After the computer started stuffing up I had to figure out why. Those of you who know me, take a moment to pick yourselves back up off the ground and stop laughing hysterically at the idea of me having to try and fix anything even remotely technologically related. From what I can tell I've got a lovely group of trojans the various programs can't seem to keep dead and deal with stupid Firefox having a leaky memory wanting to cause low virtual memory warnings. I'm sure there's other joys but those are the ugly ones atm anyhow.

To boot, pregnancy actually seems to be starting to feel like pregnancy with morning sickness giving a good nip this week. With Laurent it was awful and the only things I could stomach half the time were chinese sweet corn and chicken soup, mandarins and nectarines. This little one however apparently wants strawberries, yum cha (and not the cheap ones, this one wants the places where it takes weeks to get reservations thankyouverymuch...) and ice cream. Other than that just the usual amounts of tired, aching stuff typical of this stage.

Then, it was Miss Hopies birthday on the 8th. After thinking madam had just blown her coat because of the warmer weather since she wasn't giving any other signs she decided to go and make a liar out of me and come into season very conviently on her birthday!Happy (belated) birthday to her siblings Ditto, Harri, Rhythm, Luke, Gospel and Frank :) Hope I've got all those names right! LOL




This last one is from last years but since she looks like a neckid ragamuffin I'll wait till she's got some coat to take a big girl picture of her. She spent most of her b-day with me visiting shops in town, getting attention from people, especially one lady who wanted to sit and chat about dogs and training for over two hours with her little girl.

Appologies for the sunglare - a certain short person whose name I'll leave to your imaginations rather mashed up my sun hood, the flash on my camera is pathetic and I'm the only idiot on the planet who can't photoshop it out. *g* The shots are far from perfect even aside from the sunglare but I like them anyhow. Sometimes it's the imperfect bits that make you smile. Besides, it's SUN! That's just been in such short supply I couldn't not celebrate it!

Youse my HERO... Cami is such a crack up with Veri

(Poor Veri, there were sheep, the geese/ducks on the dam and the neighbors cattle in the adjoining paddock. She kept trying to "casually" move toward them only to be recalled. LOL)

"Ohhh... so THAT'S what sheep are for!"
Note if you will that the blip of dog dashing after the sheep is a certain Rough Tough Little Powderpuff who previously thought cattle were all she was interested in. Two days ago she reassessed her opinion and has decided they are rather interesting after all...
"I'm a good girl mum... can you release me from this stay now?"

Miss Hopie... believe it or not she's neckid. Poor thing has moulted out all her coat, except that ruff!Unintended (Very) Close-up
"How I get in da cam-wah?" while peering into the lense

"Hello? Dorothy Dinosaur? You come to tea? Oh yes! Yummy tea. And Wags? Oh. *pause* And Captain Sorda-feather (pmsl!) and Jeff will he wake up please? Ahhhhhh oh-tay! See you then! Byeeeeee..."
Finally... one of those shots I take to remind myself sometimes life with children can be peaceful!

I think I need a weekend to recover from my weekend!

Friday afternoon I packed up Laurent and Hope and headed out to KCC for the agility nationals. We're not entered but being nationals people are coming from all around the country and among the number of people I've 'met' online but not in person that included Sam and the fantabulous Jahzara who also happens to be Verity's litter sister and Hope's half sister through their mum Tilley. After having chatted online and found a number of aspects of Jahz to sound very similar to both Hope and Veri, I was very excited to both meet them and get to watch not only Sam and Jahz run (!) in person but also a number of other people who are very talented at this whole agility thing. La behaved himself mostly aside from a few tantrums (including a rather spectacular one that had people peering around their cars to see if I wasn't torturing him with hot pokers at the start) although as is typical - having La along means I did more La watching than agility watching. ;-) He did give good amusement with his variety of dog behaviours though - including one that popped up a month or so back which involves scratching his hair with his leg like a dog. ~_~' Strange, strange child!

Saturday was all mine though - Nic was home, La stayed with Nic, Veri and Hope came with me for a day out. It's so funny how so often I'd be looking at Jahz and go, "Now THAT is Veri!" or "That's Hopie all over..." They are also different of course but you could see the relation in them for sure! Kellie who was there with Fyre but who also owns Hope's half brother (same sire, Courage) and found a number of Hope's traits very much like her little man Kruze. I was also pretty pleased with how Veri handled the busy environment, she was pretty good all day albeit occasionally a bit worried and had an unfortunate incident where a man walking backwards stepped on her poor tail. She was supremely convinced Sam was just the coolest though - Sam has VERY good bikkies and was willing to give sharesies! LOL Typical Veri, firmly governed by her stomach! I'm still in awe of watching all the lovely dogs and fantastic efforts on the part of both the dogs and their handlers tbh... both inspired and left with a deep pity for my poor dogs to be stuck with ME as a trainer/handler!

