I’M NOT DEAD YET!

Last month I deliberately left you suspended, like Home and Away, as to the health condition of Maxine. I’d already lost one sheep and didn’t want to earn the reputation of being a serial complacent.

You might remember that I discovered her flat on her back with legs pointing skyward, completely motionless. It was at that point that I looked toward her face and lo and behold like the hussy that she is she rolled her eyes towards me as if to say

‘Well, don’t just stand there, close my legs and help me up’.

Suddenly the realisation that she’d taken water up past her Plimsol Line and capsized became the reason she’d rolled. The Crows had obviously been too lazy or too scared, else she had kept them at bay with skyrocketing Sultana’s, but with a little help just short of a Bobcat I got her rotated onto her tummy. She was able then to get herself up, and without even as much as a ‘bye your leave’ all I saw was her waddling butt heading for dinner and leaving a dripping trail of water behind her.

This graphic demonstration of wools absorbent qualities prompted me to think about animal shelters of which I have none. These days even sub-prime sheep want four bedrooms and a spa bath, but Maxine would need to be worth as much as Malcolm Turnbull to warrant me spending more than $50. Maybe a second hand plastic Cubby House from the next Animal Refuge Garage Sale? Would she fit through the door?

She’s rolled again lately. Maybe I have to reconsider the rain excuse and realise that she is just too fat. With the energy she generates in keeping her head in the feed bucket I could use her to pull a Thrasher around the paddock, I have promised myself to check out ‘Curves’.

I’ve mentioned before the qualities of a TAFE course. They provide lots of information about the Physiology of Sheep, the name of the third left tail bone or what the ‘Devil’s Grip’ is, lists of worms with pictures, parasites and flies. But they do not provide anything about the psychology of sheep, quirks, habits and the symptoms to look for.

I knew what ‘flyblown’ meant Mary copped that after having her last set of twins, I believe it has something to do with the midwife not having enough towels or hot water handy.

I thought I had got rid of the maggots that she had collected but for several weeks she kept shedding wool, here wool, there wool, it was everywhere wool. The shearer solved the problem by explaining that she was suffering a bit of post-natal depression and would be OK after learning a few stress reduction techniques. Of course she has taken it too far as usual and instead of bleating she sits cross-legged and hums Mantra’s.

Then comes the next problem. Why should Feral Sheep No.5 - now renamed ‘Roast’ – suddenly leap around like Dame Margot Fontaine performing a ‘pirouette with double entendre’ after eating Oats. Her enlarged udder makes me think that she might have eaten something she shouldn’t – Peanuts?

In the words of Pauline Hansen could someone ‘Please explain’.

'Shit'

Klqsdqks il nd,. L lkdjla/l / the brown fox wasn’t quick enough lslj,j ksbksj,b b.jkxcl;sn vdgq;kld

OK, now I’ve also got Tom and Jerry. The back shed is still the only place I can find to work on the computer in peace as a result two little mice have just stuck their heads up from behind my desk and stumbled across the keyboard. The third mouse is probably still at the Railway Hotel getting blind. I’ll get back to you.

GODFREY ZONE

IS THAT YOU MAX?

Even though I had promised myself never to take on anything so big that I couldn’t wrestle it to the ground on my own. The length and quantity of the grass all over the property has made me go back on my own word.

In the last few days I have taken on further agistment duties with one already mention Goat from Griffith and now two horses. One most beautiful but sulky 6 year old Clydesdale mare prone to throwing little tantrums and one affectionate 20 year old stallion. The mare is so big I think the sun has set every time she walks past the kitchen window.

Although it’s a highly dangerous move I like naming animals appropriate to their personality or their use. As a result I felt that naming the three feral sheep Numbers 5,6 and 7 might make one think that they were candidates for a Nazi Gas Chamber so I have chosen to rename them Roast, Casserole and Kebab.

I always have the good intentions of maintaining a stress free environment for all us creatures here in Happy Valley. I want ‘Good Karma‘ every day. I have even banned them from watching commercial TV in case they run across Sam Kekovitch promoting BBQ Lamb for Australia Day.

