First Days

Hi Everyone,

View from my window

   Let me describe my temporary home.  We are about an hour drive from the nearest town and the station is up in the midst of the “bush” country with lots of trees and scrub.  We live in a one floor ranch house with three bedrooms, a sitting room, large kitchen, bathroom, mud room, and adjoining bunk room.  There is a large porch that goes around two sides of the house. 

Wild Brumbies

The station is situated on a gentle hill, and the house is on the lower end.  Behind the house are the dog houses which house six adult dogs and four puppies.  We also have three cats which sleep wherever they want.  Up the hill from the house is the garage, small garden and chicken coup.  And up the hill from that is a large work shed and a hay shed with most of the tractors parked around.  Across from the sheds is the orchard.  There are also holding yards which are currently holding wild horses, called brumbies, which were trapped for training.  Cows and goats are the main livestock on the station, but there are also lots of horses that are not brumbies which are used to help herd the cows and goats. 

Nanny goat with her kid.

     On Saturday we checked brumby traps and herded goats into the yards so that on Sunday we could commence de-horning the youngest goats.  The goats had horns that are shaped like fish hooks and they manage to get them stuck in the fences.  We de-horned the goats by burning around the base of the horns to kill the horn cells.  The horns will supposedly fall off later on.  Today we again checked brumby traps and then moved goats up to the upper pasture.  This involved saddling up horses and using the kelpies (type of Australian herding dog) to help herd the goats.  I got to ride Sambo, a caught and trained brumby.  But today I started pushing him too fast too early into our ride and he decided that he didn’t want to do that so he started running and when he felt my balance slip, he gave me a helping shove.  So I have now been thrown off my first horse.  I have a bruise on my backside and a bit of pride dented.  But I got back on and for the rest of the day Sambo and I did just fine.

Sambo and I hearding goats with help from Chickadee the dog.

 

    There are plenty of interesting native animals to be seen around the station.  There are white cockatoos with yellow head feathers.  There are parrots with red and blue and some with green and yellow.  There are kangaroos which jump along beside the road.  There are also wombats, which are like large badgers, samba deer with dark fur, and at least one poisons snake that we have seen so far.  Oh and there are plenty of little bush flies. 

Patty and Danny the cats

Hana