Then Sunday was straight off to Euroa. Another chook auction, supposed to be some large partridge wyandottes. One was nice, one decent and not as nice but one was constantly head-flicking and the other slightly fluffed. So I put in my bid but pulled when it hit the bid hit $140. So instead I came home with a lovely bunch of daffodils courtesy of Tim (whose family owns a gorgeous daffodil and bulb farm) and spent the day chatting with everyone inbetween cuddling Cami to keep warm when it started raining and getting into discussions with everyone in their brother about how I was really, truely, honest to godly sure she WAS an Australian Shepherd and NOT a Koolie and no the breed was not made up or a 'designer' mutt. ;-p Can I also say I really, really, really wish we could change the name to AMERICAN Shepherd... honestly, I think there are a number of people convinced the Yank is trying to have one over on them! ^_^;

After we got home I pretty much collapsed on the couch, combination of being up early and down late for three days while trying to ignore my stomach being queasy, eatting junk (fries, though Veri helped!) and my body trying to turn me into a narcoleptic. I was soon joined by La and dogs. After a few moments of adjusting the blanket to his liking La patted my face to get my attention and said, "Aw, mum... so cute and sweet!" Rather flattered I said thank you La, that's very sweet of you to say to me. He looked at me, pointed at Sierra curled up at the back of my knees and said in a very plain tone said, "No mum! SISI is cute and sweet." Hn. Silly me, of course you were talking about the dog!

We've finally got SUNSHINE back! And no rain. And my lovely daffodils popping up - isn't this ruffled one just lovely - a few of which even survive the chooks for more than a day. The camellias are past their peak but the rhododendrons are just starting to put on their show. But best of all the relatively good weather means both child and dogs can romp. Unfortunately La is still feeling a bit under the weather - his normal hyper little self most of the time but ended up spending most of last night being sick poor thing. As for me, I'm trying to keep up with everything, and feeling like I'm lightyears behind given that I'm waking up feeling like I haven't gone to sleep. At any rate, some more pics.

"Mum, I do training!"

Time is getting away from me, I hadn't realized it's been that long since I wrote.

Honestly it's just been a bit of a sleepy week. First trimester is sapping energy out of me but otherwise being quite calm. Unfortunately the weather is still remarkably rainy which means we're not able to spend much time outdoors and everyone is feeling a bit stir crazy. La has picked up a cold which turned into a cough which developed into wheezing, so my poor little lovely is on an inhailer again.

Despite that he is his normal cheerful, chipper, little ball of energy self - permanently set on full speed ahead. I seriously think he's incapable of walking, it doesn't matter what he does he hurtles himself at it. On our trip to the chemist today we saw a little boy his age with a whopper of a black eye at which La ran over proclaiming, "Aw, mum, he needs a hug!" before doing just that and patting the boy on the back asking, "'You ok-tay? 'S a big ouchie!" Then he started chatting to him about his (the boys) Thomas hat, telling both me and the boys family, "Aw, he's a sweet little bubby! Aw, so sweet! Yookit mum, he's so sweet!" (Mind you, the little boy in question was at least as big as La himself!) As he's proclaiming the little boys sweetness he's nabbed him by the hand and is leading him off down the aisle chatting and giggling, while both myself and his family are laughing hysterically at La's shyness. I had to disappoint him in the end by insisting the little boy wasn't a puppy we could bring home and needed to go with his mum and dad. It's nice to see his gentle, considerate side with other children given the fun we've had lately with him getting very frusterated when it comes to the ideas of sharing and his lack of understanding that while mum understands it's a really great game to run up pretending to be a dinosaur and ROAR at someone with much enthusiasm (being a silly game we engage in, my reply either being 'ohh, my a scarey dinosaur, who will saveeeee me! or roaring back at him as a big scarey dinosaur too at which point he cracks up laughing) the random little boys and girls at the stores do NOT know it's a game and find it rather creepy to have a strange 2 year old rush them roaring.

On the upside maybe he'll be less than disappointed with the baby turns out to be an actual baby and not a puppy! He's currently rather insistant every time I ask him how he feels about a baby sister or brother that it's a puppy in my tummy.
"Yes but La, what if the baby is a baby like in your books? NOT a puppy?"
"Oh noooo mum! *laughs like I've suggested the most absurd idea on earth* Baby is a puppy! I want lots of puppy-babies!"

