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.