be tempted. Graeme came back to see what was holding us up and joined in my invitations to the dogs to come and enjoy a ride in the car. I even promised Billy there wouldn’t be a dog show at the other end. How did they know that we were going to the vets? Did they listen at the door while I made the appointment? Was there something about the way we walked to the car that just shouted “going to the vet’s”? Whatever it was they knew. In the end I had to pick Shadow up while Graeme took Billy by the collar and we headed for the car. Half way there Billy began to back peddle and managed to pull his head out of his collar. He then ran to the ferret cage for protection. Now I ask you – how can Billy, even in a time of dire need like this, honestly think that Miette and Albus would take his side? He soon found out that chickens do come home to roost, and scorned ferrets can turn on you quick as a wink. Miette and Albus did everything but call out to Graeme “Billy’s over here! Don’t worry; we’ll keep him occupied until you get here!” They jumped up and down and cheered Graeme on as he dragged Billy car-wards.

Thankfully, once in the car and on the road no more dramas occurred. Shadow settled down at my feet and Billy resigned himself to sitting in the back of the Discovery and spreading his drool over the towel covered back seat. Of course it would have been more fun if the towels weren’t there, but every dog has to make the best of what’s given to him. On arrival at the vet’s Graeme took charge of Billy and I was left to convince Shadow that come hell or high water, she was going into that building over there. Shadow begged to differ as only Shadow can. She hunched herself into the smallest fluffy ball she could and made little yelps of protest in the hopes that some kind dog lover would rush over and save her from this fate worse than death.

No kind dog lover being within hearing distance, I ultimately won by picking Shadow up and carrying her the short distance to the vet’s door. As soon as I entered the waiting room I stopped short. Graeme was totally surrounded by young girls!!! (The mob was soon explained - vet had more than his normal quota of assistants because he also had a number of work experience students there for the week.) Now I know that I think Graeme is pretty good stuff, but it must be admitted that young girls aren’t inclined to mob him in the streets, or even in waiting rooms for that matter. “Go get him a treat!” I heard one of the girls say to the girl on the outer edges of the huddle. My mind boggled at what this could possibly be! But everything became plain when she returned with a strip of rawhide. Even in my wildest imagination, I couldn’t see rawhide tempting Graeme to anything! Obviously the male getting all the love and attention was Billy. Somewhere in the middle of all those girls, on the end of the lead Graeme was holding, was Billy. Sure enough Billy was making new friends faster than he could make drool, so some of his admirers actually escaped without having to hose themselves down afterwards.

The wait for the vet was filled with vet nurses, receptionists, work experience girls and a few clients patting, feeding, cooing over and generally treating Billy like a superstar. At one point he was taken off to be weighed by the vet nurse. I couldn’t for the life of me think why he needed to be weighed to have a microchip implanted. Did microchips come in small, medium and large? And if they did was there any doubt about which size Billy would need? It worked out that Billy was weighed because the girls had started a sort of sweep on Billy’s weight. While no money actually changed hands there was some serious discussion about his weight before the guesses were made. Before taking him off to the scales, I was asked if I knew how much he weighed, but obviously my estimation wasn’t accurate enough for the sweep. I can now report that Billy weighs 64 ½ kilograms exactly (This story was written a few years ago and as of his last visit Billy now weighs a hefty 75 kgs).

And what was Shadow doing all this time? At first she settled in for her share of the fussing. After all when I pat Billy, my other hand is usually occupied patting Shadow. When I tell Billy he’s a gorgeous fellow, I immediately say similar things to Shadow. I have been trained to make sure that each dog gets exactly the same amount of attention. Unfortunately the vet’s girls didn’t seem to care about a little fluffy dog with dreadful medical problems. I talked to her and made a fuss of her, but it wasn’t the same as having these total strangers fawning all over her, so she retired to underneath the seat and sat there grumbling to herself about great big oafs of dogs who can’t live without being in the spotlight. Now I don’t want you all to feel too sorry for Shadow – she’s happiest when she has something to grumble about. She has become a crotchety old lady – there’s no other way of describing her, so she was quite content in her way.

