A prickly story

Trace and I have been busy this weekend clearing the barb wire fence between our place and Gwen's so that Chass can come and clear the little oaks and paperbarks from the fence line. All in preparation for the fencing to be done in a fortnight or so. This pic shows the barb wire fence before I removed it.

What? You ask where the wire is? Yes, that's right - it was quite a job to extract it from the tall paspalum grass and lantana in places, but we got it done before the rains started in the afternoon. If you click on the pic to see the large version, you'll spot the wire either side of the old post on the right. There were three strands to remove from 120m strip. Ever tried pulling a length of barb wire through the holes of an old fence post?

That's Grace in the shot. She and Toby insisted (as always) that they come and 'help', too.

The road to the Far Side - part 2

Okay, here is the road with roadbase applied - this one's for Thijmen more than anyone else. Special request. ;)

The enormous pile of timber in the foreground is what was cleared off the hill and will make a fine bon fire in another 6-8 months. I have sown millet and rye grass on the bare slope, so no need to be worried about soil erosion.

You can just make out the stables in the background. And as you may have noticed in the foreground, I had the back paddock slashed the other day in readiness for the fencing to be done.

The four amigos

Last week Nicky brought down two more calves to keep Hercules company. If you haven't heard about Herc, he was the second of twins and his mum left him in he paddock after birth, unlicked and unloved. So we took him on to rear - a poddy, yes.

Trace has taught him how to drink from the teat and after 6 weeks he's put on some good weight. But he was getting pretty lonely all by himself in the stable - the pony girls would come and check him out every now and then, but they are primarily concerned with stuffing their faces. So he got a new brother and sister.

Zeus and Xena are only about a week old at the moment, but already the same size as that poor little runt Herc. They seem to all get on fabulously, even at the twice-a-day feeding session. Xena was real good at figuring out the teat thing, but Zeus (on the left) seems to forget every 30 seconds and needs a bit more TLC at this stage. Well, he is only a boy, after all as all the girls around here like to point out - frequently.

The road to the Far Side

Click on any pic for a larger view

We finally had a road put in so that we can comfortably get down the back without having to go through neighbour Justin's place.

It has long been a point of annoyance that the previous owner did his subdivision the way he did, effectively almost cutting off access to the paddock flats, but the problem's been solved! And most of it was done on BarterCard (not an ad!) of which I have a sizeable amount built up without too many opportunities to spend.

Since then we have had roadbase put down and I'll go down the back later to take some more pix.