New Horse

All horses got through the Eq Flu ok, thank heavens. Mac cut his leg on barb wire, daily dressings by owner T, and O. Coming along ok.

Big News. Bargain Thoroughbred, Evie, 16.5 hands. Arrived just now. Chestnut mare - looks very much like Cedar - who will be going into foal asap. Quiet, well mannered and talented jumper etc. C things O should be going pre-Novice on her by Feb 08.

Equine Flu

Despite almost two months of strict quarantine after two of ours (Cedar and Mac) went to Carrols Ranch and then managed to avoid the flu until this week. Despite quarantine measures even the vets are saying it is airborne. Made the local news our outbreak did being apparently the closest outbreak to Newcastle. Keisha got it first, followed by Mac, and by the end of the week everyone had it. Luckily it seems amazingly mild. No one is off their food. Hopefully it will pass safely.

Bandit the Beautiful Beagle 1995-2007 RIP

Oh, we were all out when somehow you wandered onto the main road on Lawson Avenue and got hit by a car about 9.30 pm last night. The RSPCA ambulance was called, they tried to help you. But your injuries were too severe. I picked your little body up this morning. We all stood around your fresh grave in the orchard as we laaid your life to rest. you will always be with us in our hearts and thoughts. Clever, funny, adorable friend. Say hi to Edwina. Love you, your family. Louise and Win are distraught also.

Carol's One Day Event Aug 07

 

O and Cedar had a great round here - came 13th overall in Introductory. Very pleasing. Less pleasing was the Equine Influenza outbreak that focussed here after somehow getting out of quarantine in Sydney. Luckily our six horses remain EI free two weeks later though the CFields are under a quarantine order for 50 days (because we were at Carol's Ranch then). We are luckier than many other there that day.

Horses Birthday Photos

     

Horses Birthday

Last Saturday we had a riding day at Cedars Fields to celebrate the 01 Aug Horses Birthday. We had five riders and five parents/guests to try out/watch the new dressage arena and the first jumps/obstacles/large logs over in the cross-country course/cows' paddock. It was a beaautiful day. I cooked the BBQ. Cedar and Mac were ridden through the dam in Cedar's paddock and even Teddy got in the act by tying up at the new tie up rail to watch the other horses and then he got another lesson to feel part of the festivities.

Well. The next day, O got a saddle on Teddy and very gradually put more weight onto his back. Until, hey presto, she was in the saddle and he was getting used to the new weight. He looked quite pleased with himself afterwards, like he had joined the ranks of the working ponies.

Teddy's Lessons

The Friendly Game. Teddy's had a shave. Only where his coat goes. See his hairy legs? Teddy is his new paddock name. He will remain Snowstorm, albeit CF Snowstorm, at competitions.

Welcome Snowstorm aka Snowy, aka Teddy

All excitement in our biggest foray yet into the wide world of horses this weekend. M and O found Snowstorm in Horse Deals at Michelago and V who works not far from there went down to meet Snowy and owner Mg down there a week and a half ago. So impressed was V that his phoned account and emailled photos to O had her agreeing to go and get him that very night.

So Saturday/yesterday M and V, O and C, drove the half sanded-back and partly refurbished Cubhorsefloat on the back of the front-end refurbished Holden Rodeo down to V's Queanbeyan townhouse where they instantly became his first people to stay there. Went to Soraya's Thai restaurant for a very pleasant meal and surroundings Saturday night and caught the last part of Prisoner of Azhkahan or whatever the Harry Potter episode is called. Got up early for the drive through the local fog to Michelago, where the clear mountain air had that sharp winter light look about the place.

Snowy (a 13 hand pony that looks very Welsh Mountain) floated beautifully all the way. V got out in Queanbeyan and M drove the rest of the way back with O and C. They made the trip in five hours from Queanbeyan which is quicker than V normally does it without the float! A 500 kilometre trip each way.

Snowy will probably be renamed Teddy. He was put in the top western paddock
on his own with his own shelter, which he checked out. All the other
horses were interested in him and came over to say hello, but he was
intent on checking out the grass. Patted and fed by O, he will settle
in well.

He was seen after a while left to himself running up and down the fence with new neighbour Mickey, the minature horse with the impish sense of humour.

Flood aftermath

Well it's Saturday after the floods, flood peak went by less than expected Tuesday. No further flooding our place. Waters slightly receding. More rain forecast but flood warning passed. No great damage to friends. Taking in some more horses whose home paddokcs still flooded. Disaster elsewhere in Newcastle from flash flooding.

Photo: we're in the middle. Photo taken last Monday.

2007 Queens Birthday FLood

Well the Hunter wont peak at Raymond Terrace until tomorrow afternoon, but already we have three acres under water. One yeasterday. We took in seven horses from next door, who'd taken the whole refugee herd from Woodville, they got their horses out just in time and left all their belongings behind. Nice people. Put the two mature racehorses and family of four minatures in with our cows.

Flood is peaking about now in Maitland. Bigger than 1971. Have friends evacuating, along with half the town. Expected to overtop the levees. Any time now.

Hoping we dont lose too much more ground tomorrow.

Update - Bandit - Trees

It's been a while since the last entry. I guess it looks like I lost heart in the project, but no. Things were going pretty bad with the heifers Lola and Bambi dying mysteriously soon together. Then Bandit got so very sick, spent a week in intensive care. $2500 in vet bills that really cut into the budget badly. But he got better, to the amazement of the vets. He's bopping around happily, jauntily even now. So the money was worth it to see he smiling face around. I'm commuting from Queanbeyan during the week, so weekends are desperate for me to keep up with everything. We finally got the trees Maitland Council had promised us. 130 Casuarinas, eucalypts, callistemons and leptospermums. About four species of the last two. New fences to keep the cows and horses off them. I'll get some photos of the plantings.

here..

