Circle of LIfe

Last week, Phillip had a few days off work in which he borrowed a DVD from friends on how to humanely kill and dress chickens. And, after watching it and taking notes, he did it with our extra roosters.

Yes, this may sound a bit harsh to some. Why would we raise, care for, and then kill what is sometimes a bit like a pet? Well, that was part of the deal we made with ourselves when we decided to get chickens and a rooster.

There isn't much of a point in owning a rooster unless you want chicks (though ours does have a wonderful personality and roosters in general can make great "guard dogs"). And, when allowing your hens to hatch chicks, there isn't really any way to guarantee that they're only hatching females, and not males. And, when you have too many mature roosters in your flock, the hens start to go off laying eggs. Which is the MAIN reason we have our hens to begin with.

(Why do hens go off laying eggs with too many roosters around? Mostly because the roosters try to mate with mature, laying hens, not hens who aren't laying eggs. If they're being "jumped on" too much, they'll stop laying so that the roosters leave them alone. We can tell when our young hens are going to start laying eggs because the rooster starts doing his funny mating dance for them.)

Anyway, when we got our chickens the "deal" was that, if we allowed hatchings, we would build up the flock with hens so we could have plenty of eggs for ourselves and to share with a few people, and extra roosters would be for meat.

The past year gave us two extra roosters that just entered their mature stage of life and needed either a new home, or to go in the freezer.

We found no homes for them, so, as said earlier, Phillip killed and dressed them. And, as someone who has only had experience with people either shooting or axing chickens up to this point, I was quite impressed with the gentle way that Phillip found to have them killed. It involves "hypnotizing" them by holding them upside down (this works great with fussy hens too, or just any chicken, and is kind of funny), and gently breaking their necks. This also leaves the meat in much better condition than shooting or axing them.

De-feathering was probably the easiest part of the job, since, being the first time we've had to kill chickens, and these being chickens we've helped raise and nurture, it was a bit hard emotionally (also, I'm flooded with pregnancy hormones at the moment and cried when Phillip brought the carcasses in the house).

Chilling out before we put them in the fridge so the meat
can relax before cooking or freezing.

But Phillip did a wonderful job, and I roasted one the other night with some carrots from our garden, potatoes and onion. After only 2.5 hours in the oven, he was really really tender and delicious. Is there a difference in taste with a fairly fresh, free-range, you-know-what-it's-been-eating rooster and one from the store? Not really. Fresher maybe, and, well, it was a bit tastier than store-bought. But honestly not much different.

We're Off To See The Tiddly Peeps

Chickens really are not the smartest of creatures.

This summer (the hottest on record here, though they've only been recording for the past 100 years), one of our chickens decided she wanted to be a mamma again. I guess she got jealous of the other hen who'd recently hatched a brood (you can see her baby photos here).

But, the hottest summer on record, our little yellow half-silky hen decided she wanted babies.

We did not. We had enough hens (5, though 2 were/are still too young to lay eggs just yet) and two extra roosters was more than we wanted (we'll be <gulp> killing and dressing them this weekend). So we tried to make her NOT broody (broody meaning, for those of you who don't talk about chickens, sitting on eggs and trying to hatch babies).

We took the eggs she managed to steal every day. This did not stop her, and she ended up, some days, just sitting on a nest of chicken turds. Gross. And dumb, as she wasn't even laying her own eggs, just stealing everyone elses.

Phillip, at one point, spun her around in a circle, to mimic one way we'd heard about to make chickens go off being broody. You put the hen in a bag, hang the bag on the clothes line, and spin it around, making them dizzy and they supposedly forget that they were broody. Phillip only spun her around in a circle while holding her (not in a bag), so he probably got more dizzy than she did. This did not work.

We tried shutting the chicken coop door during the day to keep her off her nest of turds, but she just found a place in the hay cock to sit instead. Also, we had to remember to go up in the early evening to open the door again so the chickens could go in to roost, so that when we went up to shut them in for the night, we didn't have to carry each chicken into the coop. Chickens, by the way, get remarkably dopey at night when they go to roost. It's kind of funny to see.

We tried dunking her belly and backside in water twice a day, which is supposed to make sitting on a nest really uncomfortable. I think this didn't work because it was so ridiculously hot, and the dip probably felt more revealing than uncomfortable to the stupid chicken.