Hn. I forsee a rude shock coming...

Talent

That's right ladies and gentlemen - TALENT... that's what it takes to get every single inch of yourself completely wet and muddy crashing through mudpuddles almost as deep as you are, barreling through the paddocks and wrestling madly...
WITHOUT GETTING A SPECK OF IT ON YOUR FACE!

Some Favorite Veri-veri Blueberry pictures

Sorry to be quiet, everything is going along just lovely at the moment, enjoying the sunshine when it's out and watching my little clan just growing and living. It's very warm-n-fuzzy feeling inducing! Some pics of Veri I loved, more resized tomorrow when I don't have a short little person requesting constant attention.

"THREE! TWO! ONE! LAUNCH!!!"

I'm playing catch-up with my pictures... Verity's birthday just passed and I've got to get her shots up - as well as a bunch of La and a bunch of other stuff. I've been very slack when it comes to jotting down the important stuff I want to have a record of - like for example, La's finally weaning from his beloved bibi a few months back. Remarkably easy really... not at all like I thought it would be and he's never looked back from it. Something to be said for the child-led/waiting for indications of them being ready theory of things. Two years and seven months was a nice little milestone for us.

All the funny little day-to-day stuff with the dogs and La, I keep meaning to sit and write but it seems we're just too busy living to really sit and compose my thoughts properly most days. Which is good because it means things are getting done but a bit sad because it's getting lost in the tumble of hours, days and weeks until many precious moments just melt into the general fabric of life.

Another "little" thing I should have mentioned ages ago - my visa finally (FINALLY!!!) came through. I am officially now a permanent resident and wow does that feel good to not have that shadow of worry (however unlikely it was) hanging over us!!!!

The one month anniversary of Cade's passing has already been and gone, simply doesn't seem possible really. I was set to write a long, rather rambly, emotional post of all the emotions on the anniversary and when I sat to type, it just flew from my fingers how to put thoughts into words that'd make sense.

On a happier note, the other minor, little, teensy, weensy detail I might have neglected to mention... a second rather long awaited little bubba should be arriving sometime in late March or early April. Very, very, very, very over the moon with this! ^_^

Pics snapped while waiting for the car mechanic to finish servicing the car - joys of living in a teeny-tiny town, you can walk the 2k from the mechanics house to the town to putter around for a few hours and instead spend the majority of the time just chatting to people on the way! LOL

Whispering Wishes

Very Funny Geese and Ducks

"Mum DUCKS ARE SPLASHING!"

"Mum, how da clouds stuck up there?"

Some pics from the day

The whole gaggle of geese and two of the Aylesbury on the dam.

Earliest daffodils sprouting... little paperwhites.

THE WORLDS MOST TOLLERANT CHOOK HOPS UP FOR A CUDDLE
"Mum, I love Sidney. He's a good chook. He has eyes and a mouth and eats corn. He likes tickles. But mum, he likes bugs eatting! I don't eat bugs, tastes yucky. (I do NOT want to know how he knows bugs taste yucky... I just don't!) I eat soup, broccoli and bananas."

The ever adorable fluffy puppykins playing queen of the mountain.
(Of rocks brought in to build the retaining wall.)

Shark-baby has finally stopped teething on us (ow ow ow... baby needle teeth!) and with a mouth that isn't sore she's now discovering the joys of the tennis ball. Funny little pupplet thinks it's just too much fun and after chasing it and prancing around to show off her trophy, drops it to bat it around it like a kitten.

Not quite the day I planned...

The fence is in, except for the one end bit where the gate will be so, I'd intended to go to the Mountain District Poultry Show today but after feeling under the weather yesterday we ended up giving it a miss.

Instead we spent the day scouting around a plant centers with both child and puplet in tow. Miss Fuzzy Puppy manages to play Aussie Ambasadorwherever she goes and is well mannered in the garden shops and nurseries so is always welcome. The attention usually doubles when La insists on walking her - two little cute, wiggly toddlers off on an mission. LOL

We managed to locate a timber gate-house for the fence that we rather liked - very different style than my original plan which was much more formal but this should be quite suitable for training climbing roses up still. Since I was given cuttings for Squatters Dream, Crepuscule, Perle d’Or, Agnes, Rosa brunonii, a Rambling Rector seedling grown by the lady who kindly gave me the cuttings, Veilchenblau and Buff Beauty roses places to train climbers will be good!