Bandit Hospitalised

Bandit, our 12 year old Beagle and Wonder Dog is desperately sick after eating what was probably unreasonably huge parts of poor Lola. The Vet thinks he has pancreatitis and he may not pull through. We left him, on Easter Sunday, at the EMergency Vet Hospital, on a drip with antibiotics and painkillers. Poor love. Please pull through. Gosh we've had some bad luck with pets recently.

Gooba's gone home... and Bandit's sick

Poor Gooba's gone. A beeautiful horse with a beastly desire to never get on a float. Ever. Unless its raining and he's getting wet and the float is the only dry spot. After three hours trying that was the only way P got her horse back. See ya Goobs. Hope the ringbone doesnt give you too much grief.

Meanwhile Bandit has been eating as much of poor Lola's remains as he can cram in. And he's gotten very sick. He's old too, so we hope he pulls through. Vomiting everywhere and looking frail and old.

Poor Lola second victim to mystery illness

We are all devasted today to find that despite O's careful nursning, little Lola, our cow-poet, has died aafter a bout of what the vet is calling viral diarrohea. Post-mortem tests will maybe find out what is happening. But we have lost half our small herd of heifers in two weeks. Survivors Toffee and Curly are not exhibiting any signs and are being kept away from Bambi and Lola's faeces in case it remains contagious. Lola was cremated in a bonfire this afternoon. Rest in peace little one. We loved you. This hobby farming is gut wrenching at times.

RIP Bambi

AFter 2 weeks of ups and downs with "Three Day" virus, yesterday morning poor little Bambi was found deceased in the shed attached to the quarantine pen. It'd been very hot and she'd spent a lot of time in the dam. Her faver and aching joints. O had spent a lot of time keeing her moving and giving antibiotics. Sadly she's gone. Off to C's parents property for burial. The other heifers miss you.

Sick heifer

Last week O told me Bambi was sick. Laying down all the time. Livvy treated it and bythe time I saw them, all across from the other side and bunked up with Cedar, keeping the long grass (it's been raining heaps) down for Cedar, I couldnt tell which one was Bambi or sick, they all looked contentedly mucnhing long grass and BIG. They've grown in the 10 months they've been here. Good good.

The Goat .. is back

I was doing a portable radio competition in the unused horse shed on a rainy Saturday night. Weather was unpleasant but the new horse shed was snug and leak-proof.

Red kelpie, Winstone, ran down in and kept looking in on me, make sure I was ok, while he kept watch lookinginto the dark. Mare Keisha kept winnying worriedly. Something was up, but what? Next morning I could see, The Goat was back, happily sheltering from the weather in Keisha's shelter. I escorted it off the property, seen heading back to it's ramshakle farm.

It returned two hours later to the screams of panicked and flighty Goober. Yes he's still here. P this time escorted him away.

Six hours later, near dinner time, he's back, but this time Winstone had returned from O's cross-country lessons in Scone and he visibly panicked the Goat, for once, by chasing him all the way back across the adjoining properties. On the largest neghbouring field, Win must've reached 40kph. The Goat was hightailing it, but Win was easily outrunning it.

This morning he's back again! But curiously, M had the idea to put all the horses in the one, long grassed, paddock, which they all happily did because of the nast billy-Goat. Well, amazingly, he just turned and left of his own accord. Amazing!

The cows drained the dam

We went on a two week holiday to Byron Bay. It'd been two years since we holidayed on the beach and we'd earned it, M and I, and O and A. All hard working city folk, living on a smallish farm.

We arranged for T to come over and feed horses twice a day and water the cows aat least once every two days. Thanks T, nice job, we owe you. To simplify the process we left the gate over the pipeline open so the cows could cross and be watered at once of their batchtubs brought over near our home back gate were thoe hose could reach.

The gravity fed siphon hose was just left in the grass, tap off, for filling the other bath tub across the pipeline when we got back. But when we got back I went to open the tap but it was half open and it had been slowly leaking water, slimy water, and the ground all around was very soggy, with cows prints embedded. It wouldnt fill the bath tub easily at all. No pressure. Walking back up to the dam, our fresh spring dam that was always full. Gasp! Almost empty and full of weed. Oh no, it had drained slowly over the two weeks.

Wicked cows, playing with the tap. I tied the tap and hose up to the fence post with some string so they couldnt reach it with their wicked hooves. Now we are hoping for a good long rain.

(Postscript: within about 3 weeks a couple of hours light rain filled the dam again. Over the next two weeks some heavy thunderstorms pretty well flushed it out. Looking good again).

The day the goat came

Win woke us up barking out the back. There was a goat/ram whatever in the paddock with Keisha and Mickey both looking terrified. I raced down with a rope to try and catch it but forget it - it dive +through+ barbed wire like it was butter. But oww it must have gotten cut. Didnt do the fences much good either. Two hours later it was back, same place, though this time it dived through a difficult fence into Cedar's paddock, then back again, then into the big paddock with the boys, Mickey (now), Sunny and Gooba, all running around like girls screaming because the goat was *chasing* them. I'll give him chase - though it was hot and after running through three paddocks to catch the mongrel I was relieved to see it slice through another barbed wire fence and keep heading out towards the camels.

M came back and a neighbour told us it has been causing havoc with everyone's stock and fences since its owner went away for the weekend to Wollongong. Just shoot it, they all said. I had a very similar sentiment!

Poor old Gooba's gotta go

The farrier confirmed Gooob's got ringbone. Never jump. Like chronic arthritis apparently. Owners were sad to hear it but will take him back. Will miss the handsome thing. He is magnificent looking. Can probably do ok at hack. Maybe dressage, but definately not what O was after.

View from the "Air"

Actually Google Earth, looking East, eye altitude 554 feet (above ground level).