Williams Gateway Expo

The children have been on holidays for nearly three weeks. School went back on Wednesday this week. During the holidays we did a few fun things together, and Matthew was at the farm, which is always nice.
On the middle weekend of the holidays I took the kids, and Michael our French visitor, to the Williams Gateway Expo. It is really a country fair or show, but the official title sounds like it is much more.
The best thing about the expo was that there were lots of free activities for the children, like an baby animal farm where they could touch and feed the animal, the Scitech display (hands-on science), a bouncy castle, face painting and roller-blading.

Odette experimenting with magnets

Odette on the bouncy castle

Matthew playing laser games

Hugh in roller-blades about five sizes too big

Odette fitting all the protective gear

Hugh touching a piglet

Sophie trying to climb a rope ladder at the Gymbus

Bonnie trying the rope ladder climb - the goal was to hit a bell at the top to win $50.

Wild Animals

OK. Those last three were not so wild.
We had fun at the zoo last week.

Cattle to Market

Last week some cattle went to market. They were young ones left over from last year, or cows that were not pregnant. There is no place on a farm for a cow that will not produce a calf.
We usually send our cattle to Harvey Beef, previously E.G. Green & Sons at Harvey. As they are having some trouble at the moment we would have had to wait weeks to book cattle in with them. (And we still remember the nervous wait we had when E.G. Green & Sons was liquidated just after we had sent 40 grain-fed yearlings to them a few years ago. We eventually got our money, but it has made us a bit wary.)
So instead, the cattle went to auction at Boyanup.
(Oh, apart from the one that is in our freezer as steaks, roast beef, mince and sausages!)

Domino

Domino is our pet calf. He is big and strong and boisterous, which is a contrast to our previous pet calf. Annie was small and fragile, a twin abandoned by her mother. We had to nurse her back to health and the girls would fight over who would feed her.
Not so with Domino. He is shacked up in the sand-pit under the cubby house, for want of better accommodation. When he is let out of his pen the girls make sure they are safely up the ladder in the cubby house, or at least well out of his way. I have a bruise on my lower leg (my calf) from one of his kicks, and he has tried to hyper-extend my elbow by bunting me when I was feeding him.
But Hugh loves to run and play with Domino. He is a calf-wrangler. When Domino sits quietly in the sun after a feed, Hugh will sit next to him and talk to him and stroke his fur. Hugh is not afraid of a little calf like his big sissy sisters are!

A Calf is Born

This is what I could see from my window on Good Friday morning.
I didn't set up a tripod, or venture off the veranda to get a better view, and I didn't stay long enough to see the calf stand or take its first drink. Breakfast and kids howling for cornflakes saw that I didn't linger...