Another place we found some lovely rocks for our retaining wall, which should arrive sometime in the next day or two.

Looked at several statuary places hoping to find a little greyhound sculpture to put in the reflection garden where we buried Cade and couldn't find one but did find something that really was very appropriate - a bronze statue about knee-height of a little cherub kneeling and touching a what looked like a camellia blossom. A tad pricey though, so will have to save up a bit.

Last visit was to one of my favorite nurseries, where I picked up some nice bare-rooted stock for loganberries and another variety of strawberry, another chorizema cordatum and some interesting variety of seeds by a company called Erica Vale which sells rare and unusual seeds - double white french marigolds (v. 'french vanilla', F1 gen) and bi-coloured lisanthus called 'rainy orange'. As I was exiting something caught my eye... the ceramic house number tiles I'd spotted months back on a house and wanted but been unable to locate in any store! Too much luck for one day! The numbers surrounded by paintings of bottlebrush and wattles.

Tomorrow we'll continue to lay the road base on the front path, screed it even, get a "whacker" to compact it (Aussies have such logical names for things...), lay the brick edging and whack that, put in the rock edging in the front beds and build the retaining wall.

Once that is finished, I'll turn up the veggie patch properly, bring in some of the cow manure and other goodies and get it underway for planting the next crop. I'm hoping to add a number of fruit trees and native bush food sources as well, so very eager to get going!

wire

The wire arrived a bit early and got started on putting it in, almost to the mailbox. :-)

From the road, toward the house. It's looking soooooooo nice! Especially compared to the old fence - rotted out unpainted nasty rounds with rusty nasty utility wire. Excuse the red bucket in the left bottom corner.

fence almost done...

After the weather finally decided to cooperate, it's taken 3 days to get the fence full painted. That's not too bad bearing in mind it's about 90+m long all up and requires 2 coats of primer and 3 of paint done with the "helpful" and hyper 2.5 year old. So here's what it looks like atm...

We chose to go with a eucalyptus green for the posts which corresponds to the roof colour, a camel colour for the plinth and top rail corresponding to the house-colour and the wire when it goes up will be a pale cream like the trim on the house. Wire will go up Saturday. You can also see the gorgeous camellia in full bloom.

Close up detail so you can see the posts and colouring better. I'm undecided if I should add detailing to the top of the posts... not sure if it'd make it look too busy once the wire is up so will wait till that's done to decide. The ground in front of the fence is bare atm but will be a thin little nature strip eventually.

And last but not least, my little green house with some of the cuttings I'm trying to strike. The white box is dozens of rose cuttings... hopefully they will take and be lovely!

Pllleeaasseeee mum, can I have some of that sandwhich?????

Up to my ears in adorable little creatures

About the only thing par for course with fuzzy puppies and cute toddlers is baby birds... meet one of my two new Aylesbury, hatched 6 July and literally larger than life in this picture!

It should go without saying anything small and fuzzy gets well loved here.

And for me... I got my lovely new geese from Dr. Hamish Russells bloodlines Sunday. They are a breath-taking pair, lovely birds. They cost more than I'd care to admit but worth every penny and between the two pairs I should have some gorgeous goslings. Picture of the male below, more pics on Fowl Play blog.

I keep starting to write and ending up stopping as it doesn't want to form itself into any sort of coherant, interesting little anecdotes.

In between getting totally drenched (I must be the only person in Australia who wishes the rain would go away for awhile...) we've been just going about the business of daily life.

Laurent is continuing to grow into an alternatingly adorable little person who makes me crack up, melt and occasionally make me want to tear my hair out. The things that pop out his mouth continue to surprise me as he pulls new developments out of thin air instead of gradually easing into them. At the moment, we're starting to see a lot of consideration to others feelings, interesting to see in that previously he's been as subtle as a freight train and tactful as a red leather mini-skirt. If I'm hurt, he'll ask if I'm okay and if I want a "ai band" (bandaid) or "tiss-oo" and it's almost always followed by, "mum you need a cuddle?" and a kiss or thirty. He wants to know how to do everything and is absorbed by explanations of how things work, the mechanics of various items, helping to grow things in the garden, watering them, picking them, helping to cook (usually by mashing, mixing, adding handfuls of prechopped foods or offering his opinion on if the dish needs more of something), set the table, put things away. "Why" is the favorite word and is applied to absolutely everything he wants to know about... which, fortunately or not seems to be absolutely everything.

