BLOW FLIES

Have you ever woken up a bit startled by a dream that you just had? It doesn’t happen that often but about a month ago I had one dream that was more like a nightmare.

Looking out the bedroom windows I espied five of my flock each painted with a word. BLOW, FLIES, HOME, GO, NOW. Except for grammar I thought it read reasonable well for a flock of sheep that have never even been to pre-school. Even Dalai and Panchun the two Alpacas were there but stood apart from the flock as usual – there words BUONOS NOCHES didn’t seem to fit the sign anywhere.

And then Hayu the lamb sauntered across from behind the house. I think the protest was actually aimed at him. He was sporting a rather crudely drawn target icon on his rump. It was probably sprayed on by Roast who has always been jealous of the lamb because he’s more horny than he. Hayu went to go into the middle of the line but was beaten back half way across the paddock. Finally, on returning to the line, Maxine, who wore the word GO realised her error and changed places with Betty who wore HOME and the sentence read much better.

Maxine then marched towards Hayu and pointed her left foreleg at the poor little fellow announcing that “we will decide who nibbles our grass and the conditions under which they nibble it.”

‘Ear, ear’ bleated Casserole. I drowsily reached for my Dream Interpretation Book and looked for a meaning. Not Mary’s little lamb, stranger, not related to the rest of the flock. Just wandered in and began eating their grass and drinking their water. What a hide. Besides they claim he has a strange accent, obviously a bloomin’ migrant from the wrong side of the fence. Perhaps the flock might even begin complaining about the amount of Malt Pellets Hayu received from Centrelink compared to them.

Hayu right from his arrival had to be given his own bowl for food as none of the other residents wanted a bar of him and were denying him access to the normal services available on my land. They don’t even invite him to share their carrots and apples. What seems to worry them most is that he seems to always sit and chew his cud five times a day facing the West. All hell will break loose when two new ‘coloured’ Merino’s, Farsi and Fatima, arrive next week if I don’t nip this problem in the bud right now.

Suddenly it struck me…….how stupid could I be…..how stupid were they. I called out to them. It’s BLOW-INS stupid…..not Blow Flies. Blow-ins.
GODFREY ZONE

P.S One other bad dream I had recently was after I had laid Pindone for the rabbits. As a socialist pacifist it’s very hard for me to even think of killing anything. But that night I dreamt of seeing hundreds of Bugs Bunnies floating towards the clouds singing songs from ‘Watership Down’.

P.P.S I’ll have to stop Kebab the Whether from travelling in the back of the Ute. He was listening intently to my CD’s while driving around last month and now I find out that he wants to trade in his guitar for a Wurlitzer and a Sigmund Romberg Songbook.

WHAT'S MANHOOD?

(Readers should be advised that this story contains animals and adult themes. It may also contain traces of nuts.)



The next important step in the learning curve of moving from being a Pitt Street Farmer to a fair dinkum Happy Valley resident was it now came time for the inaugural shearing of the alpacas.

The sheep were bad enough. Somehow by being an obsessive compulsive has allowed my animals to work out every regular move I make. Visitors, feeding time, noisy machines, feeding time, burning off, feeding time, and so on.

So it was to be with the alpacas. The very moment I do anything different such as encircling the small yard with hessian they immediately expect something dastardly is going to happen. So one has to do these things well in advance so as to put them at ease and make them think all is normal. Dali and Panchun had no idea that anything was up until I refused to re-open the yard gate for them after feeding.

The hummed and ‘aaahed’ as usual until the van arrived with two strangers aboard. Complaints and inquisitive looks turned to consternation and horror as the two men approached them.

I had not heard about having the Alpha male go first, so it was brown ‘Dali’ who would picked to feel the effects of clippers and snippers first. That’s right, neutering was on our mind as well. He actually was quite laid back about it all, even being spread-eagled in the dirt didn’t seem to worry him. Laying there taking it all like a man, even though ten minutes later he would no longer have a libido.

When released Dali headed off into the wild blue yonder feeling a bit lighter and cooler, all three sets of human eyes now turned to Panchun.