Recently however, totally unintentionally I caused Maxine to throw up, Mary to dry retch, Butch and Betty to audibly gag, and Billy to begin butting his head against the nearest tree. I had done something really simple too. I just removed my clothes to ‘skinny dip’ in the dam.

The word skinny dip, in my case, bares no relationship to my good self. I’m more the shape of a large Mozzarella cheese that one sees hanging around traditional Deli’s. It is not an exact resemblance however for cheese holds it’s shape whilst my body tends to move about relative to gravity. If you’ve seen an elephant laying on its side you will know exactly what I mean.

Whilst swimming, or should I say wallowing in my dam, the Fish Kamikaze on the shoreline while the Frogs Hari-Kari onto the sharpest reeds. It’s a constant problem replenishing that stock.

Now when I go down to the dam I have to negotiate my way past the ‘Pit Of Death’ which started with Bossy the sheep and is now almost full to the brim with a menagerie of suicidal fauna.

In future before divesting myself of my Y-fronts and plunging into the icy depths of dam sludge (A sort of gun-metal grey, is this the same stuff beauty parlours use?) I will give a long sustained toot on the Rams Horn to warn all and sundry too avert their eyes. At least I know that I’ll be swimming in water completely devoid of any life form sometimes including yours truly.

It wasn’t that long ago when we actually had some heavy rain and lots of wind. On one of those rare days whilst travelling up the driveway to the house that I happened to notice a few sticks protruding from the long grass a few yards away. It’s not an unusual sight after a storm considering the amount of wattle trees on the property. I thought little of it and just went on into the house.

Although I’m an extremely curious person, some say odd, sticks are not particularly high on my list of optional study.

Some time later, as the sun sank down beyond Skipton and the flock drew themselves towards dinner, I did the usual head count. One short, try again, yes one short. Unable to line them up for a roll-call I just mentally ticked off who was getting ready for dinner. I try to avoid using the word ‘dressing’ for fear of upsetting them.

One short! Maxine! How many sticks? – 4.
What colour? – Black. How many legs does Maxine have? – 4. What colour are they? – Black. Putting 2+2 together I came up with the same answer. I heard myself tell the assembled tribe ‘Don’t panic! Don’t panic!’

When I arrived at the sticks, there she was on her back legs straight up in the air as stiff as a stiff, but even worse, in a very unladylike manner she had soiled herself. The tears welled up when I remembered that when one dies everything tends to let go.

She’s moved on? Despite my writing non de plume I thought ‘she’s in heaven’s paddock or lining the Ugh Boots of Jesus?’

GODFREY ZONE

GO HOME PACKIES

When I bought into Happy Valley I had no idea what lived on my block. As far as I knew the Deeds stated 10 Acres with Small Shed, Dam, Electricity and Telephone. (For some reason a 3Sq.m shed with 2 phone lines and ADSL?) I had seen lots of flaura, that was obvious, but there was nothing in it about any fauna.

I confronted the Agent. This might have been just an investment property, to be left alone save for the payment of rates. Linton may have woken up one morning to find they had been over-run by what turned out to be a total of nine unshorn, giant, really feral sheep, turning the median strip into a barren wasteland, decimating every garden club members front yard, maybe even having there own way with the tin sheep outside the pub.

As a general rule I try to vary the story a little bit each month, but I find myself in this issue writing further of my adventures with Alpacas.

For animals whose genes originated in the high Andes in South America they seem to have adapted quite easily to the flatter territory of Australia. It amazes me that both Dali and Penshun seem to prefer sitting on a small pile of dust near the front gate rather than climb Erebus, Etna or Vesuvius the three piles of dozered up rock under which Warren, Bruce and Clive the Rabbits has created elaborate Harems, and more recently Bobby the Brown Snake.

On the subject of rock, the Land Consultant I engaged to sort out where our human sediment should float too was the first to mention the problem I might have. It was not until after I had bought the land that I learnt about ‘Floaters’ .

But my mention of the value of rock and the possibility of selling it he broke out into a polite gale of laughter, you know? Turn their back towards you and pretend they are having a coughing fit.