The fencing is slowly getting done. It's had primer and the first coat of paint. We're still waiting on the roofing contractor and electrician to be able to agree upon a new date as the previous one (which took about a month to line up) was rained out.

The birds are maturing nicely and I'm considering how to go about adding to the Wyandotte bloodline I have which isn't easy as I found out tonight the person I'd hoped to be able to aquire further bloodstock from in the upcoming season hasn't got them any longer. I was however able to secure a pair of Brown Chinese from Hammish Russell's bloodlines which I am VERY pleased about, as they were his personal breeding stock from his flock dispersal as he's retiring from geese. They represent the result of decades of work. I also added two adorable little Aylesbury ducklings to my little flock, which have quickly bonded and think I'm mum now. LOL Miss Cami got to visit all her BYP friends as well, who met her last month as she came also.

The dogs are about to start bouncing off the walls from spending so much time indoors - they don't mind the wet and cold but I certainly DO and apparently it's not half as fun to run around like mad if the humans aren't joining in!

Cami is growing like a weed and her quiet-sleepy days are firmly over! I hope Rogue is up for a rowdy good time, because I have a feeling little missy will be willing to provide it! LOL She is a funny little soul, very easy going in many ways when you're dealing with her and for about 90% of everything you ask of her just a cruisey little pup... the other 10% of the time though that stuborn streak is a mile wide! With the girls, she's starting to want to assert herself and is going through the stage where her puppy-liscence is expiring and the girls are repeatedly putting her in her place and teaching her doggy etiquette. Several times a day, puppy sass overides good manners and a quick glance reveals she's latched onto someones jowls or ruff and is dangling muttering little puppy cuss words. To be fair, even Hope, who is a soft natured girl went through this bratty phase at about the same age before I make her sound too naughty! It's actually pretty funny to watch because she thinks she is just tough as they come and the girls flatly don't believe a bit of it... if they were people they'd be exchanging glances in bemused exasperation and rolling their eyes at the little kid in a superhero costume attempting to flex muscles that haven't yet developed. LOL

I've also been planting and propagating and snipping and dipping up a storm the other day. I was very kindly given a whole bunch of cuttings, seeds and plants by a fellow member of BYP who is a garden lover as well and now have them all tucked in, watered and in the little greenhouse thingie. Will get pics up tomorrow. I hope I did everything right - I'm far from good at propagation and have very little experience with anything that would be considered even remotely difficult to propagate and my information is cobbled together from two books - one of which is in French and required a bit of dictionary checking to ensure I understood some of the mroe technical words - and google trawling. LOL

With appologies to Kipling - "WHY MUM????"

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.
But different folk have different views.
I know a person small-
Hhe keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!

He sends'em abroad on his own affairs,
From the second he opens his eyes-
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!

From The Elephant's Child

The Picture of Confidence

A couple hundred kilos each but she's sure she can handle them!

She trots past the sheep staying near me and the only interest in ducks is when their feed hopper is being filled but cows... she reckons those look like something suited to a rough tough powderpuff like herself! LOL

On one of the forums I frequent, a lovely soul named Inge had read my story about Cade and contacted another lovely soul she knows on DOL called Harminee Creations who makes memorial art for those who have lost their furkids. It was a total surprise to me, when I first saw it I just couldn't believe how perfect it was and words still fail me in that it's very much a reflection of him. Inge had asked me if I could believe that his story had touched someone who'd never met him. I have to say, I really can... it was just a very him thing. Having known and loved many dogs, he was one of a kind in his ability to touch people. (A trait he quite often shamelessly exploited for cuddles, being tucked into someones coat to avoid the wind (leaving them 'pregnant' with an IG head sticking out the neck of the jacket periodically) and gain sharesies in whatever they were eating.

Even knowing he was special though, I've been very humbled by the number of people writing or calling to talk about him... some 400+ people in 6 different countries who knew him at some point or 'knew him' online. It's a remarkable legacy for one little Pointy Red Dog. He was an amazing soul and I was very deeply privileged to be able to walk though his life with him.

I think in a lot of ways I'm still very much in shock as it doesn't seem really real at times. Of course, I'm also reminded with the wild and wooly mob I've got here still that dogs and children are creatures of the present moment.

It's not the lesson they were intending (actually a lesson was the last thing on any of their minds - they were busy romping and wrestling) but sitting and watching them, it occurred to me that if I am to do honor to his memory and the gifts a dog gives of being fully with you in whatever the moment you are both in, I will also remember to draw closer and truly be with those who are here with me, soak up the moments with them as well and truly appreciate every moment I get with them to the fullest.