Finally Ian, the vet, called our name and Billy’s legion of fans parted to allow him to enter the surgery. Billy, obviously suspecting that more treats and adoring crowds lay behind that door, was across the room in two bounds, dragging Graeme behind him while I had to haul Shadow by the lead all the way across the floor (thank goodness for shiny lino!). Billy was the first to be examined and made the most of his time with the Ian. He again tried unsuccessfully to distribute drool, apologised and tried to explain about the girls taking nearly all he had and the towel I was carrying taking care of the rest. The microchip was inserted while Billy was talking to Graeme (possibly requesting that Graeme intercede on Billy’s behalf, to make me lose the towel) and that was that. Shadow had been once again sitting under my chair, but this time there was no grumbling to be heard. Just as she seemed to know that we were going to the vet’s before we left the house, she seemed to know that she didn’t want any attention from this person in the green shirt.

Graeme lifted her onto the examination table (Billy had been dealt with on the floor – the table being just too small to hold all of him) and the vet began squeezing first this bit and then that bit of her anatomy. Billy rested his nose on the top of the table and offered to help, saying that he knew exactly where Shadow hurt. Shadow looked over the edge of the table and realised that all her dreams had come true! She was taller than Billy!! From her elevated position she curled her lip and told Billy to back off, this was her moment to be the star. Unfortunately this was also the moment Ian decided to take her temperature. Shadow’s eyes popped, she looked accusingly at me and then at Graeme. How could we allow such an indignity to be inflicted on her? It was over in a moment, but the damage had been done. Shadow refused to have anymore to do with Ian or his examination. She sat down; the better to protect that already violated part of her anatomy and gazed at the ceiling until the whole sordid incident was over. Ian pronounced that she had a sore back and that some anti-inflamatories should fix the problem.

Once more on the floor she sat down and ignored all of us. Graeme, possibly because he didn’t want to be associated with bringing pets to the vet and sullying his serious farmer reputation, decided to ask a few questions about sheep health to make the trip worthwhile. While he and Ian discussed nutrition requirements of pregnant ewes, Billy did his best to add his might to the conversation, kept his attention on the two men. Shadow just kept ignoring us all. As we were finally about to leave, Ian once more said that Shadow’s problem was a sore back and did we have any idea how that might have happened? I replied that Billy most probably trod on her – that now that she was almost blind and deaf, she’d walk under Billy’s feet and he wouldn’t see her down there until it was too late.

As if to prove my point, Billy put one of his huge front paws squarely in the middle of Shadow’s back as we left the surgery. Shadow yelped, snarled and snapped all at the same time (a tricky action, just too difficult to describe in words) and Billy jumped back into the surgery to avoid those sharp teeth. This brought a few of the female staff rushing out to make sure that Billy wasn’t in any danger, also giving them the opportunity to say one last farewell. Graeme escaped with Billy at the earliest opportunity and left me with Shadow to pay the bill. Shadow then said enough is enough and refused to budge from her comfy seat on the floor near the receptionist’s area. I knew that while the lino would allow me drag her to the door, the car park would present problems, so I picked her up and headed for the car. Once in the car Shadow curled up into an offended little ball and refused to enter into any conversations on the way home. Billy on the other hand was keen to know when we could do that again – preferably without that jab on the back of the neck next time.

We arrived home and Shadow skulked off to the laundry where she is now ensconced mumbling to herself about the lack of respect shown to an aging lady who just wanted to lie down and lap up the sympathy that should right now, but wasn’t, being showered on her by her concerned family. I’m going to take her first tablet out to her in a few minutes, but something tells me that won’t meet with her idea of showering sympathy.

Heat Wave

2009-02-20T07:14:00.000+11:00

A paddock on Spring Rock in the summer

This story was written in the summer of 2007 but is still pretty much what happens here when a heat wave hits Spring Rock.