For two months, I debated with Philip about just putting eggs under her, since she wasn't giving up. No, we didn't need or want more chickens, but we had friends that did. And more roosters would just mean more chicken in the freezer at some point, and we could sell or give away hens to, well, anyone. And I had to go up to the coop twice a day to give this idiotic hen water and food so she didn't cook herself to death in the heat anyway. Might as well get something out of her sitting and my having to do more than sit in the ridiculous heat.

I ended up talking to our friends up the hill (the family of 11), and they gave us some eggs to put under our determined hen for them. And yes, she sat, like a good little mother, and hatched five of the eight eggs we were given.

We're calling this batch the Tiddly Peeps. Phillip assures me it comes from some song or another from some children's show (British, of course), but we can't find it. I still love to say Tiddly Peeps though (try it, it's fun).

Chicks pretending to be ducklings.
One day old.

At two months, we're pretty sure at least two of them are hens, which is good for the family we hatched them for. Hopefully a third is a hen. It's a bit hard to tell until the combs start developing more.

New Nuggets

We have two new baby chick!

Well, by new I mean at this point they are a week old.

Our last batch of chicks is now nearly 3 months old, was early "abandoned" by their mother, but have been fending for themselves quite nicely, and has been moved from the broody and hatching cage (where we put mammas sitting on their nests and leave them until the chicks are about a month old) into the regular coop with the rest of the hens and the rooster.

Cipher, calm as can be, hatching her chickies

Back to the new baby chicks though. Our black hen, Cipher, decided that, no matter what I did to encourage her not to, that she was going to sit on some eggs. So we stuffed a total of 6 eggs under her (3 of her own, 3 Isa Brown eggs). We were hoping the Isa Browns would hatch, since that particular breed of chicken is an excellent layer and lays pretty large eggs, but the rooster, being an Australorp, is also of a breed of chickens that lay very well, as well as are good meat chickens. Basically, we were hoping to create a hybrid chicken that was as good a layer as the two breeds and mix up the blood lines a bit (our Australorp hen and rooster are at least half brother and sister, and there's only so long you can keep up with the interbreeding of chicken relatives before you end up with a bunch of lame hens).

Nugget number 2, peeping out from behind mamma's bum

The day before Thanksgiving, we were blessed with two new peepers: fuzzy tan, as we are calling them, Isalorps.

This time, mamma hen is so calm and tame, I was able to put my hand under her to check on the other eggs or even pull the chicks out and handle them. No problems. She doesn't care at all.

Sadly, only 2 of the 6 eggs hatched. Two of the Australorp eggs died while hatching, and when the remaining two eggs were cracked open (4 days after the hatching was done, mamma was fully off the nest, and the eggs were cold), they were completely rotten duds.

But we have two new adorable nuggets, and are enjoying our growing flock.

Pretty little chicks being fed by mamma

See? TAME! I held bread crumbs, mamma picked
them out for the chicks, and eventually the little
things started climbing into my hand to feed.

Playing with my food

Our little chicks that were still in egg form in This Post hatched about three months ago now. But, because of the whole "I'm growing a person and therefore quite exhausted" thing, I didn't get to tell how the hatching went, nor post photos of how adorable the little fluff buckets were (I say were because they've been going through that awkward chicken teenager phase and are not as cute looking now).

We ended up with three chicks. Five hatched but... momma hen stepped on one right after it had finished drying (this happens. Chickens are not very bright, even the best momma chickens do this). Then, momma hen got off the nest permanently in the middle of another one hatching. So, that one died too. Or it died in the middle of hatching and she got off the nest. Either way, we ended up with three little chicks.

Phillip built a pen and cage for them to stay in, so that 1) the cats wouldn't eat our chicks and 2) the other chickens wouldn't kill the little chicks. Again. Nature. This happens. It's what they do and how they establish pecking order. That, and sometimes chickens can be jerks. Like all living things.

Mamma Hen breaking apart grain for her babies

Such cute little balls of fluff!