‘Do you think that anyone within 200Km of this place would want to buy MORE rock?’ he chortled.

Back to the subject of Dali and Penshun, Dumb and Dumber, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy or whatever names I think of in times of frustration for these flighty, dithering, highly strung, nervous Nellies.

These two definitely have a mind of their own, if a prawn has a mind? It took me two months to even touch them, two months more to get them to feed from a bucket without little panic attacks, and a further two months to get them into the sheep race. Penshun tried to take flight first and succeeded in getting his legs ‘espaliered’ in the mesh sides. Thank heavens they spat at each other in this process and not at me. Now I know exactly how far ‘spitting distance’ is.

Once in the enclosure I was able to run my hands over them, like trying to break a horse, but all I encountered were sticks and stones embedded in their tangled fleece. Gathered I would expect either from the hill of dust in which they delight in rolling or the trees that they regularly fight. Taking note of how many objects per. square metre was entangled in their fluff I noted that normal shearing might be out of the question in favour of a big pair of gardening shears.

Dali, whose superior intellect is only just superior to a Cashew Nut, realised that he could actually move backwards under the rail behind him and reversed out of the race.

I learnt later that a backscratcher held horizontally would appear to them to be something you could not move beyond. So now instead of trying to corral them the same as sheep I just corner them with both arms outstretched holding a few simple bits of tree branch, but running around like that makes me appear to other humans as though I am trying to take off or that my latest experiment in puppetry failed miserably.

Regardless of their mental capacity my two Alpacas are still worthwhile recruits to my security needs, and a progressive comedy festival at the same time. Even if their wonderfully big, deep black eyes stare vacantly, you have to accept them as they are – animals with special needs.

GODFREY ZONE

MARCH FLIES?

YES – MARCH FLIES
or
Is there anything dumber than an Alpaca?




Of course every self-respecting Shepherd has to have an Alpaca or two let loose amongst the flock. It raises the question for me, having acquired a couple, which ‘Is there anything dumber than an Alpaca?’

It has been over nine months and they are yet to work out whether they should be afraid of the sheep or the sheep be afraid of them.

I saw a documentary once about Australian animals being some of the dumbest in the world because they lacked any serious predators and so placed little emphasis on real protection. But I think Alpacas faced the same problem in Llama land and have evolved into what would appear to be the world’s dumbest creatures.

The brown male I have is formerly known as ‘Dali Llama’ or ‘Mayor’ because he thinks he’s in charge, the other, the black male is formerly known as ‘Penshun Llama’ or ‘Administrator’ because he pretends not to be the real boss. They don’t mind each others company, but they bicker, they carry on more like husband and wife. Frankly I think they suffer from ADHD or a Bi-polar Disorder.

My Alpacas primary role is to see off small animals such as foxes they don’t believe should be there especially at lambing time. I don’t doubt that they are valuable as many Shepherds swear by their effectiveness. But I don’t seem to have any foxes. Bossy, the lead whether passed away and it was four days before I placed him in the ‘Pit of Death’ yet he remained untouched even by Crows.

They have proved their worth however by seeing off the next door neighbours’ cat a few times. Boy does that ginger thing pick up speed when an Alpacas about to hoof its head in.

An example of how Alpacas don’t think might be how, after the shearing of the sheep, they then spent 20 minutes chasing them around the property getting more frustrated every time a new one came shooting out of the race. I think they eventually realised that they already knew these animals from somewhere before but by then they were all slowly collapsing in the shade of trees including Dumb and Dumber.

Now, trees, there is an interesting concept. I’m convinced that genetically Alpacas do not relate to trees. Why should they, in the high Andes of South America trees are non-existent. So Alpacas have never learnt how to dip their heads below a tree branch. Mine just continue to walk towards their target, whether it is the waterhole or the next patch of grass. If they meet a tree it’s a case of just barge through.

Many a time I have been startled by what sounds like a meeting of monkeys in a nearby tree only to see a set of legs doing a Fred Astaire on the ground and a head eventually breaking loose of the rest of the tree. Out walks a really upset Alpaca almost seeming to say ‘Who put that bloody thing there?’