In case you haven’t heard me loudly complaining, the weather here has turned extremely hot lately! The temperature has hovered in the late 30’s and early 40’s for over two weeks now and it actually outdid itself last week reaching 45 degrees Celsius (that’s around 110 degrees Fahrenheit in real numbers). The weather forecasters are being coy about when the cooler change might be coming. We keep hearing about chances of showers, or even storms, but they are just empty promises designed to lower our morale, in much the same way that their predictions of immanent rain all through the drought rubbed in the fact that there was really no chance of any such thing.

While all around me are finding ways to keep cool, get their outside jobs done before 6 a.m. (when the weather tends to turn nasty) and lie low for the duration, I become preoccupied with finding ways to keep the menagerie somewhere under melting point while maintaining peace and my normal pet quotient. With the diverse range and incompatible natures of the creatures under my care, that proves to be a real challenge. Last summer I solved the problem simply, by bringing Hedwig (the galah) into the house in her inside cage. I coaxed Shadow (the Silky Terrier type) into the kitchen and the ferrets had the run of the house while Graeme was elsewhere. For those times Graeme couldn’t be persuaded to brave the excessive heat out in the paddocks or sheds, I invented ferret air-conditioning. Ferret air-conditioning for the uninitiated consists of a bucket of water sitting on top of their cage, with a towel end placed in the bucket and the rest of the wet towel draped over the side to catch any friendly breeze, thus cooling the air as it goes into the cage. The ferrets also have a wet towel on the floor of their cage on which they can lay their hot little tummies. This arrangement worked well with all pets agreeing to live in harmony in the name of cooling down. Well, the ferrets didn’t actually agree to the living in harmony bit, but I kept a keen eye on them while they were inside to ensure that the cats, Hedwig and Shadow didn’t become Ferret treats.

Since Billy was added to the mix, things have become a tad more difficult. Billy has very few aims in life – to spread St. Bernard drool as far and wide as possible; to keep me cornered and patting him whenever the opportunity arises and to chew on any member of the pet brigade to see if it pass the Billy test for soft and fluffy on the gums. Added to these worthy ambitions is the fact that Billy is built for the Swiss Alps where temperatures of 40 degrees are unheard of except possibly in a sauna. I’ve tried various pet combinations in the kitchen on hot days and so far they have all been fraught with feelings of guilt on my part for the poor furry objects that are banished to the sweltering backyard while the chosen few bask under the air-conditioning duct.

Each time Billy enters the kitchen, his reaction is the same. As soon as he walks through the back door he has but one thought in his huge head – find the cats! He knows they’re in here somewhere and he takes it upon himself to sniff them out and get down to the serious business of cat chivvying. It took me a while to get the message across that he was a guest in the house and must demonstrate a guest’s good manners. While our human guests rarely harbour nefarious schemes towards the cats, and are therefore given free reign of the house, rule number one for Billy is that he is not allowed off the kitchen floor. The kitchen and dining room are in fact one big room and the lounge room runs off the dining room via an archway. This provides a dog who doesn’t play by the rules access to most of the house without the inconvenience of doors to barricade his way. After many discussions on the topic, with Billy trying to convince me it was just a slip of the foot, he eventually agreed to restrict his body and drool to the kitchen floor. He still maintains the option to wander further a-field should he think no-one is looking though. He has refined his agreement to the utmost, and usually sits with his body up against the demarcation line – the silver strip that hides the edge of the carpet where it meets the kitchen vinyl. He sits so close that if he takes a deep breath his rib-cage drifts over the line.

The cats at first chose to lie low in our bedroom where the air conditioner doesn’t reach, but after a few days of Billy infesting their kitchen, helping himself to their food, drink and cool air, the cats plotted revenge. It didn’t take long for them to realise that Billy was a virtual prisoner in the kitchen and they now take great pleasure in wandering up and down under the dining table just a few feet from the kitchen/dining room border line, in full view of one very agitated St. Bernard. Last night they got really brave and actually sat as close as they dared to the silver edging, only inches from Billy’s nose. For a while there I thought Billy was going to explode. He looked like a dog who had his feet nailed to the floor! The pain on his face and the whimpering sounds tugged at my heart strings, but the cats just smirked to themselves and rubbed up against my legs, while nodding at Billy in a supercilious way.

