Weaning Number 3

I am happy to announce that this morning's weaning went so smoothly it has left me with a slight feeling of disquiet - our laneway system between paddocks seem to be working well and it may be that these two are just our fattest and greediest sows and when faced with the choice of children or food forget they ever had babies in the first place. I am a little disappointed that my 3 handraised youngsters no longer even recognise me and bark and run away in much the same way as all the others - Dale disgraced himself by having to be lifted over the fence legs first because he was one of two that refused to go out the gate. Meanwhile Archie is in mourning as the family, including my sister, left yesterday. The kids are feeling the loss as well, however we are going to try and go to Sydney some time in the next couple of weeks.... it has just occurred to me that we haven't sat at a traffic light since August (Mudgee is a town of roundabouts) and that just doesn't seem right.

James' ferret has been christened Jessie - we have a farmyard of animals now almost exclusively named after Toy Story characters, as you can see our attempt at the Good Life has not extended to chucking in the television. We did attempt this at the beginning, primarily because ours blew up before we left, however after a month we went into the local electronic store to get something else and 15 minutes later found our children lying on their stomachs with heads in hands entranced in the middle of the tv section. Worried that this would happen when they went to people's houses we decided to scrap the idea and promptly bought one. Anyway, after a day of numerous trips to the hardware store and much hammering and noise coming from the shed, James presented her with a ferrett palace. She loves it so much we haven't seen her for 24 hours but we can hear her rustling about in it. All hopes of a rabbit free property are now resting on her little shoulders, however she is actually quite sweet and follows James around when he lets her out for a run. Despite my earlier misgivings I am not sure that she wont end up sleeping in front of the fire with the dogs on a winter evening - James assures me however that she will continue to have her unique odour - or as the kids say 'yuk, she stinks' - so maybe not. Happy New Year to everyone.

Christmas Greetings

Well, I can hardly believe that Christmas is over - Emily had a tantrum this morning because there was no advent calendar - the explanation of which she wasn't happy about as I think she thought that chocolate before breakfast was a routine that should obviously continue indefinitely. Not only did we have a lovely day, but so did the animals - fundamentally because they are all still alive. A couple of days before Christmas the ducks obviously got wind of James' appraising looks as they went about their daily business. They took to the dam and refused to come out no matter how much food was shaken or stones were thrown in (to shoo them out). We have had buckets of rain over the last week - so much that I discovered yesterday we in fact have a dam on this property I didn't know existed. The rain meant that there was not only a rushing river at the back of the property but also an overflow from each dam to the next, the ducks utilised this well and swam from one dam to another, somehow evading the foxes and there wasn't a lot we could do about it. From Christmas Day onward however they came back to the shed and have been behaving ever since?? Archie the sickly piglet has been adopted and nursed to health by my lovely sister, who he faithfully follows around and screams at when he wants a feed. As you can see he has happily joined the Ormiston dog pack and I have no idea how I am going to introduce him back into pig society.

Today James is the proud owner of .... a ferrett. I think my baby animal tolerance is actually perhaps nearing its limit. We have such a bad rabbit problem (I guess like all Aussie properties) that the local department of agriculture have advised gassing/poison/traps. We don't like the idea of any of those - poison oats may be found by pigs & dogs, traps are too horrible as is gassing. The solution therefore seems to lie in Coco, James, a gun and his new as yet unnamed ferrett. I am wondering how long it will be before we are known as the 'crazy Pom and his wife up on the hill'.

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas too and are looking forward to the New Year. Merry Christmas!

Piglets and Puppies

Excitement is reaching fever pitch here as Christmas becomes closer - at playgroup on Thursday the local police drove up with sirens wailing and one of the local policeman had obviously been made to dress as Santa as punishment for some misdemenour or other at work. Despite having no beard and looking fairly unconvincing to most of the kids (they mobbed him like a pack of dogs) Felix was completely speechless and sat staring up at him waiting for his present with a look of amazement on his face. Emily was similiary affected and couldn't believe that Santa was able to get a police escort. Within a couple of minutes Felix however had turned his attention to the other policeman and somehow had them showing him their batons and handcuffs and running alongside the policecar with its lights flashing.