‘How to meet Alpacas and influence them’.

That’s a Course I would like to find if it exists. On the Sheep Course I learnt all about Ticks and Mites, Worms and Wombs, Teething Problems, Marking and Husbandry, but learnt nothing about how to organise them into a team.

They are also easily distracted, demonstrated by the fact that the young Alpacas next door get a little kiss occasionally. I’m not sure if they have worked out he’s neuter gender or they might like to participate in the Mardi Gras Parade.

I’ve had time to study the pros’ and cons of my various animals. I have come to the conclusion that Dumb and Dumber are far less intelligent than say - Louis De Fly.

GODFREY ZONE

SHE HAS A PROBLEM

SHE DOESN’T DIET

Welcome again – meet a failed candidate for ‘The Biggest Loser’. Somehow the name Maxine Suffolk got accepted by Channel 10, that she weighed 80Kg was a bit doubtful, they wrote back to query that bit of the application, but I made the silly mistake of entering her age as THREE. Even I will admit that I could lose a bit of weight. I solve the problem temporarily by surrounding myself with lots of fatter friends. But Maxine doesn’t have that luxury. Even freshly shorn she appears to be double the size of anything else in the paddock. Like me she resembles a Sumo Wrestler.



Her favourite is bread, not plain old white bread she literally turns her nose up at that rubbish, but Whole Grain and Rye will have her run 200 Metres, yes run I said, towards the sound of a plastic guitar pick being pried off the package and the sight of anything resembling a Black and Yellow Bread Wrapper. Visitors have been warned, maybe it also needs a sign on the gate, not to wear any combination of black and yellow clothing. Unfortunately my sheep do not have any Number Plates so it’s hard for visitors to work out which of the sheep near the house is the one that will take out (for some unknown reason) your left kneecap.

Now that the grass is much taller Maxine doesn’t have to rely totally on the ‘Commando Crawl’ up to the shed and the feed bags she knows are stored within. Again, they are yellow. I thought sheep were supposed to be colour blind. Even me carrying a Yellow Bucket will get a response. Her eyes brighten, she begins to drool, and she will not leave me any farther away than one or two metres. It is a fact that once she has been able to get her head into the bucket, any bucket, it takes the equivalent of six horsepower to extricate her from it, and that can even be an empty bucket.

Maybe instead of biggest loser competitions I could try to enter her at the Dogs considering the distance she can cover in twenty seconds, but they would need to recover the rabbit in something black and yellow. She’d do well in a weight for age event if there were any really fat greyhounds around. Of course losing would be out of the question. Anyone for a good Mutton Stir-fry?

To add to the problem my Mum believed that for everyone, an apple a day was the best medicine, that and a good dose of Caster Oil whenever I threatened a sickie from school. But my peculiarities are a different story. What led me to write that is because Bread is not the only thing they all get. Add an Apple a day to that recipe, one each, I’m very fair like that, or a Pear if they are cheap, or a Carrot for moonless nights.

But like the sales pitch ‘That’s not all’. Every afternoon when the sun hits a certain angle on the horizon they all gather, including Dumb and Dumber, near their yard (a bit of fenced off arena under the car-port) ready for their cup of highly palatable feed, suitable for growing ruminants, or as a supplement to grazed pasture - ‘Malt Pellets’.

Grazed pasture? They’ve got 10 acres of the stuff, over an acre each, half of it knee high with 52 varieties of grass, weed and stubble. What else could they wish for? No? Stupid here pretends that they live permanently in an all-you-can-eat diner. Little wonder Maxine’s tummy has left a groove between the food trough and her favourite tree.

I mentioned that I’d done a course about small farming at Hawkesbury T.A.F.E, but like everything else with some of the Tutors it was a case of ‘if you can’t do it successfully then teach it instead’. You spend months of your life learning something you can’t really use, like marking lambs with your teeth or why all worms are Latin, and learn little of what sheep are really like, or what they really need. You need to learn everything fresh, hands on and the hard way.

You learn nothing of the important stuff like: Do sheep have a sense of self? Have they a concept of play? Can they really grow longer fleece using classical music?