Billy’s drool causes certain problems of its own. Wandering into the kitchen in bare feet is fraught with danger both real and aesthetic. I had the bright idea of making Billy a bib out of an old towel tied around his neck with the length of the towel draped over his front. Billy took exception to this innovation and spends a great deal of time ridding himself of the unfashionable item. When he can’t remove the towel he resorts to the sneaky ploy of getting himself tangled in it, thus making me come to his rescue. All in all the towel proved to be more work for me than just wiping the drool off the floor every now and then.

Shadow’s role during all this is to sit on the floor by the kitchen sink grumbling her mantra, “Kitchens are for shelter from storms – there is no storm – nothing good can come of this.” While Shadow will throw her little body against the back door to get into the kitchen at the first peal of thunder, the only way to get her into the house on hot days is to pick her up, ignore her grumbling about disrespect for old ladies, and plonk her on the cool floor. Shadow wants it stated for the record that she is a lot tougher than that overgrown, namby-pamby excuse for a dog and she’ll show him what her generation and breed are made of. I fully believe that Shadow would sun bake in the hottest part of our yard if only she had a pair of sunnies and a beach towel. The word “heatstroke” means nothing to her.

Meanwhile with Billy, Shadow and the cats keeping cool in various parts of the house, my thoughts turned to the ferrets doing it tough out in their cage under our old apricot tree. I spend more time outside in the heat refreshing the ferret air-conditioning than is wise for a person. After ensuring that the ferrets are keeping relatively cool, my thoughts turn to TD and TOD (That Duck and That Other Duck), Russell Crow, Feather Duster and The Girls (our two roosters and six black hens). They all live up in the back yard under an enormous pine tree and possibly the coolest part of the yard. Now I know if, in the unlikely event I was able to catch them all, there’s no way Graeme would tolerate them becoming free range house poultry so all I can do for them is ensure they have plenty of water and add them to my worry list.

Hedwig no longer likes to come inside, preferring to remain in her shade cloth draped aviary. She welcomes visits from me providing I have a scoop of her favourite seeds to offer. To provide Hedwig with relief from the heat I put ice-cubes in her water dish and spray her with water until her feathers are soaked. Hedwig enjoys these little niceties and happily lifts each wing while I spray the water over her, unconcerned about the fact that we are on tank water and I’m standing out in the heat whiles she’s enjoying her ablutions. Once she is fully damp, I leave her to dip her beak into the ice water, and once again turn my worries to the ferrets.

Today I brought the ferrets inside in their indoor cage. I placed a nice big bowl of ice water in one corner and their food dish in the other. Miette never loses an opportunity to over dramatise things. When I lifted her out of her cage this afternoon she immediately assumed the guise of a dehydrated, unloved and overheated ferret. There she lay in my hands – limp, looking like a melted ferret, appearing to gasp for every breath. This display of intense suffering might have been more effective if I hadn’t had to remove her and Albus from their quilted polar fleece sleeping bag to bring them inside. As soon as she realised that she was being taken inside, she forgot her role as the heat struck ferret and perked up amazingly.

Billy, who had braved the heat to supervise the removal of the ferrets from their cage, pushed past me as I headed for the back door. He assumed the role of welcoming committee and offered to help settle the ferrets in. Albus and Miette adopted their usual, highly successful strategy of totally ignoring Billy. I tried various manoeuvres to drop the ferrets into their cage while at the same time using my body to block Billy who was trying to get a taste of ferret.

Under the terms of the “Graeme – Ferret Treaty of 2003”, negotiated after Miette’s brush with death early last year, the ferrets must remain in their indoor cage while Graeme is inside. Despite my pleading the ferret’s case for a free run of the house, Graeme refuses to go and find outdoor jobs in 41 degree temperatures, just so that Miette and Albus can run around the house enjoying the coolness. For those of you who don’t know, no ferret can resist chewing on Graeme’s toes whenever the opportunity arises. What special quality Graeme’s toes have over the general population’s I don’t know, but I’ve never me a ferret who could walk past Graeme’s feet and resist the temptation to sample those ferret delicacies.

