Misty morning

I shot these pictures from the car after dropping Nic off to the train station in the morning, lovely misty hills disappearing into the fog and everything looking soft and faded as a departing dream. I love mornings here...

A few snaps of the babies today

While we were watching the cows (in yesterdays post) I also finally got a chance to get pictures of the calves. There are five of them, between a few days and a week or so old, very tiny little guys so they're usually well hidden in the tall grass. However Noir was out with me and they were all very curious about him so I managed to snap a few shots before they realized I was there and moved away. *G*

New babies are cute

both in black and white and in colour...

but this is my favorite one! ;-)

Well THAT lasted long...

We got news this morning the Ford job fell through after telling him he had it. Before an hour was out he had a new one with Optus though. Honestly this industry is insane! X-)

Other random bits... Sif will be amused to know that La has twice today nabbed the margarine and was fingerpainting on the floor. They must be reading our blogs! ;-)

I was discussing how the dogs all have different learning styles and commented that Sierra is slow in picking up new concepts - you had to go over and over something before it sank in but once it did it stuck. DH pipes up, "Oh, a bit like me?" I said, "Nah. I've yet to see anything stick for you!"

La figured out how to scroll through photos on the computer and was flipping through identifying whomever was in the pictures or asking me for those he didn't know. "Dat's Hope and Si and Vee and da puppy. Dats mum and Si and Vee. Dats Koo-wahnee. Dats Kateskelpie. (All one word!) Dats puppies." Then he gets to a picture with himself in it. "Dats puppy and Hope's Kid." Should I be worried he only knows himself as "Hope's Kid"??? O_O

I managed to nab some pictures of the yellow-tailed black cockatoos that have been hanging around our property while running the dogs this afternoon. We've got Gang-Gang that come through occasionally too but no pics yet.

Managed to snap a few Kings as well a few days back...

A visitor from this morning, for no particular reason that it was rather pretty.

Now a few days ago, Amanda had said in an e-mail that come Cup weekend she expects to wash her dogs on Friday evening and be able to show them Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I was rather astonished as MY dogs would need a bath a day at the very least. They seem to find mud anywhere - twice as quickly if I've bathed, blow-dryed and groomed them!

Most of the time I don't even try to contain them... they have fun, get as muddy as possible, dry out while napping and it all falls off in the mudroom. Good thing too, they'd probably be pinging off walls if I didn't let them run their excess energy and yayas off!

"Hey ma, that's a funny round pen but we'll give it a go!"
The ducks have figured out the easiest way to avoid being rounded up in the evenings is to launch themselves onto the dam. The dogs WILL launch in after them (especially Verity, who does a good impression of a Lab) but they swim much slower than they run and the ducks easily evade them!

Verity, having given up swimming after them for the time being, is now waiting for them to swim closer. The ducks, while not overly bright, are not overly stupid either and don't cooperate to no ones shock but Veri's.

And the rest of the time, ducks not even around, the dam is a favorite spot to hoon around, attempt to knock someone in and get as close to red-self coloured as possible for all three. Sierra is trying to grab Veri's ear which results in a big splash before the game begins again and someone else is the splashee.

Mud, muck and pond-scum. Yes, they smell delightful after!

Opps... drainage hose! Over we go...

...and don't forget the stump!

Verity, mid run, actually one of the nicer ones of her. I do appologize for the quality of the pics. They were truly horrible and most of them I kept to sketch rather than try to process because they were SO blurry, noisy and ick quality wise but the poses were pretty.

BOMBS AWAY!!!

I've been really upset with someone over something fairly major and it's been sort of dragging everything down, though everything else is going along nicer than it's ever been and I've got so much good stuff going on, aside from that one thing.

That one thing has been big enough to throw me for a loop though, just blindsideded me and I've spent a few days feeling rather internal and mulling over how I feel about things. This was muchly helped by spending 3 days basically bumming around with friends at outtings or as was the case yesterday we all descended upon Sif, ate heaps of chocolate and let the kids enjoy playing together. All the same, the great god Murphy has decided to lend me some humor. Which brings me to the first picture.

These guys were sitting up in my tree, looking down at me and gosh they were pretty so I just had to take a snap and well... sometimes you're the bird, sometimes *SPLAT* happens.

As for the good stuff...

Lala is gorgeous and growing leaps and bounds and I love how sensitive he is with the dogs, how many things he's learning and watching him work out how things work. He's mind is constantly turning things over and examining them, working them out. He's quite a clever little critter, even if it's maddening at times trying to out-fox him! I got him heaps of art supplies, paints, markers, paper etc which he is loving! (My walls on the other hand are more colourful than previous!) He is using my patterend scrapbooking SCISSORS now to cut his art! Not super precise but using them all the same. He is identifying body parts and picking up words seemingly at random, shocking the pants off us all! Counting has gone up to 3 in English, no French 3 yet though, it just goes Wun, Doo, Fwee or un, deux, FWEE! And started singing part of a jingle to me which was so cute! Noir has also had his name added to La's vocabulary "Nh-wah!" and Cade is getting called, "Cade, FWWOOOODDD!!!!!"