We were hoping all three were hens. Hens have a purpose: eggs. More than one rooster around and you have fights for dominance and hens going off their laying because they're getting too much *ahem* attention from roosters (roosters tend to pay more attention to hens who are laying eggs, as, well, this would increase their possibilities of actually reproducing. Hens not producing eggs means no babies means roosters give less "attention" to the hens. Therefore, too many roosters means you have no eggs. Which was the main reason we got our hens in the first place. So, any roosters in this batch will get the ax. It is, however, a bit difficult to see what sex a bird is. With chickens though, the rooster's comb starts to develop more quickly than a hens.

We seem to have one rooster. Which, the city-girl side of me thinks is kind of sad, because he's quite friendly at this point. And, well, they're baby chicks. They're still kind of cute. The practical side of me knows though that, if we get too many roosters because we don't want to kill them, we're feeding an animal that, if anything, will give us more trouble in the long run.

This is what happens now when I bend down to feed them

Oh well. Practicality wins out. In the meantime, we're having fun giving our little chicks a nice life of leisure. Their idiot hen mother decided that two months was a long enough time to look after them and left them to roam on their own. So, they've become overly attached to Phillip and me.

I seriously love our little chicks. They're adorable and fun. If I go out at the same time each day, they'll run up and jump on my to roost on my arms and lap No pooping on me thus far... But practicality must win out. 'Tis the way of life well, nearly everywhere unless you can afford to be picky and turn food into some sort of religion.

Please oh please don't poop on my head!

We've got another hen sitting on half a dozen eggs. Tried to stop her (I'd rather have more eggs than chicks) but, she is determined. We've decided already that nearly this whole hatching will be going into the freezer in a year (home raised free-range chicken, yes please!).

We're expecting....

Chicks!

Ok, so I might have some family members and close friends who read the post title and are a little mad about the fact that I'm talking about chickens and not babies (but really people, who breaks THAT kind of news to close friends and family via a public blog post?).

Explanation:

You may remember that last year at New Years a dog killed all but one of our chickens and our two ducks (I still get a little upset about the ducks.... they were cool ducks). A few months later, we ended up taking two pullets (young hens who had not yet started laying eggs) from my in-laws. We took one beautiful black Australorp and a half Silky half some other breed of chicken we're not sure of. Phillip ended up naming them Cypher and Hawk (but we usually end up calling them by their breed or their color and not their somewhat stupid names).

The thing about some breeds of chickens is that they can be good layers (like our red Iser Brown), good for meat (our little Australorp, though they're good layers too), and good for going broody. There's also breeds that are well known sitters (once they go broody they will not leave the nest unless you force them) or good mothers. Basically, chicken breeds are as diverse as dog breeds, and depending on what you want in your chickens, you get various breeds.

Hawk, aka, the yellow/tan one, sittin' on a whole bunch of eggs.
Spoiled girl, I bring her her own dish of food and water.

Hawk has tried to go broody once before, but outside of their shed, so we had to try and move her at night (chickens are funnily calm at night) so that she wouldn't get eaten by quols. Silly thing.... She decided she didn't like being moved to safety and got off her eggs. Which... was ok since we get to eat the eggs. This is the second time she's gone broody and she's chosen one heck of a spot to hatch her chicks again. It's about four and a half feet off the ground, where our chickens roost at night. So, chicks hatch, try to walk out of the nest and.... not pretty. Phillip is building a small enclosure to put her and the eggs in, to keep them cosey (and safe from plumets to death and out idiot cats, and neighbor's idiot cats) from scraps of wood and chicken wire. We'll move her there sometime this week since she's only got maybe a week left until the eggs hatch.

Apparently the nesting boxes I make sure are full
of soft, fresh hay are not good enough.
It must feel safer to hatch babies 2.5 meters off the ground.

Another fun fact about chickens: once they go broody, you can get them to sit on any eggs, not just their own. So, since our hens have been tandem nesting the little Silky has some Australorp eggs under her as well. We also were given a few eggs of unknown type (two were probably Australorps) from my in-laws  two days after she started sitting, and chucked those under her. (Well, next to her, because to put them under her you'd probably loose fingers she's so angry if you get near her). She (and the black one for some reason started helping) immediately started moving them underneath her.