Like a Hitchcock suspense movie the moment of shearing was building up from quite elevator music as he was lowered to the ground to the stab stab stab of Bernard Hermann's shower scene in ‘Psycho’. The bloodied knife being replaced by gnawing shears.

Like Dali two years of fleece fell to earth, Panchun’s black locks gradually denuding him. Concurrently with the process of shearing Panchun let go with every orifice and soiled himself, spitting at anyone in reach and screaming blue murder. He didn’t let up even after we let him go.

With a sound like the screams of a woman running from the hairdressers clutching her bald skull Panchun didn’t stop running until he hit the boundary fence. He felt the shears but felt nothing of a bit of him disappearing into a bucket. Not only had they lost their hair but some mean bugger had also stolen their manhood as well.

The indignity of it hit Panchun like a well aimed Mallet and all he could do was flop to the ground, groin pressed into the dirt in an attempt to protect what he no longer had.

Even to this day they are both so traumatised by the event that whenever they settle down to feed and lower their head into the feed trough they seem to experience some sort of flashback and both will pop their heads up quickly, with a startled look, eyes wide, as much as to say ‘Wazzat?”

Maxine has been treading on my toes regularly in an attempt to get me to buy her a ‘puter’. I’ve got a spare one in the shed and a good monitor but I’m still searching for a keyboard with typing keys big enough to manipulate with her hooves. She won’t let up, she knows it will upset Betty who kind of thinks she’s the local Baa Bara Cartland. I think Maxine wants to do a column too but I’m resisting the idea. Why should I give up my space for her?

I think I’ll ask her to audition for the job first and find a good excuse for her not to proceed with her unrealistic ambitions.

GODFREY ZONE


THOUGHT FOR THE MONTH

Why is it that Phone Technicians, Electrician and Plumbers are all striving to keep the name ‘Diggers’ alive.

Every time I want to do something around the house it seems they’ve got to bury it. One example is gathering water from the guttering around the carport and directing it to the downpipe in one corner, but then going underground for about a meter and a half before rising up again nearly to the same height to empty the water into the rainwater tank.

Are these the normal rules or are they all in search of Lasseter’s Reef.

HYPOCHONDRIA AND DEATH

It might just be me slowly sinking into what used to be called senile dementia. I’ve been having a few bad experiences lately trying to keep up with the increasingly strange experiences with my farm animals. Who was it that first said ‘It’s either me or them’

As I write this it is a beautiful, crisp Victorian country winter having survived the frost and pea soup fog of the morning the sun is out and the birds have stopped shivering. I dread the early hours for it is then that Maxine or one of the other critters will meander up to the front door just to say hello or send me some cryptic message. I’m never sure when I’m half awake whether it’s the fog of my failing eyes or my petrifying brain from which they emerge.

One morning last week I was greeted by Maxine wearing a pair of my Y-fronts over her nose and mouth with the leg holes tucked behind her ears. Where she found them is beyond my reckoning but there she was fully protected I assumed against Swine Flu. I’d had a bit of an inkling that something was going on when she constantly decimated any hay bales I left laying around leaving herself huffing and puffing in the process. But she is a very experienced hypochondriac. Through the Bird Flee outbreak even the battalions of local Cockatoo’s, as gregarious as they can be, dared to land anywhere near her.

I remembered reading to them about the Three Little Pigs for it is just now that I’ve seen Maxine searching all the corners of the property probably in search of a little house made of sticks to check out if the occupants are running a fever or not. She has yet to realise there is a pile of bricks behind the shed.

A neighbour did warn me about reading them bed-time stories, especially the one about ‘Mary and her little lamb’. This one caused my Mary to look at her newborn twins and wander if she might need an optometrist as she seemed to be seeing double. The ‘white as snow’ bit also caused her consternation as she’s a black-faced Suffolk and her new off-spring looked like two emaciated Blue Heelers.

I don’t like ending stories on a sad note but if I am to remain chronological in my meanderings then it has to be so.