The dogs are doing great, Verity is adjusting well and even handled a trip to the Royal Botanical Gardens in the middle of Melbourne. Her trip to the city was an hour long car ride which was fine till we hit past where we went to Pakenham the day before.
Verity: I wanna stand up and watch everything. What if something happens?
Me: Nothing is going to happen, laying down on the chair will earn you liver.
Verity: But what if something DOES happen, I need to watch! Freaky mutant aliens might beam down onto the middle of the M1... you don't know!
Me: Verity, the magic liver seat only works if you're laying down."
Verity: Oh. *ponders* Well. I guess it looks pretty boring. You're SURE the liver only comes if I'm laying down?
Me: Yup. The liver gods are funny that way.
Verity: Weeellllll.... okay. But if you see any freaky mutant aliens, let me know okay? And if they suck your brains before I can save you, it's your own fault!

It also involved radio, trams, more traffic, more people, mounted police, those mountain buggy prams, walking-barking-mops, walking next to Laurent in his pram etc. The radio and La's pram were the funniest reactions. She was positively puzzled about the radio and how I fit teeny-tiny people in there. Kept cocking her head this way and that, sniffing it, peeking under in the footwell to try and work out where they were hiding every time a new voice came on. Her first reaction to La's pram was, "What on EARTH!?! I knew he walked funny but this is just WEIRD!!!" I plopped a cup of hotdog flavored cherios in his hands and away we went. Took her a few minutes but she quick enough got over the weirdness and figured out how to walk next to the pram at the precise pace to have cherios inserted into her mouth at a steady pace without getting her toes accidentally bumped. Here's a pic of Miss V in the herb garden watching La wave cherios at her.

More goodness... chooks are great, ducks are captured. May possibly have located a person who has a spare rooster of my breed and colour he'd be willing to part with, will find out tomorrow which is really good because the other handful of people who keep the breed have NONE available till the mid of next year and I want chickies!

Plans for the farm are going astonishingly without hitch. Got a great packet from the alpaca association since I'm also hoping to run some high quality fine fiber alpaca and breed them, with seminars and industry support seminar information included.

I have sheep and an alpaca arriving tomorrow - they're going to board here for about a year which has the tripple benefit of 1.) giving me additional practical experience with sheep and first experience with alpaca with the back-up of their owner being responsible for them and paying for their care while , 2.) gives me some extra cash, 3.) I may get some lambs out of the deal, though they're meat breed v. wool breed and so would eventually be sold on being useless for spinning. Originally they'd also wanted to board their horses and donkey which I wasn't as keen on because of the insurance issue and I thought it'd be pushing the pasture rather hard but they'll be boarding elsewhere so it's a non-issue. So you see things are really going great otherwise!

Thursday we FINALLY heard a woof out of Verity! Geeze, that took a bit! For a dog who barked a whole lot when I got her she's been downright silent here! Neighbors and I were talking, their BC and my 4 were dodging under the fences but then Cade couldn't see where to duck back under as his vision is worsening, so one girl ducked under to our side. Verity hadn't barked the whole time up till then - even with the girls and their dog coming across their paddock and us walking across ours to the fence in the middle and then standing talking and even having gone up to them a few times to sniff and lick. Verity had just been leaning into my leg for an ear scratch and not really paying attention, belatedly realized she'd FORGOTTEN to something and went, "Oh wait, um... boof! Boof! You there, girl! I see you! Boof!" before I handed her chicken and said "thanks, I see her". She looked at me, eye cocked and considering, "Really?" Looked at the girl out of the corner of her eye not wanting to look away from a possible handing out of chicken, let out a half boof/half sigh, got another bit of chicken and went, "Oh. Okay." It was a bit funny and I was rather pleased she didn't bark the whole time till she figured she'd forgotten something she was supposed to do and barked the way she did rather than doing that sort of startle/panic/alarm bark thing they do when freaked out!

I'm sulking a bit as I was SUPPOSED to be at a show today. I was really looking forward to it as Hope is finally looking decent, I'd even done a good job grooming her. I'm sure there are top experts who'd make my scissor-work look positively bodgy but she'd been line-brushed for several days, washed, blown out, trimmed up and gussied to a respectable state anyhow and she looks so PURDY! Unfortunately life conspires, bad food from the other day which had given me a rumbly tummy the past few days finally whomped me good and proper. *WHINGE WHINE BLEAT* No show. Poor me! ;-p Sat at home feeling rather miserable, crashed at about 1pm and didn't wake until nearly 5 pm. Bleh. Luckily I was well cared for by my furry pillows whilst napping, who were shockingly well behaved for the day to remind me they CAN be good.

What could they have done you ask? Since my last post, my rotten little puppy (Hope) decided to really push her luck. I'd stuck her in the trailer as her crate had been cleaned and I wanted to air it out several hours just to be safe so she wasn't bothered by the fumes. Normally I'd stick her in the other crate but I left it at Jayne's a few months back and haven't gotten there to pick it up yet. Well, in repayment for my not wanting to have her bothered by the trace scent of cleaner the ROTTEN little so and so CHEWED THE WALL OF THE TRAILER!!! There is a 30 cm x 36 cm HOLE in it going through the interior pannel, all the insulation and out to the metal shell. *sigh*

In the meantime, I need to pull myself up and find the motivation to get all the crap I've got waiting to get done actually DONE. Motivation seems in short supply, almost as short as extra time!