The good thing? We should end up with a few chicks of multiple possible varieties. I'm hoping for at least two healthy hens to share with people or, well, more eggs, which we also share with people. The bad thing? Our one laying hen, little black Australorp, is still basically sitting on top of the broody Silky and laying eggs. Which that dumb hen then takes under her. So... we have no fresh eggs and will end up with a bunch of rotten and un-viable ones at the end of this sitting. The little lady has already pushed two very rotten ones out from under her, but is sitting pretty on at least seven more eggs.

Marry HAD a little lamb...

One of the (surprisingly many) benefits to living in the middle of nowhere is plenty of land and having friends who raise animals on it.

My husband's family is friends with just such an family, and we just bought a yearling lamb from them.

The lambs were delivered to the abattoirs last weekend, and this Friday, we got the meat. Came out to about $6 a kilo for the lamb (which is what the sale price is on BBQ lamb chops at the butcher we frequent).

Not only is the a free-range lamb (not sure if there is any other kind?), raised by people we know, but it's cheap. And tasty. We ate some last night, right after I'd divided up the cuts into two-person-meal sized bags and put them in our freezer. The whole lamb, by the way, will provide us with over a months worth of meals.

Back to cooked lamb, though. Neither of us are big fans. Unless it's roast lamb. Roast lamb is fantastic. Lamb most other ways I'd had before, not so much. It's just... gamey, tough, and, well, it's lamb. But it's everywhere here (the unofficial meat of Australia I think. I haven't looked it up), so I looked up and invented a few recipes, and now we quite enjoy eating lamb (which is good since, you know, we bought a whole one).

The first night of lamb was something I have affectionately titled "Goin' on down to Egypt Lamb". Because it's made with as many leeks and garlic as I can put into it. It's a funny name if you like Bible humor.

But anywho, I chopped up some of the undersized leeks from our garden (I'll be the one planting the leeks next season. Or at least making sure it's done properly by a certain husband of mine). Salted and seared the lamb chops a bit, threw in the leeks, chopped some garlic and threw that in, and then used the chops to kind of stir the whole concoction to coat them a bit with leek-y garlic-y goodness. Put in a tablespoon or so of water, put the lid on and let them cook away.

It's delicious. Unless you don't like leeks or garlic or red meat.

*Note: I am aware that you're not meant to use the green part of the leek. But these leeks were severely undersized. And we really really wanted leeks, so I caved a bit and used only JUST a little of the green bit, right were it starts to go from white to green.

Also, those mashed potatoes were full of New Zealand spinach, also from our garden. I've taken to putting it in mashed potatoes because it's a really bitter, and sometimes it's just easier to use one pot instead of two, or adding a steamer.

Frosted

Yesterday I woke up (at 8mumblessomething) to a freezing bedroom.

Typical, since we heat the house with a wood heater and, because of the way the house is built, the heat doesn't reach the back rooms very well.

But then I opened my curtain and squeeled with glee.

There was frost everywhere! It's... the closest thing to snow we'll get at this elevation. Or something along those lines. But frost! Beautiful, fully-coating, white frost! And a most beautiful sunny day too!

I jumped in my gum boots (still in my pajamas which, as cold as it gets, consists of many layers of warm clothing) and took off for a quick walk outside to snap some pictures and just enjoy the actual winterness of it, since my previous experiences of winter here have been filled with almost nothing but cold rain and damp air.

I felt like I should run inside and turn on Christmas music and start baking cookies. My seasons feel so messed up at the moment, seeing as how they're literally backwards from what I'm used to.

Our view of Mt. Roland from the chicken shed
(The house is somewhere hidden to the left)

Fall raspberries
Not nearly as good as summer ones, but still fresh,,
And the ones left are attracting some really pretty birds

My frosted rosemary bush

The neighbors horses. Some of them anyway.
They loved the cold morning and were quite frisky.
(Except for in this photo...)

Our landlord's cabin (he lives just behind us behind a copse of trees.)
His view of the mountain is spectacular.

As the sun rose higher, the frost very slowly melted from the grass and made quite a romantic mist, while still leaving trees and flowers beautifully frosted. I felt as frisky as a foal walking around the small bit of property in the cold. It was just wonderful. And even better, to come back to the toasty (front of the) house where my husband had stoked the fire before leaving for work at 6AM.