Today Archie, the handraised piglet above seems to be fighting fit - everytime I say this and think about putting him back with his mother however he has one of his turns and tries to die so I am not sure which way it is going to go. Woody is doing very well and yesterday almost got trampled by both the goats and one of the sows. Like a true farm dog he was then tied to the wheelbarrow with a piece of bailing twine when I had to go into the paddocks which he thought was completely unacceptable. He then decided to show me how helpful he could be by helping to bring in the geese, much to my disbelief. I expected it to be a couple of months before seeing any herding type behaviour unless he really is part dingo and is actually showing the signs of a ruthless and efficient hunter (with my behaviourists hat on I could draw many similarities but will spare you from it so fear not). However, he locked on to the geese and crept up next to them and was a great help, he then chased the chickens into their run - something which usually has me running and swearing and promising the errant chicken that he is the one that will end up in the pot if he doesn't do what I say. Overcome with the fun of it all he then ran into the middle of them scattering chickens everywhere and ate their food - so I guess an 8/10 all up. A trip up the street yesterday and the post office completed his education and I couldn't wake him for about 2 hours afterwards.

We are off to see some Wiltshire Horned Sheep today - which one of the locals who is far more knowledgeable than us has told us not to touch with a barge pole as they are worse to keep in than goats. The attraction is no shearing/crutching/mulesing, however I am not sure if the escaping thing levels the scales and we should maybe get a more traditional breed (or none at all?). James and Fiona are going to plough the bottom field and plant rather a lot of garlic which apparently is a surefire money making idea as it is very hard to find local garlic... I will be sure to post photos.

Woody is eating a chair so I guess I had better go to sort that out and the kookaburras are laughing at me so I guess I can take that as a sign to finish.

New Years Resolution???

Okay, okay, after much procrastination I guess today is the day I start writing about the goings on of our little farm in Mudgee. Although it isn't the eve of 2008 yet, amongst my resolutions, maybe between the usual 'go to the gym'/'drink less alcohol' will be nestled 'keep a weekly blog so everyone knows we are still alive'. I feel like I am writing a round-robin letter, which is probably why I am starting this today... partly guilt over not getting Christmas cards into the post in time. Anyway on to the bacon. I have decided not to give a 6 month history of what has happened here, but I suppose I should give a quick breakdown of who is doing what:

James: has gone from one extreme to another very well. He is not too confused about Christmas although is still insisting we have a full Christmas meal in 35 degree heat with all the trimmings... Life at the vet clinic wrestling large (?) dogs has changed to wresting very very large pigs. He tackles this with an ability that often means that I am unable to watch as I contemplate life as a single parent. Our first attempt at weaning our piglets is a very good example. At the time we were very impressed with our sows ability to mix with each other and cross feed piglets and allowed them to all form a bit of an NCT class in the maternity wing where they drank coffee and discussed who got the best night's sleep etc. Weaning, we thought, would simply be a matter of driving out the mums and piglets and lifting the littler ones over the fence. We all know that pigs are intelligent - they are also quite stubborn - our girls decided that they were very happy in their corner of the world thanks very much and despite much pushing/pleading/cajolling/swearing refused to budge. Not to be defeated, James decided to take matters into his own hands and had received a handy tip from a local pig farmer who told him that if you pick a piglet up by the leg it won't squeal. This seems to work to a point - plus when they weigh about 20 kilos, as ours did because we weaned them a little late, it takes two legs. This meant that James had to grab them and run as fast as he could from one end of the paddock to another in order to get them over the fence into the weaner paddock. This is no mean feat considering that he was chased by all the sows that were in the field who don't care who squeals, they assume it is one of theirs and come out guns blazing. He did it 13 times, by which time I needed a shot of gin and had to watch from a distance, and he needed 5 litres of water. Apart from that he has been kept himself busy building fences, sow huts, pig-arks, ploughing, planting crops, fixing tractors, chasing chickens and castrating our goat. As well as vaccinating horses and working for both local practices when they need him....

