Spring Rock Roll Call Part 2

OK, If you've all managed to recover from yesterday's marathon pet and family list, here are the rest of the Spring Rock inhabitants.

Miette,Horton, Ebony and Jocie (Miette is whispering, "I am the boss" in Jocie's ear.

The Ferrets.

If you stick with my blog long enough these little characters will feature strongly in coming stories:

Theodore - (deceased) ancient ferret and partner of

Isabella - (deceased) female ferret and gorgeous person

Miette (nee Twinkle) - pint sized female ferret and prima donna. Miette intends to rule the world and I'm not betting she won't. Miette doesn't realise that a seven year old ferret is considered very old and likely to expire any minute. Miette is eight and a half. I'm trying to keep her from finding out that she's really very ancient.

Albus (nee Umina) (deceased) - giant albino ferret and friend of Miette (Twinkle and Umina were names given to them by the NSW Ferret Welfare Society- yep there is a NSW Ferret Welfare Society- I'm not kidding!!)

Ebony - Beautiful sable ferret who lives by the peace among all (except for St Bernards) policy. Spends more time sleeping than anything else.

Horton - Large white ferret. Ebony's friend. Both came from The Ferret Welfare Society to keep Miette company when Albus died.

Jocie - young sable ferret who makes a tornado look slow. Jocie belonged to Erin and Troy, friends of Justin who have since moved to Queensland.

Shadow (deceased) - Australian Silky rescued by my kids and me from a shopping centre when we lived near Camden and 4 weeks later presented us with 9 pups to show her appreciation. Shadow lived to a minimum of 18 years old and spent her latter years partly deaf with cattaracts, she settled into a comfortable, grumpy old age and ruled the back porch and much larger dogs with an iron paw.

Apollo - (deceased) Maremma and dedicated to guarding the toilet in the laundry

Robbie - (deceased) his mate

Penny - 10, daughter of Apollo and Robbie (deceased). Neurotic Maremma and guardian of the sheep Digger - (deceased) Kelpie type almost useful sheep dog.

Dione - daughter of Tiger and Trixie (both deceased) Kelpie type and totally useless sheep dog

Billy & Shadow

A very unflattering photo of Shadow, but the only one I can find. Taking photos of Shadow was just about impossible unless you wanted one of her nose pressed against the camera lens.

Juno - sister of Dione and equally useless and neurotic to boot!

Billy modelling his bib and ready to come inside now.

Billy - St Bernard. A failed show dog who was expected to win championships with one small flaw - he hates going to shows. When taken to shows Billy would respond by impersonating a depressed and unloved St Bernard and refused to smile at the judges thus failing win any sort of prize at all. So he came to live here and now has a wonderful life terrorising the cats, befriending Shadow whether she likes it or not and helping me up after he's knocked me over.

Chasca & Chocha - Axolotyls. I took pity on Bec and her over stuffed fish tank and offered to share custody, but only two!!! I had to get these two past Graeme who has mild stress attacks when counting heads amongst the pets and coming up with a bigger number than he was expecting (it happens all too often for Graeme's peace of mind)

Poultry of Various Descriptions

Russell Crow - (deceased) White rooster who lived in the garden.

Harley - (deceased) one of Justin's roosters who lived with us on Razorback and came with us when we moved to Spring Rock even though it appeared to be bad for his health.

Feather Duster - Red rooster hatched by Justin as an Agriculture assignment. Lives in the chook pen with chooks, named that way to remind him that he could soon be put to another use if he didn't improve his attitude. Recognises this as an empty threat. Very bad disposition which has greatly improved with age much to the girls' relief.

Various brown hens known as The Girls - harem of Feather.

Pepper a small black Chinese Silky who adores Feather Duster.

Bob (deceased) a Poultry factory refugee who had serious identity problems throughout his life and had an unrequited love affair with a bantam frilly hen.

Jemima (deceased) - female duck given to me to spark an appropriate love affair with Bob and distract him from the chooks. A firm friendship only began to blossom just before Jemima was bitten by a snake.

TD (short for That Duck) (Deceased) - purchased to (unsuccessfully ) be Bob's new friend. TD also lied about his sex (pretended to be female so he could leave the School Ag. plot and come and live with us)

TOD (short for That Other Duck) (deceased) - Christmas gift 2001 as a new friend and mate for TD. Took this role seriously even though TD turned out to be a male - the less said about that episode the better!

Rams of Note

Stumpy (deceased) - White Suffolk ram and all round beautiful person. Main purpose in life was to eat everything that didn't move - the girls came second.

Dinoysisus - Suffolk ram - Very friendly ram who forgets he's not a pet and embarrasses us regularly by coming up for a chat and a pat when we are trying to impress ram buying customers.

Allen the Suffolk ram and Adonis, Wally and Arnie - White Suffolk rams, but lacking in personality.

Farrer - White Suffolk ram with loads of personality (possibly too much actually), who believes he was put on earth to build a bond between humans and sheep. Drafting rams with Farrer in the mix is fraught with difficulty.

A number of vasectomised rams - no I'm not kidding we really did take them to the vet for vasectomies - it has to do with getting the girls in the mood for the A Team (our un-vasectomised rams).