AgFest

Saturday, Phillip and I went to Agfest (Agricultural Fest, for anyone who didn't understand that).

No, Agfest isn't just an Australian thing, I know plenty of people that participated in them back in the States, I just never had a need or desire to go to one, so... Anyway, living in a state that even it's biggest cities are classed as rural, I wanted to go. Plus Phillip really wanted to go so he could eat some oliebollens that are at a stand every year (they were pretty tasty).

Aside from all the farming equipment that was pretty well priced, we stopped by craft booths (though most we had seen at the Deloraine Craft Fair earlier this year, and lovely as most of it is, it's not really in our budget), and, my favorite, the dogs and horses showing off their skills. And the alpacas. I love alpacas. They make a sound like, "Meh" and it makes me think of my sister (in a good way!). And they're just so fluffy and odd looking!

Unfortunately, my camera chose that day to show it's age and start dying on me. It's at least 4 years old, my little Canon Powershot, and taken several thousand photos, so it's not entirely surprising. Oh well, it still works well enough that I won't be upgrading any time soon.

We wore out gum boots in anticipation of much mud.
They're like the four-wheel drives of footwear!
I ALMOST felt bad for all the women/girls there in pretty shoes and boots.

Border Collie showing of it's skills. Still in training, but having a blast.
It's cool how much of the herding instinct is just BREAD into them. 

Girls from a local Pony Club on their Arabians showing off some skills.
Horses were pretty stoked to be showing off, too.

This gadget apparently helps you turn sheep better for things like dipping,
crutching (cutting off their you-know-whats), and other sheep... things.

See? Adorable fluffy baby Alpaca.

What a Stud...

The other day, I went with my sister-in-law to help her check out the "neighbors" cows (the neighbor is a family friend who also maintains the land next door as well as cares for the cows on it, though someone else pays him to do it. This is the same "neighbor" as when I watched calves pulled). He put her "in charge" of keeping an eye on the cows and whatnot.

So off we went to check out what she thought was a calf in distress, and turned out to just be a cow, heavy with calf, laying down for a bit of a rest.

And, while we were there, we checked out his horses, three mares and a beautiful stallion.

Yes, yes, stallions are unpredictable and somewhat dangerous to be around. And while I was very much on guard, this boy was just beautiful. Quite the little show pony, he was. Surprisingly walked right up to us for pats, then wandered straight over to the thistle bushes, talking to his girls, for a prickly snack.

Old McDonald had no more hens because a dog ate them

It's New Years Eve and we spent a lovely last day of 2011 visiting a most lovely couple who may have work (of a sort?) for me, was incredibly inviting, went to the beach and picked up loads more shells, driftwood, and sunburn, and finished off at a salt-water river fishing with my brother-in-law and his fiancee.

Of course, I won't write more about this or post the pretty pictures because when we got home and Phillip went to lock up our remaining chicken and our lovely rooster, he found feathers. Everywhere. And then saw a dog with something in it's mouth. He chased it a bit, came back and got me, and we went searching for it with his block buster in hand, the cat trailing after us like the loyal little girl she is, a flash light, and a barrel full of anger.

We didn't' find it, of course, but we're now certain it was the dog that killed everything, and came back for more. Not sure if it belongs to anyone though. But if it comes on our (technically our landlords) property, we're fully within our rights to kill it if it's harassing our animals or us.

My brother-in-law? The hunter? He really liked our ducks. He thinks our rooster and our chickens were pretty nice as far as chickens go  (our rooster gets compliments from everyone who visits, he's so massive and majestic). He was ready to shoot anything here before we found out for sure it was a dog. Guess who's coming up for nachos tomorrow.

Photos of pretty day out to come tomorrow.

Happy New Year!

Discovery, Unwanted

I had hoped to write all about my first Christmas in Australia (and also my first Christmas married), as well as Boxing Day (which, up to now, has been and still is a complete mystery to me), and all about Christmas pudding, crackers, how it's summer instead of winter and it's just weird to experience, and the FANTASTIC ninjabread house I made for the family gathering.

