and then there were three!

Meet our new little one... Nilla Vanilla! She is a medium to biggish bunny baby. So far she is very cheeky and active and into EV-ER-Y-TH-ING! It's funny, Cinna was a very active little thing in that she loved to dash around madly but less with the being so full of 'satiable curiosity about the whole world that it needed to be jumped on, nudged, dug at, rolled around, tossed in the air, sniffed, taste tested, chinned and otherwise checked out. LOL

The idea will be to try and bond this one with Cinna and Romeo once she's had all her vaccinations and is desexed. That won't be for awhile yet as she's only a baby! Trio bonding can be tricky and not always (or even often) successful though, more so as I picked her rather than letting them do so. If it doesn't work then sometime mid to late next year we'll visit the shelter to find a friend.

At the moment they are in the bunnies bedroom but in separate living quarters. They can see each other but not reach each other. The only thing we're doing as far as bonding at the moment is some positive association. It's one of those happy coincidences in life (which I have carefully arranged... LOL) that whenever she is out, pellets start being doled out to Cinnamon and Romeo. When she comes near their quarters, parsley appears for them. When they sniff through the wire, tiny slivers of banana.

And one last pic, because hey - when you're this cute you can never have enough photos!

Yay for Dopie Hopie Black Dog

Here are a few snaps from our Euroa comp of BlackDogBlack running. Euroa was a bit of an adventure. Lily and I bunked together, with the dogs snoozing with us so until 3:30am the scene involved Lily cuddling up with me, chatting, noticing the dogs, pouncing on them for cuddles, then noticing she was away from mum and bouncing back over. She finally drifted off but I couldn't get comfy between snoring velcro child and happy farting dogs so I woke up about half an hour after I nodded off. To boot it was raining so hard everyone was thinking of canceling the comp which would have meant a 3+ hour drive each way for nothing!

Luckily the weather did clear up and some really lovely coffee woke ME up. Hastings only ran one team this time so Hope got plenty of run time. She did much better than Frankston. Meanwhile we've pinpointed several things we'll be doing to refine her training before the Nationals in a few weeks. And in the meantime little miss Blackdogblack earned enough points to qualify for her Flyball Dog Championship title!

So yay for Hopie Dopie the Blackdogblack!

As usual though, the most important part is the fun. Which is found in all manner of interesting places! Ask Lily... ;p

5 years old

Little mister is five now. And I rarely get away with calling him Bunny Lala anymore. Even "La" is garnering the occasional, "Mu-UUUMMM! Instead he is, "Please call me Laurent...." Unless he's Ben 10. Or *insert dramatic voice here*... Captain Underpants!

Mind you it doesn't seem 5 years since he was more like this:

I miss that little snuggly, squidgey newborn fresh to the world. I miss clumsy baby kisses, reflexively curly toes, milk breath and that divine newborn smell. On the other hand I am pretty chuffed with the rather cool little dude who is gracing us frequently. It seems like maybe the the wild-n-wooly Fours are giving (at least partial) way to a child who is frequently a lot of fun, often very helpful, usually sensitive and who responds to others in a considerate and sweetly compassionate way. Oh yeah... and one who loves poo jokes. I could have lived without that bit.

He had a party with a bunch of his school mates at a local playcenter, where inbetween running around like lunatics they all ate entirely too much sugar/dye/processed and preservative laden junk food and had a blast. He was beyond thrilled to get a whole host of cool toys ranging from puzzle kits to crash-n-spin Matchbox car racing sets to Herofactory toys to Ben 10 and Bakugan. The later two are things he's never actually seen but picked up a keen (obsession) interest in through the joys of friendship. (Oddly enough, his imaginations version of Ben10 is weirdly Croc Hunterish sounding...)