Approximately 400 - 500 unnamed ewes and lambs. I reserve the right to mention any one of these in particular and expecting you to know which one I mean. I suggest that should a sheep be mentioned by number (i.e. ear tag number) you just nod wisely and say, "Oh yes, I know the one you mean."

So there you are. A relatively complete cast of characters. I hope it isn't all to confusing for you. Many friends have had to go and have a good lie down to cure an aching head after being exposed to the list of my pets on mass. You might like to do the same just to be on the safe side.

Spring Rock Roll Call Part 1

Del has asked for a roll call of all the Spring Rock pets and photos. So I thought I'd include the humans who will appear at some stage in my stories and then start from the beginning at that little flat in Cabramatta when Graeme was so young and innocent and didn't realise that his hither to pet free life was about to change to drastically and forever. I've included photos of the present day animals, taken in the days of digital cameras. The earlier pets photos are small and blurry (I lacke photography skills in a big way). I'll dig some out one day and post them for you to see.

This is a very long list so I am going to post half today and half tomorrow. Still, go get yourself a cup of tea or coffee and be prepared to lose quite a bit of your day.

Graeme - Husband of 35 years and pet tolerater (that's the best he can do), except for ferrets, a species he's totally against.

Rosemary - Me!!! Pet lover supreme and the cause of Graeme's sufferings (well pet-wise anyway)

Rebecca (aka Bec) - Oldest child and only daughter. Fellow ferret owner. Bec is another pet lover and once distiguished herself by hatching and caring for 20 baby axolotlys even though she knew they'd be trouble. Following in her mother's footsteps Bec bought two Axolotyls as pets for her Kindergarten class. The Axolotyls became very friendly and millions of eggs resulted. Bec, who has far too many of her mother's genes couldn't leave them to die so spent a fortune on providing them just the right environment resulting in about 20 viable Axolotyl babies all in need of constant attention and feeding.

Grant - son in law and Graeme sympathiser. Also anti-ferret.

Michael(aged 4), Ethan (aged 2) and Liam (aged 5 weeks) -grandsons of mine and sons of Bec and Grant

Joshua -second child and elder son. Computer wiz and master tinkerer. It's Josh's fault that I own ferrets, but I've been careful not to point this out to Graeme.

Frances - the world's best daughter in law. Frances has been brainwashed by me and is now a quiter just like her mother in law.

Hannah (aged 5), Erin aged (4) and Claire (aged 1). Also brainwashed from a very early age and love to sew. (My grandchildren tally balances nicely doesn't it?)

Justin- youngest child and younger son, computer aficionado and Goth. Justin is as yet unmarried but has a new girlfriend, Savannah. Justin is responsible for the presence of a number of neutotic roosters coming into my life at different times. Why Justin specialised in roosters I'll never know.

Savannah - Justin's new girlfriend and a fellow ferret lover. I'm sure Savannah will feature in some of my future stories. My pet adventures tend to suck innocent bystanders in all the time.That's it for the human population.

Now for the pets. This list goes back 35 years remember so there are a lot of deceased pets in the roll call. This is not a complete list of my pets. Just the ones who feature in stories. I promise to update this list from time to time to keep you all abreast of who's who at Spring Rock.

Christie (deceased) - Pinto Pony I took possession of when I was 16 and she was 18 months old. Christie lived to the ripe old age of 36 and enjoyed a rich full life. Christie's favourite foods included bamboo blinds and cups of coffee or chocolate milkshakes.

Mahala - (deceased) Pinto pony (half Arab) and daughter of Christie.

Deci (deceased) - a german shepherd/labrador cross. She was the runt of the litter so of course I chose her. A devoted, concientious dog who spent my early years of motherhood trying to convince me to hand over the baby because she'd do a better job.

Aasta (deceased) - Old English Sheepdog. Gorgeous clown with a general lack of brains. Luckily she had Deci to look after her.

Sapphire, Topaz and Ophelia (deceased) - my cats who came to live with me in the flat. They were joined towards the end of our living in a little flat years by Michaelangelo a street wise tabby who taught these little ladies some very bad manners.

Mum-Puss - ( deceased) a one eyed cat we inherited with the farm. Mum-Puss constantly reminds us that we owe her. She let us move into her home without a protest and has tolerated and even at times welcomed our existence in her world. If only we would do something about ...

Lancelot - son of Mum-Puss and intellectually challenged cat. Lives to eat and currently weighs far too much

Guinevere showing her distain for the photographer

Guinevere - daughter of Mum-Puss and reformed human hater. Now loves to share my toast and marmalade with each morning.

Tristan - young marmalade cat born on my neighbour's property and came to live with me when said neighbour brought him over because I'd told her I love ginger cats. Favourite past-time is hob nobbing with rabbits and coming home with his ears covered in rabbit fleas.

Hedwig - Galah rescued from a disastrous meeting with a grain truck.

Nova Perris Kneebone - A retired racing pigeon who sought political asylum here at Spring Rock after being blown way off course during storm in a long distance race. Her previous owner didn't want to travel the many, many miles from his house to Spring Rock to pick her up and Pigeons being notoriously difficult to post, I opted to keep her here.

Tomorrow I start on the ferrets and dogs. See you then.