But, unfortunately, the day after Christmas (Boxing Day) we woke up late, went to let the chickens and ducks out of their shed, and all there was were the rooster and one hen, both of whom were already wandering around outside. Apparently, in all the fatigue of the mountainous Christmas lunch and dinner, we forgot to lock their shed that night. Thinking that the ducks had found another spot to roost, and possibly the hen with them, (normal for our ducks, odd for the chicken), we searched the areas they're known to frequent.

Nothing.

Until I went around the side of the house by the car port and found my dear little drake laying belly up near the brush line, surrounded by some fluff and a few feathers.

The poor little guy had no injuries that we could see, and was stiff as a board. Upon further searching, I found some of the little ducks breast and wing feathers. No body though. Just today, while moving the fire hose, my husband found chicken feathers.

So, one body, three casualties. And our rooster, Eutychus, is nearly horse, most likely from crowing out an alarm. We're guessing it was a dog, since any of the cats that wander around here are terrified of the ducks (yes, odd), and cats are more known here to go for baby chicks and leave full-grown chickens alone. Dogs, however, will just come and "play" with foul, get a taste for it, and kill as many as they can before they're stopped.

The most likely scenario is that, while we were gone Christmas day, someones dog go out and came and killed our poor birds. (We've already lost two chickens from random unknown deaths.) Our little flock is down to two: Little Red, and Eutychus. Why do we figure day? We sleep with the window open and it happened right outside our window. Even with the windows shut you can hear any noise the birds make.

No, we're not sure it was a dog, but we mostly ruled out cats (for reasons listed earlier) and Devils wouldn't be able to chase and kill and drag off three carcasses (though they might just one), and our ducks had gotten quite hefty. Quolls (or Native Cat, though its a marsupial, not even close to a cat) would be the same, and are about the only other native animal that might come after our birds. They generally sneak into coops or get birds that are roosting unprotected, bite the neck, and suck out all their blood. They then fall asleep, wake up much later, and eat most of the bird. They keep their pray where it is, and pretty much just stay there. But the Devils and Quolls are both nocturnal.

My poor ducks. They were getting more and more awesome each day, just learning how to fly, still followed me around outside to their little pond (a child pool) or while I picked raspberries, nibbling my shoes and pant legs. Our chickens sort of lacked personalities, and they're much easier to obtain (my husband's parents have some just hatched and we'll be able to have a few). Plus, ducks are just way cooler. And they were all attached to us, and young, and fun to watch.

<sigh>

New Additions

The cat that I started feeding about a month ago has brought us kittens.

Our guess this whole time is that she was dumped by so

meone (as people do in the country) who didn't want her any more, or that she was just really not looked after by whoever owns her, as she was skinny as a rail (you could feel every individual vertebrae as you pet her, and every rib, though she had a swollen little belly).

She's been quite sweet the whole time she's been coming here, purring, begging to be pet, held, fed. But always skinny as anything. Then I noticed her teats were quite swollen and, well, it felt and looked like something was nursing from her. So I continued to feed her meat scraps, cream and milk. I finally convinced my husband to buy some cheap cat food so we could feed her that a few times a day. She was over constantly, and once the ducks were big enough, we let her back into the house, wormed her, and let her sleep on the couch, always kicking her out when we went to bed.

Two days ago, I walked home to hear high pitched meowing coming from our wood pile, and the cat running to greet me, and leading me to the wood pile. Inside was one tiny kitten. I eventually tempted the little thing out with some food and grabbed it by the scruff and brought it into the house with it's mama. She seemed somewhat indifferent to it, just wanted more food. So we got a box, filled it with dirt (make-shift litter box), and kept the cat and kitten in the house for the night (because you just can't kick a kitten out of your house).

The next morning, my husband woke up and let the cat out. She left her baby. And came back with three more.

So now we have 4 kittens and a cat. We're more sure now that she was dumped by someone, friendly as she is to people, and thin as she was until we started feeding her. She's gotten a bit plumper then, and she obviously trusts us enough to keep her babies with us. We're going to double-check with neighbours, make sure she belongs to no one, and then give the kittens away once they've stopped nursing. They're quite adorable. Though two are still seriously shy, one will crawl on your lap and sleep, and the other follows her a bit. And mama cat just checks on them, nurses a bit, and leaves to wander her own merry way, or sleep on the couch.