Both ferrets refuse to honour the treaty whenever possible, and immediately they were ensconced in their cage began testing it for weak spots with a view to a gaol break, all the while ignoring the unfolding drama of my futile attempts to de-Billy the kitchen. After various unsuccessful attempts Billy was finally put outside and began his campaign to get back inside or die trying. So, with the accompaniment of regular scratching sounds at the back door, everyone settled in to enjoying the coolness of the kitchen. It was then that Miette found a new use for her water dish.

At first I thought that Miette was indeed overheated and had decided to end it all in her water dish. She began by taking lady like sips, savouring the coolness of the ice water. Then, without warning, she plunged her head into the dish and, with her nose on the bottom settled in for what looked like a long stay! Now I don’t know what the world record for a ferret holding its breath underwater is, but I didn’t want Miette trying for the new record. I stood beside the cage tapping at the water dish and making concerned sounds while encouraging Albus to talk sense to Miette when she came up for air. With a little smile on her face and the air of one going for broke, she once again dived for the bottom of the dish causing water to flow over the rim and out onto the kitchen floor. I couldn’t convince Miette to cease her impersonation of deep sea diving ferret and I ultimately left her to it so I could focus on worrying about Billy and Shadow, banished to the laundry to keep cool while the ferrets had their turn with the air-conditioner.

One thing is for certain though … whichever member of the Small menagerie takes refuge in the kitchen during the heat wave, we’ll still need to navigate puddles on the kitchen floor.

I think I need a pair of flippers!

And The Academy Award Goes To ...

2009-02-16T06:33:00.006+11:00

Ebony lying low so the camera won't find her.

I couldn't believe it was true. I went out to feed the ferrets the day after Miette died and found Ebony dead in the cage. Ebony hasn't been well for a while now, but I thought she was picking up. She'd finished her course of medicine and though she'd lost a lot of weight had started eating again. Two of my gorgeous ferrets in two days is just so hard to bare.

Ebony was terrified of humans when I got her. She was a rescued ferret and I imagine she wasn't treated very well by her former owner. It took me some time to get her to trust humans again, but once she did she had total trust. Ebony was my granddaughter Hannah's favourite ferret (she said all the others were too jazzy for her) because Eb would just lay in Hannah's arms and be calm and quiet.

I'm just so sad at the moment.

Here is the story I wrote a few years ago about Ebony and her mate Horton. Horton is missing Ebony this morning, but Jocie and the baby ferrets are doing their best to keep him busy.

And the Academy Award Goes To ...

I realise, apart from my initial introduction of them, I haven't told you very much about Horton and Ebony, my two not so new ferrets. So for a quick catch up on their arrival and settling in at Spring Rock so here goes –

As you might remember Ebony and Horton arrived within a week of Albus’ death. Miette was pining badly and I was worried that she was going to die of a broken heart. Ferrets are very social animals and let’s face it, Miette needs other ferrets to dominate or life just isn’t worth living. I contacted the New South Wales Ferret Welfare Society and they told me they had two very new ferrets who had just been rescued, but not yet socialised to the Ferret Society’s standards. That is, they couldn’t guarantee that they wouldn’t bite or have any other anti-social behaviours quite common among abused ferrets. There usual policy is to not allow unsocialised ferrets out into the world until they can guarantee good behaviour (a mighty big ask when you’re talking about ferrets!!!) I was desperate for ferrets to save Miette’s life and said, send them down as soon as possible!!! So they made an exception for me and Bec and Frances arrived on a mercy mission visit that weekend accompanied by two rather dazed ferrets and the rest is history.

Miette spent the first few days harassing and generally lording it over the newcomers and found a new lease on life. The two new ferrets, who quickly had name changes from Fetish and Shadow to Ebony and Horton were more than happy to accept Miette as top ferret and eventually peace reigned supreme in the ferret cage. Even though Miette is the top ferret her normal spot in the ferret pile is at the very bottom with Horton and Ebony curled up on top of her. I used to worry that she was being squashed (remember Miette is a severely undersized little shrimp of a ferret), but after watching her dispose of the two larger ferrets when she woke up and wanted to be up and doing things, I no longer worry about Miette. I imagine she enjoys being squashed by the other two or they’d never get to lie on her in the first place.

