My Sisters Pics!

As well as having a very photographic Pa, l also have an incredibly talented Big Sis as well in the photography department! Here are just a few of some of her lovely shots she has taken here in Tasmania and in Victoria.
This one is the Margate Train in Margate over here in Tassie

And this is the only other one l know as its our old veranda looking over the Cricket Ground at Glen Huon!

Oh and this one................Home Hill Winery in Ranelagh! Always sells a good bottle of Pinot this place!

Always lovely photos!

Platypus and Paddocks

Yesterday Geoff and l took the goats, dogs etc down to the river and we saw a Platypus! Amazing! It was swimming in the middle of one of the ponds before it goes under the bridge. We could have probably watched it for longer until a certain orange goat came flying around the corner and scared it away!The previous owners had said there were Platypus in the Rivulet but it was lovely to see one with our own eyes!

On Sunday morning Mighty Martin came around with his slasher and did a days paddock clearing for us. The paddocks look fantastic with all the weedy high growth gone and clumps of blackberries and reeds too. It was a job magnificently done and we as always love him dearly! Go Mart!

The animals love the easy walk trails it created!

The Main Man of the Day!

In several areas Geoff had to walk in front to peg out the rocks which stuck out a bit too far!

 l think Geoff wants one!

The paddocks looking fine!

The little goats are going well. Lizzie is a fairly bland sort of a little goat and is happy to go with the flow and doesn't seem to get stressed about anything. Probably a good thing as the OTHER one certainly makes up for it. l sat with them for  a while in the sun this afternoon while they played on the rocks.Lizzie soon settled down to enjoy the last warm rays but Toggles would do no such thing. Trying to get a photo of her is near impossible! l resorted to having to hold the camera away from ME as that's where she always is! Either on my lap or trying to be! Here she was trying to eat the camera strap.............l think we have created a monster..................

See any resemblance????

Foxgloves and Things

A damp misty Tasmanian morning. Lovely. The foxgloves are just about finished which is good as once they are gone l will be digging them all up out of the paddock as they really are quite a toxic plant for animals. They don't seem to touch them (nor do all the wallabies) but l would rather they weren't there beautiful as they may be!.

Meet a funny little new addition to the household! Mum gave it to us the other day. It is solar powered and when the sun is shining it happily dances away in its little colourful pot! In the mornings it still smiling but still as a statue but by mid afternoon its dancing merrily away into the late evening! Really cute!

It was a warm night last night (for Tassie!) so Geoff and l lit up the Bush Pig (our bbq!) put some kero lamps in the Walnut Tree, covered the table with candles and had a lovely evening sitting outside in the absolute silence! No cars doing burnouts, no neighbours.. nothing!Bliss!

To top off our evening we witnessed a spectacular Aurora Australis. Not quite as spectacular as the one shown below but lots of green murky lights and flashlights of colour across the skies.It was stunning.

Today however has been very wet. And now our front gate is finished l got home from work this afternoon to find a whole bunch of wet sheep in the driveway. (hopefully eating all the grass!!)

They didn't seem terribly impressed and hurriedly shot into the lean to shelter when Geoff opened the gate. l think they are still too freshly shorn to not be worried by rain!

Little lambs are doing well and out with the rest of the flock now albeit always a little behind!!

Beautiful Evening

Today l went to our local  animal produce store and bought up big with serious 'farm stuff"! l bought vaccines l have to stick in the goats necks (yikes!) l bought wormers for them all, l bought hoof trimmers and l bought horrible little rubber bands to go around the lambs tails and the boys dangly bits!! Poor little scraps l won't look forward to that at all. Up until now we have borrowed our neighbours but l think the time has come when we have to have all this stuff ourselves. They have a couple of weeks grace before we have to do it. It only seems to bother them for  an hour or so then they seem fine. Cruel at the time and l hate it but nowhere near as awful as leaving their tails on.

Today was warm. Everyone was quite lethargic by the afternoon. The goats especially. They spent the afternoon lolling in their little palaces doing not much at all.

When Geoff got home we took off about the place with a bottle of champagne (don't know why exactly it just seemed  to be that sort of an evening.)

We hung around the front gate for a bit too long which bored the pants off the goats who settled down in the sun until we were ready to move on

It really was a beautiful evening and we dithered around doing not much at all. We moved a few pieces of timber out of the sheep yard but not until Yours Truly had scrambled up them and fallen off! Would we expect anything else?

Almost New Arrivals!

This afternoon after Geoff finished work we drove to Lymington to check out our next 'soon to be' couple of residents for our place!  We actually have a choice of two. Either a three year old or a two year old . Both in calf and both with a heifer at foot. This one pictured is the two year old with her teeny tiny little calf to her left. They are Dexter cattle, an old Celtic breed. They are very popular over here. Mainly because they are tiny but great beef producers. This little thing is minute!!! Hopefully they will get delivered in the next couple of weeks. We hope so! The grass won't stop growing! So that's very exciting to see them. We are not sure how we will go with cows, neither of us ever having had one before. But we are firm believers in food conquers all, so we are confident in a few weeks she will come running at the sound of wheat rattling in a tin. Everyone else here does!!

The rest of the day l mowed! Like l said..the grass is growing! Lovely sunshine but still lots of rain. The Walnut tree is finally in full bloom and is quite glorious. When you see it from a distance its span is at least twice the width of the house. Looking forward to the long warm summer evenings outside under it! (l presume we WILL get some warm summer evenings this year?)

As l was around the place all day today l let the kiddies out to play in the big paddock. They had an absolute ball.They played on the rocks,ate blackberries (yay!!) galloped around like mad things ......................

 

and basked in the sunshine under the tree. l am sure they will be sleeping well tonight!

 Elle and her babies watched and slept carefully from a distance!

Here's a photo l meant to put on yesterday but it was in my other camera. Here is the first boy born probably only half an hour old. We had a yellow lamb last year. Its more common in twins and indicates a stressful birth. Its called Meconium staining and happens during the birthing process. Luckily for us it caused no problems and he quickly recovered. No idea if the second one was yellow too as we weren't there but its certainly a surprise first time you come across an egg yolk coloured lamb!

Luckily the yellow goes away very quickly. .............................imagine if it didn't??

Hey........it wasn't me........................... it was the Internet! You can find EVERYTHING on there!!......

New Arrivals!

Elle and Loise, our oldest ewes have both been due to lamb any day! This morning old Elle parked herself in a corner of the paddock away from the others. At 7.30am she was still there alone,but by 8.15 she was a proud Mum of one very cute little boy!

Always a relief to see any baby delivered safely l went to work to tell Geoff about our new addition.

So it was a double delight when Geoff called in at lunch time to check if all was OK to find another one in the grass as well!

Both boys and both white which was a slight disappointment as we were hoping for a bit of colour but happy Elle is doing OK as she's no Spring Chicken and these are her first twins she has ever had!

Enjoying the warm (ish!) sun!

Hopefully Louise will have hers in the next day or two.

The other babies on the place are all going great guns! l am now stealing photos from our dear friends who visited us last weekend and as always took some gorgeous photos while they were here.

Miss Lizzie the perfect little goat and two of our growing geese!

Toggles...........a bombshell, a hurricane, a right royal Pain in the A....a terror and a little rascal! All rolled into one incredibly cute little goat!

Butter wouldn't melt.................!!