Box o' kittens. The calico is still terrified of us for the most part

Two of the more brave kittens, not afraid to be out among us

Second tabby, still too scared to some out and eat (while they're still nursing, they eat solid food already)

Brave adventurous little girl, the first (experimental) kitten "our" cat, Asparagus, brought to us

Our landlord doesn't know anyone around us that owns a grey tabby like our Asparagus, and rekons that cats like that choose their owners, anyway, and that she's chosen us.

You'd think we were starting a farm

Here in Tasmania, it is, as I've said in previous posts, EXTREMELY rural. I've heard it compared to, say, Mississippi or West Virginia in the U.S.

We live in a sort of rural cul-de-sac and our neighbours have horses, ponies.... more horses, and dogs. So we ourselves have started to collect our own plethora of animals.

First, we got our chickens (chooks if you're Australian). Only one, our most red one, lets us pick her up consistently. It's probably mostly because she gets picked on endlessly by the other three.

Then our rooster, Eutychus. We got him free from my in-laws since they have a lot of roosters already and if you have more than one or two, things can get messy. But when we brought our boy home, it was night, because apparently at night, chickens are so sleepy you can just grab them and they won't do anything. So he was put into a box, brought home, and fell asleep in the box. As my husband tried to tip him out into his new home (with his very own girls!) he didn't come out. So further the box tipped. And after a minute of coxing and tipping, out fell the rooster. Face first into the straw, no movement. After me freaking out a little that we'd killed him, my husband patted him on the back and he startled awake. Only to, 2 minutes later, fall back to sleep amongst his harem.

But his name totally makes sense if you check out the story of Eutychus.

Euty and the chicks

After him came our lawn mowers. I guess our neighbours don't like to maintain their fences because two of their ponies got out and, according to our landlord, they come over to eat the grass down anyway.

Our barnyard backyard. At least they keep the grass down and I can use their poop for compost.

Then there was the cat that we think might belong to one of the neighbours, but we're not sure as it travels back and forth between two houses on two sides of us. And now stops at our place to try and come inside. She's EXTREMELY friendly, and purrs if you pretty much just look at her.

I also kind of made the mistake of feeding her. I really miss my own cats... and dog.

And now, we have ducklings. Two of them. They've doubled in size in about a week and provide me with endless amusement, along with endless warm fuzzies (except when I have to clean up their poop). They're inside at them moment since it's too cold fo

r them to be outside and they have no mama to take care of them, and we don't want them getting eaten by rats, or snakes, or Kookaburras.

Taken about a week ago, they now can barely fit in that bowl together.

And, for your viewing and "awwww!"ing pleasure, the ducklings first swim.

Cows, cows, and more cows

Being from the suburbs, I never really had all that much interaction with livestock. Enough so that I'm not completely stupid when it comes to them, but really, not much more than the rare horseback ride and hearing friends or friends of friends talk about their cows/horses/sheep, etc.

Tasmania, though, is very rural. The nearest city I'm by is about thirty minutes away and not all that big a city by American standards.

My in-laws have chickens and ducks for eggs and amusement, as well as two horses. They also have a very very friendly and lovely neighbor who is a dairy farmer. He was keeping a few cattle on the in-laws land for a bit to eat down their grass (cheaper than mowing it all), and sometimes comes over to ask for help if one of his cows is having trouble giving birth.

In the past three days, I have helped to separate the cows who are about to give birth, and also witnessed the birth of twin heifers.

Something I'm told is very rare.

The cow was having some trouble giving birth on her own, so we helped him heard her into a small paddock by herself, while he got a bucket of warm soapy water. To clean his hands while he reached his arm past his elbow into the cow to feel for the calf. He then announced why she was having so much trouble.

Twins.

So, with the help of more soapy water, some rope, and my mother-in-law, he got the two calves out within two hours. While I stood back in awe snapping photos. Then, to help the little things avoid toppling through barbed wire and into the creek while they learned to walk, my mother-in-law and I, along with the farmer, hefted the two little (they weigh a LOT heavier than they look) calves to a different, sheltered, part of the paddock.

All this on a day I'd decided to wear my best jeans (I've only got three pair at the moment, two of them rather dingy) and a nice sweater because we were supposed to go into the town to do some grocery shopping.

This was so much more fun.