This drought of course is not making it any easier for you or me. The arid acres, the deficient dams, fodder famine and wilted Wisteria. Shortage, scarcity, want, absence, need, words heard daily on the TV. But our mate Kevin is now the PM, his supporters promised that when the Liberals fell so would the rain. Here I am Kev avariciously waiting, arms outstretched and face skyward, for 1mm a day just for myself.

GODFREY ZONE

A HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE

Or maybe‘Ovine horribilis’

So dear reader this monthly saga continues although some of you may have considered it balderdash from day one and consigned it to the bottom of the bird cage to soak up more.

So said ‘The Courier’ – 10 Acres of prime land close to town and local facilities with Dam, Power and Phone connected. I thought close to Ballarat? Worth a look? The price was something I might be able to handle and plus what I had seen over the last two years to connect the essentials it was affordable. Having experienced a lot of realty hype over a couple of years it looked a little too good to be true.

It was about thirty clicks following the Agent (that tells you not to sign anything?) through towns rich in history but devoid of personality. I was a-cumin’ round the mountain when I first sighted Linton ‘the historic gold town’ Passing along the main drag I got that ‘home’ feeling, from the Olympic sounding Linton Sporting Complex to the Railway Hotel (Is there a decent village or town that does not boast either a Railway, Royal or Commercial Hotel?) I liked the look of the town. It seemed, unlike many small villages on highways, ‘that it had a heart’, admittedly a bronze swaggie and a couple of black cut-outs of a drunk looking at an empty glass and a watchful sheep but it felt comfortable. Alas we passed through this village too, where was my Shangri-La, my Utopia, my Prozac?

Like Rocky Horror it was a lurch to the left that did it, 89 Kilometres to Geelong? Past the inexplicable curved streets, past the late ‘Oscar’ in his A-Frame Humpy and 5 K’s later we finally arrived at the block for sale.

A rare vacant block with some healthy Wattle trees on it. Far superior to the straggly gums and blackened stringy barks everywhere else. Admittedly they were laid out in rows that nature never intended but I guessed I could live with that.

The moment I saw the military precision of the wattle trees and my neighbours perfect front yard I knew where I wanted to be. Little did I know what I was in store for, us city slickers, but to avoid procrastinating all the way to the crematorium I made the decision to buy.

It was fortunate I decided that I would come down every month or so, to bring some junk to store and having never fully-owned property before to proudly waddle around hugging trees and calling out greedily ‘their mine! their mine!’

It’s lucky, because on the third trip down arriving just on sunset I was relieving myself against a tree when behind me there emanated such a blood curdling sound my pee almost froze in mid air. The feeling was immediate shock and impending horror as I peered into the darkening bushes. Musically I would have said it was somewhere around lower B flat at 100 decibels. Having recently seen ‘Attack of the Killer Sheep’ my hands shook and legs trembled at the sight of an incredibly obese animal, with menacing black face and matching stumps, literally leap out of the bushes and pin my shoulders to the ground.

Faced with the yellow rolling eyes of a completely berserk sheep I screamed at it, it froze, tilted its head, licked its lips, sniffed me, started chewing its cud as though to make room for one of my feet but finally decided I was not something it should ingest.

To be honest when I was first assaulted by it, the sheep was carrying so much wool I couldn’t make out its gender, and I spent some time with gentlemanly prudishness following it around eyeing off a daggy butt whenever it stood still. You would probably know, you more experienced shepherds, that when a very large, unshorn sheep is facing you, gender is not something you can pick easily, it’s not like they wear a bra or use lipstick, and I’m not the type to try a disguised grope.

The first couple of times I couldn’t make out if it was an embarrassingly under-developed ram or a ewe that needed a training bra. To be honest, until I had done a T.A.F.E Course on small farming I’d never had the need to really confront a sheeps’ crutch before.