Ebony turned out to be the problem child. She is a beautiful sable ferret who came with an instinctive fear of humans - a legacy of her past life before she was rescued by the Ferret Welfare Society. Catching her required animal cunning on my part, but was helped by the fact that she had a low opinion of my IQ and thought all she needed to do was hide in the sleeping bag and I’d never figure out where she was. She’d shake and flinch whenever I picked her up and wasn’t above giving me a hard nip when the mood took her. With perseverance and plenty of bandaids I managed to convince her that not all humans were as horrible as the ones she’d recently lived with and she is now a happy, calm and very, very friendly little ferret. So much so that when it’s time for her nightly feed, she requires a cuddle before she gets stuck into her tucker. She and Tristan, my young ginger cat, have formed a combative friendship and spend hours happily ambushing each other in and around my fabric in my sewing room.

Horton is another kettle of ferret altogether. He combines a wicked ferrety sense of humour with almost manic energy. He loves nothing better than to challenge me to ferret duels and laughs at me when he wins. He always wins. He wins because he plays by ferret rules and that means no matter what the outcome the ferret wins. Horton’s other favourite past time is to think up clever ways to attract my attention when I’m outside. To get me to come to the ferret cage and pass the time of day with them seems to be Horton’s main aim in life.

With all the hot weather lately the ferrets found a new game that required team work. Their water container is a small automatic chook waterer. This is a plastic dome with a small dish that acts as a reservoir for their water at the bottom. When their container was empty the ferrets used to lie it on its side and roll it to the front of the cage so I could see they needed more water. Then, with the arrival of Horton and Ebony a new game was invented. This involved all three ferrets working together to tip the full container over so they could roll it to the front of the cage and get me to fill it again. For a while this was happening a few times a day. I tried appealing to their better nature and explained about droughts and the need to be water conscious with no success what so ever. I should have realized this before I wasted my breath. Ferrets don’t have a better nature. After much trial and error with ways of thwarting the ferrets' evil game, I came up with a system that prevents the ferrets moving the water container at all. I've tied it by the handle to the top of the cage and put pegs through the knot as an added precaution – you can never over engineer a ferret thwarting device! The outcome of this is that I have to keep a keen eye on the water level in the container. Ferrets drink a lot of water and on hot days all three ferrets like to lie with their chins in the reservoir which seems to use a lot of water somehow.

When I went shopping yesterday I did a quick check of the ferrets' water supply and was pleasantly surprised to see that they still had as much water as they did. When we came home I brought them inside and gave them their usual dish of water (which they always spill over their cage) and some snacks to be going on with for the day. I didn't put them outside until this morning because I couldn't negotiate the steps last night with my back ache. I put them out at 6 am when I'm not really functioning on all cylinders and returned to the house.

Later in the morning, after it was already heating up, I thought it might be a good idea to wash the ferret towels used in the cage for them to hide in and play in, seeing that Graeme was making anti-ferret noises yesterday and complaining about their smell. As I was hanging out the towels, Horton, who was up the back of the cage near the water container, saw me. He opened his mouth as if gasping his last breath, staggered to the front of the cage, while I stood rooted to the spot near the clothes line.

“Horton!!” I yelled but he gave no indication that he could hear me. He attempted to climb the front of the cage near their door, slid down the wall and lay there in a crumpled heap with his mouth wide open and not moving a muscle - the picture of a ferret dying of thirst!!!! I went into full scale panic (a normal mode for me) and rushed over to see if he was still breathing, calling his name and trying to get a reaction as I hobbled to the cage (I don't do rushing very well :) ).

As soon as I reached the front of the cage, Horton jumped up, ran to the water container and turned around and looked me in the eye. “Going to do something about this deplorable state of affairs?” he asked. Ferrets can be very formal when on their dignity. The water container was empty!! It works out that was Horton's subtle way of letting me know they needed water. Now I know ferrets are intelligent. I've seen so many instances of them being smarty pants before, but I ask you ... Would you believe that story if you didn't know what a truthful person I was? No? I understand perfectly. I still have trouble believing it and I saw it all first hand!!!

