Monday I went to a "welcome to the district" morning tea, hosted by one of my next door neighbours. She's someone I've known since I was 16 and she was 12! We used to go on the school bus together. She moved away when she married but has been back on the property for 18 years. I've only seen her occasionally and we laughed about "who would have thought all those years ago that we'd end up being neighbours again"! As youngsters, she and her family lived on a farm two places up from ours. She and her siblings spent a lot of time at our place; I always used to feel that her mother never really approved of my brothers and me (or was that just a childhood thing where you thought all adults were disapproving)?
The neighbour on the other side of us was there too. I've known her since we were 18 or 19. She had a shop next door to my best friend at the time, who was a hairdresser. She is an artist and paints lovely landscape scenes, often of the nearby Bunya Mts. The other woman was someone I've known for probably 20 years - she makes tomato sauce and gave me a bottle to try.
So even though I've "kind of" lived in this district for a long time (the feedlot is half way between D and where we are now), we tended to go in the other direction for all our needs; there was never any reason to head this way so I didn't often see these girls. We talked a lot about the intervening years and caught up on the lives of our kids. It was a very nice morning and I felt very comfortable with them.
The artist was telling us about a fox/wild dog attack that occurred during the day last Sunday - they lost their ducks, turkeys and all their chooks except one little blue pekin. When I came home and told Gibbo (he's paranoid about a similar attack on our extended flock) he said that he'd heard the turkey gobbler gobbling that morning. Later in the afternoon we walked along the joint boundary - and there he was; he'd survived the night out in the open. Drew and I herded him along the wheel tracks to The Compound and got him inside (while holding back The Marauders). He (the turkey) got quite excited when he saw the two turkey hens. I rang the neighbour to say we had him but she doesn't want him back - the pen was wrecked in the attack. So now we have a lovely Bourbon Red gobbler to add to the mix.
Drew and Poofy had a ride around. Poofy loves the bike; it's hard to get him off it.Actually it's sometimes hard to get Drew off it too.
Monday night we went to town to a poultry meeting.
Wednesday G went to Surat to draft this year's bulls; he came home yesterday. Drew has been working each afternoon or night, either at the bottle shop or pub. He cooked spag bog one night and last night, chicken kiev from scratch. He even made the garlic butter and fresh breadcrumbs; and he made a hedgehog slice. Awesome.
I think my son is getting in touch with his inner hippy.
It's an animal's life in our house. Especially if you're the cat who runs the joint.
This weekend I have more jobs planned; hay into the chook pens, make up the first batch of compost, finish cleaning the tank garden, make lemon butter, spray the weeds....and maybe a bit of housework. Maybe.
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