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 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.