Miette

2009-02-10T07:02:00.003+11:00

Miette looking for a tasty spot to nip.

To all her fans, I just wanted to let you know that my gorgeous Miette has died last night She started to fail when the heat really hit us a few days ago. For the first few days of the heatwave our air cooler wasn't working properly and while I had her in a cage under a fan, she still had trouble dealing with the heat. Then one by one her little organs started to fail. Her liver gave out two days ago and she slowly turned orange. Her brave little heart was still fighting the good fight but Miette needed to sleep most of the time.

I kept her on my lap on an icepack wrapped in a towel at the hottest part of the day, even after the air cooler was fixed. She seemed to enjoy our time together and would crawl up onto my chest to get closer to me and we'd have a chat and a cuddle. I debated taking her to the vet over and over again, but she didn't seem to be suffering and the only ferret I've ever had to have put down suffered dreadfully when the vet couldn't find a vein in her tiny little legs. It seemed kinder to just let Miette fade away peacefully - which she did. I found her curled up as if asleep this morning.

Miette had a difficult start to her life. She was a rescued ferret who had been maltreated and just about starved by her first owner. Her determination and fighting spirit pulled her through that time and Miette's fighting spirit continued until her last breath. In her later years Miette mellowed considerably and while still ruling the rest of the ferrets with an iron paw, showed the gentler side to her nature more and more. She became totally lovable. I am so sad. I loved the little terror of the ferret world so much. I'm going to miss her dreadfully.

For those of you who haven't read all my Life At Spring Rock stories and don't know who Miette is, I've included the story of when Miette first came to stay here with us.

The Coming of Miette & Albus

I thought I'd tell you all a bit about how I find names for my pets. Miette and Albus are good examples of my methods so I'll tell you about them. Miette and Albus were both rescued ferrets obtained from the NSW Ferret Welfare Society. Miette, my little sable coloured female ferret, was starved during her growing years as she is the tiniest ferret I've ever seen. Albus on the other hand is an albino male and a giant among ferrets. When they arrived here as a Christmas present from my kids, they cringed at their names Umina (Albus) and Twinkle (Miette). If ever there was a less Twinkle like animal it was Miette.

Bec arranged to pick up the ferrets prior to Christmas, from one of the Welfare Society's volunteers who had a house full of rescued ferrets. When the “ferret lady” opened the door to Bec the floor seemed to be full of ferrets all running in mad panic. Behind the hoard of frenzied ferrets was one little ferret skittering along after them. The volunteer smiled at Bec, pointed to the little ferret and said, "That's one of your ferrets."

Just as Bec was beginning to think, "What a little cutie," the "little cutie" managed to catch one of the larger ferrets, wrestle him to the ground, grab him by the neck with her teeth and start to scream as if she was being murdered. The rest of the panicked ferrets were no-where to be seen - obviously hiding somewhere coward and shaking waiting for their turn. The volunteer separated the two ferrets with some difficulty, kept a tight hold on the little one who had immediately assumed the face of an innocent ferret, and looked around for the second ferret assigned to Bec. I imagine Bec was starting to wonder what my life was going to be like with this little critter laying into any other ferret in the place, but Bec knows I'm made of stern stuff and didn't flinch in her resolve to give me two ferrets for Christmas. By this time the volunteer had located an extremely large white ferret and scooped him up from his resting place (from what I know now about Albus I assume he was napping somewhere totally oblivious to the general ferret terror) where he greeted Bec with a huge ferrety yawn.

The volunteer then told Bec that the short, violent one was named Twinkle and the large, placid one was Umina and both were now her's. She must have seen some look of doubt on Bec's face because she explained that they always like to pair ferrets up when they go to new homes so they have a friend and that Twinkle was very difficult to pair up - what with her firm resolve to dominate or exterminate every ferret she met. She always used the same modus operandi - chase the targeted ferret, wrestle to the ground, bite back of neck and scream the building down! The doomed ferret then assumed a totally subjugated position, promised to call Twinkle Boss from now on and with a small gasping ferret equivalent of "Uncle" would squirm free or be freed by a human.