He was also very determined to have HIS kind of party. Namely a Ben10 Party, which was detailed down to the cake. The cake was to be a "Ben 10 chocolate cake with choc frosting and waves (piping) and sprinkles on the sides." As mums oven is broke at the moment, the height of 5 year old culinary coolness was courtesy of Michel's Patisserie.
Last snap - the two of them were on the slide endlessly, as little miss fearless Lilypillie has developed an obsession with them to rival his own! LOL

random bits and pieces of my world

This pear tree on our property always blooms JUST on La's birthday, to the day, every year. It does fruit but the cockatoos and cows get more of it than we ever do.

How lucky am I? As much work as this place can be, I get to watch sunsets like this from my back porch!

Both girls, looking far more stationary than they are! And it wasn't posed or anything... they were busy goofing around with Lily pretending to brush Rin (that's actually what she's looking at, a comb that's fallen) and Rin manically staring at Hope who had the ball. LOL

A more typical scene... Sierra follows Lily around, ploinks down near her for a nap and is inevitably pounced on, cuddled, kissed, brushed, used as a pillow and otherwise loved on. Aussies and kids are the best combo ever!

piccies from Frankston Pets Day Out comp

Cuebiyar Cross My Heart PT FDX

After our last flyball comp at Frankston, we were off to Yarram this weekend and onto more in the following weeks. At Frankston we ran Hope limitedly - much to her dismay (but MUM... the tennis ball is getting away!!!) that is we made our teams up of 5 dogs with her and another novice being switched so they each only ran in a few heats out of each race and weren't overwhelmed.

After Frankston we decided she seems to be running best as the lead dog and that she was okay to have more runs, so she ran in all 5 heats in each race this time all day long. Hopie heaven!

She did really well and I am starting to feel a bit more coordinated. When we got home last night and I'd gotten an e-mail saying she'd actually gotten both her FD and FDX. Fancy pants hey! LOL

Of course the most important job of all is still just being La's best friend! He can't wait till he's a bit older and can play flyball with her. :)

Lily on the other hand just wants to pat, hug and kiss everyone and then splotz on mums lap for a nap!

Royal Melbourne Show

A few snaps from the RMS yesterday - we got to catch up with some lovely peoples, snuggle a MOST lovely Aussie puppy and fawn over the Petite Bassett Griffon Vendeen some more.

Laurent was really keen to go on rides and particularly wanted to go on "big slides, ponies and scarey "ollea coasties"! He got to go on all that and a ferris wheel which he thought was really cool. Immediately after coming off the pirate ship rollercoaster type ride he did say he wanted to go on a more scarey roller coaster but he was given away as Jodie told me he'd refused to let go of the lap bar the entire time! LOL



Lily was LOVING the ferris wheel and being up so high! She had her little face pressed to the windows and giggling hysterically!


Unfortunately the pony ride has only doubled the request for riding lessons so that "when I get biggered, I can have a pony of my own mum"! Of course, he also requests I get him a Rough Collie (blue and black and white with gold cheeks) like one of my team-mates and a small poodle.

Little Big Girl

Little Big Girl is growing up so fast - I know it's horribly cliche and all but I swear I looked at her one day a few weeks ago, blinked in surprise and realized seemingly between one night and the next my little baby had disappeared and my toddler had officially arrived!

She tries to be tidy and loves to clean, pick up and sort things. She is also obsessed with doors, drawers and gates - chiefly in ensuring they're CLOSED. I'm being roundly scolded here because the gate is open and Gates Must Not Be Open! ;p

In and out, in and out, in and out... a girl and her dog!

Little miss with a tennis ball and with her best girls!

My little flower girl... she loves to pick the tiny daisies on our lawn.

and in case anyone is wondering - here is the difference between La and Lily summed neatly up!

First comp :)

Our first flyball comp was Saturday. You could definitely tell it was her first comp but she did manage to pull out 4 nice runs and our Hastings Hit and Fly team ended up scoring 2nd in our division by the end of the day.

I snapped this one of miss Chilled Out Chickiebabe, who had fun along with her brother running cheerfully amok. I do have some footage of one of Hopies runs but I can't get it to upload to youtube at the moment! Our next comp is coming up in a few weeks at Yarram and then we'll go up to Euroa and later to the Nationals! :)

"Hussshh upppp!!!"

