Well here it is the day before Christmas Eve, this year has seemed to simultaneously stretch for eternity *and* move at warp speed…some days the contradiction really plays with your mind! I’m not sure if I can even remember what I wanted to write about since my last post…
Settlement on both properties went smoothly (after some initial delays) and Eagleburra is officially ours, which is a very positive way for us to end this year. The electric fence is now working and horses (including Tazzy) again have respect for fencing. This is just as well as they snapped two star pickets on the yards the first night they were up, thank goodness they were capped and no injuries resulted.
The puppies are growing like weeds (and loving swimming in stock troughs and the creek) and Jack the kelpie came to take his sheep home.
Flicka is being a bit of a trouble maker, pushing the others around and making them move their feet just because she can. Sandy seems to have stepped up a spot or two in the hierarchy and is also being pushy with the boys at feed time. Bill is not much interested in being head horse but resents being moved around by the girls. And poor little Tazzy, I think he will always suffer ‘small pony syndrome’ – he really doesn’t want to be bottom of the ladder and will quite often show Flicka his heels when she moves him, but the others seem to ignore his efforts to boss them around, much to his disgust!
Between several 12 hour+ days Christmas shopping in Bunbury, getting up at ungodly hours of the morning (like between 4.30 and5.30am!) and once at night for puppies, making feeds, mucking yards, getting stock water to the tanks in all the paddocks, getting the vegetable garden started, trying to keep the house clean (major fail!), unpacking the last boxes (still not finished), I haven’t had much chance to work any of the horses, although Tommy and I had a great time and single handedly (single-horsedly?) moved the 650 sheep into the middle paddock.
Didn’t take him long to get the idea of what I wanted him to do, and he became quite agile at changing directions when the sheep tried to double back. I can’t wait to have our own sheep and cows to work with, I think that stock experience will definitely be good for the standardbreds that I get in to re-educate.
The cows will be later next year, but we can pick up the sheep hopefully after Christmas (more on that in another post though!)