Yesterday afternoon at feeding time, after separating out the alpacas and corralling the sheep so they didn’t hassle each other, then tying up the goat so he couldn’t hassle the alpacas or the sheep, I noticed the horses where nowhere in sight. I fed the various groups and was hand-feeding Bill when behind me came the thunder of hooves. The Clydesdale, who just adores bread, pushed in to get a share of Bill’s dinner. Giving her a good whack on the rump and reinforcing that with ‘p… off’ she backed away.

What I did not see was that her hind legs had caught themselves up in Bill’s tether. As she backed away he was pulled under her back legs like the rabbit on a greyhound track. The mare becoming startled at suddenly noticing something hairy between her legs lurched wildly off. Unfortunately Bill went with her at an astonishing speed and was subsequently strangled by his own collar wrapped around the horses’ hooves.

Mercifully it was a quick end, the mare sensing something awful, hung around Bill’s body for at least an hour occasionally sniffing it. Maybe she knew something terrible had happened, who is to know. Well, as Ned Kelly said ‘such is life’.

Late last night I lowered him into the ‘Pit of Death’, lit an incense stick and played Bill Grogan’s ‘Goat Song’.

But before everyone lights candles and starts singing ‘Kumbaya’ it may be wise to know my misadventures will still continue next month.

GODFREY ZONE

A THOUGHT FOR THE MONTH

Who in their right mind would carry political correctness to such an extent that a recent sale described a high quality horse whip as a Horse Pacifier?
Pacifiers for Americans are Dummies to us.
Dummies to us are Americans.
Now I’ll just go and pacify myself a milkshake.

MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL

I do hope that you enjoyed last month’s column. You might find the stories tend to jump from one thing to another like a sheep, but over time you will get a general idea of where this column tends to head.

Like the other ruminants around my place I have tried to introduce Dumb and Dumber (the Alpacas) to the occasional household diet of apples, pears and carrots, but they seem totally disinterested in things sweet. Not even sugar cubes tempt them. They seem to be particularly picky about their dinner and won’t eat anything they can’t recognise. Sensible I suppose.

Whenever I can get fruit or vegetables bulk and cheap it’s added to their diet. In this time of drought it has certainly helped them to keep condition. I have even tried Bananas on the sheep but they didn’t really work out. The sheep ate the skin but the flesh dribbled out of their mouths like an icing gun gone mad.

However something deters some of them from eating the food I present to them. I think its Maxine’s habit of personalising everything by dribbling on it and subsequently ‘bags it’ for herself.

It was about this time that Billy (What an imaginative name for a male goat) arrived from Griffith. Having eaten out the front and backyard of his foster home it was thought he could spend a bit of time eating out the weeds around my place. I have subsequently found out that even though goats have a preference for weeds he will not eat anything like it here. I might lay the blame here on his owner who regularly bribed it with Packet Cereals, Jelly Beans and Chocolate Buttons. After that a weed must taste obnoxious.



I think I will need some more fencing before reforesting the property. As I sit here contemplating the view I get out a ruler to discover that every tree, regardless of its age, has its leaves no lower than 110cm from ground level. Whilst this might enhance the military precision of my forest it indicates nothing under 110cm could possibly survive my little pets.

At a recent Clearance Sale I bought a Metal Mirror for $2. I had at least three reasons for this considerable investment. One to find out if Maxine had any sense of self, i.e. she recognised herself, secondly she might frighten herself and keep her from wandering into the house, and because it’s mounted at floor level an additional bonus of checking the situation with my trousers whenever I enter through that door.

The first time Maxine saw it, she just looked at it. She didn’t move, bleat, or approach it. I know she saw her reflection but her brain didn’t even recognise it was a sheep. She stood there for a while doing her Mae West impressions and then decided the bread in my hand was significantly more important and now she ignores it totally.

Billy also looked into the mirror. Having superior intelligence to any other animal roaming the place including myself, he immediately ripped into the mirror with three or four of the most vicious head butts his little legs and concrete scone could muster up.

