Cattle Feed

The cattle get fed hay regularly, but last week Roger started feeding some grain mix in these troughs in their paddock.

Naughty Ram

Roger took the Poll Dorset rams out of the ewe mobs last week. The usual paddock that he keeps the rams in wasn't available, but he found a paddock for them. But one naughty ram didn't like to stay in the paddock. He wandered around wherever he pleased, and was very difficult to coax back into the paddock.

Here is the naughty ram near the house.

I think he liked the look of the green grass on our lawn! The lawn, which is watered regularly, is the only bit of green around at this stage of the year. The green grass is also popular with kangaroos. If we wake up early enough, or get home late enough, we catch a couple of roos on the lawn. Otherwise we just see the evidence that they leave behind...

New Bikes

Apple Fun Park, Donnybrook

The girls at the top of what they called the "eiffel tower"

A few weeks ago we were heading to a birthday party at Bridgetown, but we didn't make it (sorry Sonia, looks like you had a good time). In the morning I'd had a very sore throat and by the afternoon a fever had developed, and I knew I had tonsillitis for the second time since being home. But we were half-way there, and I thought that if I just took some paracetamol I might get better enough to go to the party. Of course I didn't, but while I lay alternatively sweating and shivering on a picnic blanket on the ground, the kids had great fun at the best playground around. By the time we decided that we wouldn't be going to the party it was getting late, so we bought fish and chips and ate them at the playground. That is why the photos are taken in the dark...

The Apple Fun Park at night: a kids' paradise...

Locked Out

Everybody knows that you should never leave a baby unattended in a car. But what about a baby lamb?
On Friday evening I was witness to a baby lamb, wearing a disposable nappy (you need to cut a hole for the tail), and left unattended in a car outside the roadhouse. The moral of this story is most definitely that a lamb should never be left unattended in a car.
A local lady (we’ll call her Mrs F) had just ducked in to pick up some take-away food for a quick Friday night dinner. She took her car keys from the ignition and threw them on the front seat as she jumped out of the car to pick up and pay for her dinner. The lamb drew attention to itself when it activated the car’s hazard lights. We joked about the old-fashioned cars with door locks that pushed down into the door, and reminisced about a puppy locking his owner out of the ute. Mrs F’s car is much more modern and sophisticated, with door locks on the side of the door near the door handle, so that could never happen...
So why couldn’t she open the door? Because her car’s sophisticated central locking system had been operated by her cute little lamb as it trod on the car keys left on the driver’s seat! If only the lamb was clever enough to press the “unlock” button to reverse the action. Coaxing the lamb onto the driver’s seat only succeeded in having the keys flip over so that the button was now out of reach. The car was well and truly locked.
The saga continued on for more than an hour outside Deb’s Diner as various local yokels tried to break into the car with the tried-and-true method of a bit of hooked wire squeezed through the door seals. Then the professional was called and our local RAC man brought his gear to try to make the job easier. The final solution was to activate the boot opening lever on the floor of the car, and entering the car through the boot, which presented it’s own problems.
So locals take heart. If your late model car is left unattended but locked, it is unlikely that anybody local will break into it in a hurry. And never leave a nappy-wearing lamb unattended in your car!