Felix: after spending too much time saying 'when is this holiday over so we can go back to London' and flatly refusing to go to pre-school unless his old teacher Liz was there, Felix seems to have settled in pretty well. I underestimated what makes him feel most secure and at home when I made the decision not to bring over his bedroom furniture, thinking that he could have some new stuff which would be very exciting for his new room. After we had been here a month I asked how he was enjoying Mudgee, to which he replied "Its okay, but when are we going back to London"..yet again. I asked him why he didn't like it at our new house and he said "I do like it Mummy, but I just miss my bed". I brought out his toddler duvet and pillow (very tiny) and had them on his bed for another month and it seems to have done the trick. He has also made friends and started cricket and swimming too. He still keeps his English accent, much to his friends delight (who think he sounds like Peppa pig??).

Emi: what can I say about Emily, when she is not naked with her gumboots on and running around the garden with unbrushed hair because I can't bear the tantrums she is a delight - even when she is she is still very entertaining. She is very opinionated and asks lots of questions and after finally giving up on asking when our chicken was going to 'turn into' an egg, has taken on the post of egg collector. This terrifies me as she often disappears off and doesn't tell me and I am awaiting my first snake in the hen house. She is also doing swimming and spends a lot of time refusing to do what the teacher asks and demanding that she stands closer in order that Emily can keep a vice like grip around her neck...I got her some floaties for Christmas.

Me: well, not working has been an interesting change. Juggling the animals and the children has been mostly good (rarely but sometimes unbearable of course) and despite my long history of killing all things green and growing (even the cactus on our kitchen window sill) have managed not to kill the vegetable garden (with an awful lot of help from our trusty campers up the back)and have somehow got to grips with mowing a lawn (for the first time in my life...yes really I am that hopeless). I spend a lot of time swearing at the chickens whilst trying to chase them in for the night and despite the fact that I thought I might have a year off from the animal behaviour malarkey, I can't help myself when it comes to the pigs.. unlike James I am simply a) unable and b) too scared to challenge the pigs physically. Actually mostly I am just a terrible wimp around them, however I am enjoying outwitting them when it comes to moving them and happily, I seem to be more stubborn. I like to think of it as the 'rubbish city girl turns farmer' option of animal management. I have named all the pigs and know them pretty well and feel I may get a bit of a fanatical glint in my eye when I start banging on about sow stalls and pig management. So far I haven't started wearing overalls...

As I type this I have Coco asleep at my feet and new member to the family "Woody" (named after Sherrif Woody from Toy Story by the kids) screaming blue murder in his puppy crate about how rubbish this family is compared to being with his Mum. He joined us today as hopefully our working dog - I say hopefully as genetically he has the credentials but it remains to be seen as to whether we can actually convince him how to do what we want him to.. I'm reading up on it so hopefully that will be enough.

Our pigs (just so you can keep up in future posts) consist of the Berkshire girls: Andrea, Beverly, Gloria, Rosie and Lillian and the Whities (also called the Royle Family for their disgusting behavior and unsanitary personal hygiene): Lucy, Harriet and Debra. We also have a boar called Maguire and about 45 piglets but I am losing count. Together with Dora (the Explorer) the goat, her 2 kids Flora and Bam, our 4 geese, 9 ducks, 12 chickens and 2 cats its like, well, a farm.

That is the story so far - I'll put up some pictures so you can see what it has entailed. We are off to deparasite the 9 weedy piglets we got on the cheap yesterday.. Will leave with the thought that it is 6 sleeps till Christmas as I am reminded by the advent calendars the kids bring into me at the crack of dawn each day and Felix has been reassured that despite the fact there is no snow here, Santa's sleigh has wheels that work if all else fails.