So reason number one proved that Maxine is certainly no Einstein. Reason two demonstrated that Billy will stand up for himself against any intruder as ugly as himself.

‘Mirror mirror on the wall who has got the meanest head butts of them all’

For goats at least mirrors are a little different to reality however. I have also noticed that Billy chases Maxine but runs away from Mary, I think it’s a pecking order thing even though they are in different pecking systems. i.e. Goats as opposed to sheep. It’s quite easy to sink into complacency and begin to believe that my pets have some sort of intelligence.

Oh. Yes! Reason three showed that on at least two occasions, after coming back from the pub, my office door was well and truly open.

GODFREY ZONE
(For previous stories and to work out how we got to this point check out http://ahsole.blogspot.com/)

WAFFLE THEN OFFAL

Maybe I should introduce myself first. I’m a retiree looking desperately for a life that decided on a tree-change and moved from the village of Sydney to the village of Linton. That’s right I’m not just a Blow-in but I’m a City-slicker as well. What makes it even worse is that I migrated from New South Wales.

But that part of the story has already been covered in another publication so I don’t know whether I should drag up all that rubbish again. If I have a loyal reader then you will have noticed the move and continue to read the column.

So here’s my story, I hope you like it. If not I have seen this column on the bottom of bird cages before so I shan’t be offended.




Never under-estimate the intelligence of sheep. They startle at the hop of a cricket and follow each other around like Lemmings but they have a rudimentary brain that immediately recognises that if it’s food you run towards it and if its shears you run away from it.

Only slightly larger than a squash ball, and once great for an old-fashioned meal (This might be one for the Pub Menu) the brain of a sheep actually can work things out. I discovered this with Maxine the hard way. Every time I tried to feed the Alpacas she would muscle her way in front of them and tuck into their rations.

I tried chasing her off to leave Dali and Panchun (a.k.a Dumb and Dumber) in peace only to find she would circle the yard with me chasing after her and re-enter the yard through the gate and straight back to their feed. Shut the gate? She wriggles under it. Hang the bucket up a Metre or so? She rears up on her hind legs and bumps the feed out with her nose. Try chasing her with a stick? Useless. A Shepherds crook? Failed. I looked more like a jogging Bishop huffing and puffing in circles? I swear that sheep have a sense of humour.

Even solid constructions like buildings have not seemed to phase her at all. She has worked out how to get her head, but not yet her rump, into the feed shed when I lock myself in there to load up the feed bucket. In fact I even think she has worked out how to open the bag too. I would expect that other ‘Shepherds’ have the same problem. How to get a sheep’s head out of a bucket short of bludgeoning them to death and converting them into Mutton Vindaloo.

I take my life in my hands every day to feed the animal family. I begin to wander whether I shouldn’t invest in one of those foam ‘Sumo Wrestling Suits’ to wear at feeding time. Then I worry that I might look too much like them.

Even Butch and Betty the twin lambs have learnt how to bully the others. Not even Mary their Mother can control them anymore. They have lost all respect for their elders, its ‘me me me’ all the time, they stay up late and wander the paddocks all bloody night, they’ve formed a gang ‘the hole in the fence mob’ with the four lambs next door, and they have begun to graffiti the front lawn with poo.

While Betty is happy with the magazine ‘Cleo’, Butch insists that I take out a subscription for him with ‘Ram Ram Thank You Ma’am’ the soft porn magazine.

I don’t know what’s coming next, maybe binge drinking. At what age does ‘puberty’ finish with lambs? Now when I mention that word sex comes back into the story.

It was only last week that I began to wander if some of my sheep, affectionately referred to as ‘Castrati’, having supposedly become neuter gender and thus disinterested in things romantic, are showing signs of courting towards Maxine.

The bleating when she wanders off, the little rubbings along her side, the little nuzzles under her tail, the foot stomping in front of her. They are not going head down to charge towards her concrete noggin they’re showing a preference to playing piggy-back. I know that nothing is going to come of it so I suppose I should just avert my eyes whenever it happens and let them get on with enjoying themselves.

GODFREY ZONE

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