On the next trip down I decided that I would have to involve myself with it physically. I would need to roll it on its back. Would I survive the ordeal of taking on a giant 80Kg tea cosy? In I went, head sideways to flank, both of us simultaneously, Oh! Hell! Who was wearing thongs at the time and received a well intentioned stomping on at least three toes? I should have put boots on, what would give way first, the sheep or my lacerated foot? Like a bomb, once dropped it couldn’t be taken back. What resulted was a sort of cease-fire, it was resting quietly between my knees but at the expense of two bleeding left toes. It looked at me as though to say ‘How very dare you’ and there they were - a well developed udder with two teats.

Hi there - may I introduce MAXINE.

GODFREY ZONE

2: AND I WANDERED IN?

Before I begin presenting you with a myriad of excuses why I didn’t get into the last edition and continue with the history of how we got here I would like to mention something I’ve noticed lately.

Was it ever resolved between the complainants, the EPA and our local councils about the dastardly act of dropping poo in the local tip a few months ago? What an un-necessary kafuffle that was. Headline news for at least two issues of ‘The Miner’.

We live in the country folks! Sheep, dogs, rabbits, chickens, ducks, horses, cattle, alpacas, goats, geese and drunks all evacuating themselves over the countryside. We are literally up to our hocks in the stuff.

And because a few hippie humans happened to use composting dunnies and drop it in landfill there is an uproar from some quarters (one might suspect vegans) about toxic waste, half-lives (maybe because that’s all they’ve got), pollution, odour, long-term environmental damage, the risk of poisoning the endangered ‘Bib-Bummed Booby’ and a variety of other nefarious excuses for all us humans to have to develop a bad case of constipation at concerts.

But that’s not all folks. After reporting that Smythesdale DOESN’T want sewerage in one issue, the headlines in the next are wandering when Smythesdale IS going to get it. Maybe I’ve got the wrong end of the stick? Keep your eyes on ‘The Miner’.

By the way can anyone enlighten me as to what happened to ‘Oscar’ the goat on the Geelong Road? One day he was there with his security blanket and the next day he was gone. I did notice him sunning himself in a rather awkward position the day before he disappeared or was his spirit already in ‘Weed Infested Goat Heaven’ by the time I noticed him. Isn’t it funny that you take things for granted and don’t miss them, like hot water and your left leg, until they are no longer there. So the odyssey continues. How did I get here, why did I get here and what am I doing here?

It was at this point in my continuing quest for a decent plot of dirt that I was looking around Northern Victoria, up near the Murray, but it appeared only slightly more arable than Gibson’s Stony Desert. Are all these trees naturally bare and black or has there been a bushfire?

Then around Central Victoria and some of the states more exciting villages. Here again it seemed the wrinklies were moving in, several times I thought I saw Bert Newton but they all turned out to be Dummies in Tailor Shops. These burgs lacked personality, they lacked anything interesting and seemed downright boring places to live. Little did I know what lay ahead.

Everything the Real Estates showed me in my price range needed a similar amount to access water, phones and/or electricity. The equivalent of the cost of a whole house. The environs of some of the larger towns in Southern Victoria advertised similar cheap plots of land with the same huge costs for infra-structure.

West of Ballarat towards the SA border a plot 20Km out of town was still hellishly expensive to make liveable. Besides they seemed to be about to host a wind farm and I was not that keen to buy in a place where it was so regularly windy my hair would take on the look of a very bad permanent comb-over.

The town almost didn’t exist and didn’t have a life either, no shops, no pubs, half a dozen houses clustered around a church that brazenly advertised a ‘Film Festival’. The 1896 ‘Soldiers of The Cross’ on a white sheet maybe?

Finally came Ballarat. The worlds biggest Eureka Flag lured me to stop and at least have a cup of coffee. It was in that historic period that water flowed past the coffee tables and Lake Wendouree actually had enough water to support a few kayaks. Now of course it’s seems ironic that a sign would say ‘No Swimming’ in the middle of an arid paddock with little willi-willies of dust playing around the middle.

It brought out a little titter of mirth when I saw it, a little chuckle similar to the one I gave when I saw the sign outside the Take-away announcing a 2-hour parking limit. There are 496 other vacant car-parking in the main street that don’t seem to need the same restriction.GODFREY Z