In the interest of preventing confusion I will now refer to Twinkle by her new name, Miette and Umina as Albus. Miette's wicked little plan for world domination was thwarted by Albus. Did he fight back? Use his superior size and strength to turn the tables on the little warlike ferret? Run faster than her??? Nope. Albus simply didn't run so was the first to be caught. As Miette's teeth sank into his neck (she looked rather like a flea holding on for dear life), Albus would give one of his signature yawns, roll over and go to sleep. It was the rolling over that was the real killer. Miette would then find herself pinned underneath this oblivious ferret with no other ferret inclined to come to her aid - funny about that. So she decided that Albus was OK despite his name and they became firm friends. She still terrorised all other ferrets, but Albus had immunity.

The volunteer also promised that Miette came with a money back guarantee not to bite. She'd been put through anti-biting counselling and was considered cured. Yeah right. She is the nippiest little ferret I've ever met. Totally incurable and I've cured quite a few ferrets of biting. In her defence though she doesn't bite to hurt, she just can't resist nipping.

I've wandered from the subject of pets' names haven't I? Sorry I'll get back on the subject now. When they were handed over at Christmas the first thing I decided to do after welcoming them to the menagerie was re-name them. I still had Theodore the ancient ferret. He was the reason I wanted these two (to keep him company in his old age) and I didn't want him sniggering at their names. After a lot of deliberation and wading through on line baby name sites I found Albus meaning white man - perfect for Umina. Then I found the perfect name for Twinkle - Miette - it meant small sweet thing. I was hoping the new name would take effect and she'd turn into a small sweet thing, after all she already had the small part down pat. So Albus and Miette they became.

For those of you who have started to worry about how Theodore coped with this little warlike ferret in the winter of his life ... there was a problem for the first few days. Miette had to sleep in separate quarters because she bullied poor old Theodore mercilessly. Albus was just pleased to have the attention taken off him and caught up on some much needed sleep (making twenty three and a half hours a day in all). I had the ferrets in the house on supervised visits and spent quite a bit of time removing Miette from Theodore's throat. Theodore's old mate, Isabella, was a pretty little grey ferret of peace who loved the world and never uttered a ferrety squeak in anger. He was therefore totally unprepared for this little bundle of spite and teeth. After a couple of days of being rescued Theodore took matters into his own paws. On this fateful day Miette moved in for the kill, Theodore refused to run this time - fine by Miette, all the easier to grab his neck and make his life hell. As she opened her mouth ready to munch some Theodore he did a neat little twist, grabbed Miette by the throat, lifted her off her feet and shook her like a furry little rag doll.

This time Miette's shrill scream was in earnest! I think she thought she was done for and realised it wouldn't be ferret heaven she was heading for either. I sat on the lounge not knowing what to do for the best. Should I intervene and let Miette think she should go back to her evil ways because I wouldn't let any harm come to her or should I sit still and hope Theodore didn't in fact kill her? While I was still debating the matter and Albus had slunk off under the lounge to keep out of the firing line, Theodore dropped her and wandered slowly over to me for a chat, without a look back at her. Theodore climbed up on my lap (a very clever strategy here, Miette couldn't exact revenge immediately). Miette sat on the floor and thought for a while and realised a new day had dawned and she would never again be Boss Ferret. When Theodore finally climbed down onto the floor again she crept up to him and kissed him on his nose. He told her wasn't one to hold a grudge and kissed her nose in return. The three of them became best friends and were inseparable until Theodore's death a few year's later.

Now did you notice the actual bit about pets' names in all that? You didn't!? Maybe you'd better go back and read it again because I promise you it's in there.

Fires!

2009-02-09T07:12:00.003+11:00

Bush Fire Reports can be found here http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/bushfires/

There's no funny story today. We are all grieving for those Australians who have lost loved ones and all they own. The Victorian fire death toll stands at 108 with more expected to be found. The fires have destroyed entire towns.

We are about 3 hours drive from the closest fires and yet our property is thick with smoke. I feel so sorry for those living in the middle of this horror.