Rin, the crazy little nutter that she is, has developed the ability to jet off which has led to the installation of a long line she can be clipped to when she needs to go out and I can't be right there watching. Rin also has a long standing issue with.... well, let's be polite and just say she is VERY vocal and is frequently told to hush up because she's making everyone's ears bleed with it's sharpness.

At any rate, Nic let her out tonight without putting her on the tie out and sure enough off she went. He called me to come over and whistle her up, which I did. Little Lilypillie toddled along with me out onto the porch. As I shouted "Rin!" and whistled, Lily joined in, mimicing my stance. Only instead of calling out "Rin!" I hear her shouting, "Hush up! HUSH UP! HUSHHHH UPPPPP!!!"

The furkids

It's been a bit crazy lately... okay, who am I kidding? It's ALWAYS crazy here, it's been MORE crazy!

The fantabulous news in it is that Emi, my foster kitty, left for her new home today and they are thrilled to bits with her. Honestly it couldn't be a better match it seems and it's very reaffirming after having waited all this time to find the perfect home for her to see her go there and the beginnings of a lovely new relationship!

One of the odder developments is that Tim Tam the orphaned lamb has decided the dogs are acceptable substitutes. The dogs for their part figure he's pretty cool too. As usual, everything that lives here is just a bit odder than usual!

Other than that we've just been practicing as Miss Hopie has her very first flyball comp coming up this weekend! So exciting! We've got several more comps coming up in the next few weeks so stay tuned for further flyball reports! This weekend it was the VHA's Duck Clinic with Frances Smith, which was good fun. Hope was not so sure those quackers were something she should work, as she knows she's supposed to leave my ducks alone at home. (In fact they can crawl all over her, steal food from her bowl etc)


Little Miss Rin had no such qualms... the Pointy Black Dog saw ducks and went into instant stalky-staring-slinking Border Collie mode. For such a wild child, she did pretty well... especially given a few people who've seen what a manic little bit of monkeyshine she is probably figured it'd look like a game of skittles with a mad teenage BC bowling ball and ducks for pins! It looks like some of my "you only get what you want by being calm, listening and doing things mum's way" is starting to sink in... a bit, anyway!

Not from the clinic - just one of Pointy Black Dog after she's had a good bit of fun running around my muddy paddocks! The ones below are from her first introduction to duckies. The pictures were taken by Mandi who deserves big kudos for putting on the clinic, hosting us, ensuring all her duckies were ready for us, asking Francis down and generally working her bum off to ensure we had a nice day! :)

(And look, PointyBlackDog DOES have a speed other than ZOOM or SPLAT-LAYING-FLAT!)

Poor Sisi is feeling a bit left out... agility is her gig and thanks to the metric crapload of rain and storms we've had the agility grounds have been too soggy to run on for the past MONTH AND A HALF. Literally the week after we got promoted! DOH!!!

Playing catch up and sharing bits and pieces of things I'd meant to blog but slackarsed on.

New favorite feeding-sleeping baby photo.... she is such a sweetie, when I rolled back over she wrapped her arms around me, snuggled against my shoulder, gave me a perfect little kiss and said "wuf 'oo". Ladies and gentlemen, this is what refills the well of mummy's tollerance of the times they're crazy little ratbags... sometimes, every once in awhile, they make you melt into puddles of warm-n-fuzzy goo.

These are three shots from Verity and Cami's Rainbow Bridge Garden. Slowly coming together.


And last but not least, after not having touched oils or acrylics since I was probably about 14 I decided to get a little set have have a dabble in it. I sketched this little fellow the other night and got to rough him in over about 15 mins of breakfast. Hopefully over the coming week or so I can find a bit of spare kids-free time to work on him! Not sure if I will keep the background one as artificial halo and take it all over or as grass and fill in the 'sky' after.