Messing around with the gee gees

Evenings are getting longer and lighter.

Rather than dodging darkness and downpours to dispense food and apply rugs, we can take our time to enjoy messing around with the gee gees.

Horse phobia is apparently not genetic.

Jarrah is R’s horse.

R thinks Blade also belongs to him.

But according to the Ginger Biscuit, Ginger Blade (aka “The Racing Horse”) is her, ALL hers.

And so are all the carrots.

While Toffee has been sort of outgrown, and Dancer is convalescing, Dave is the Farmboy’s steed of choice.

But Farmboy has his eye on the newest arrival, Rosie.

She’s Blade’s half-sister and Jarrah’s niece (or something similar- horse pedigrees are still largely beyond me).

Farmboy says she’s going to be his showjumping horse.

I’m told that she’s at the “ugly duckling” stage, and she will grow out of it.

We can only hope.

Blog Inertia

It happens to us all, sometimes. Life gets in the way of blogging. And as the days go by, it gets harder to sit at the computer, find those photos, knuckle down and write something (anything!) before it all gets away from you and you’re overcome with blog inertia.

I'm badly afflicted, I'm afraid. I'm told the only chance for a cure is to sit down and get blogging. So here goes...

Christmas: At home. Quiet. Hot. Prawns. Kids had a ball.

The in-between week- down to Donnybrook for lunch with friends, and their awesome view

Smoke from the coastal fires 

Can you spot the elusive menfolk?

New Year: Hot. Caught up with some sheepdog friends, played with some young dogs, drank some beer!

Summer rain: Not as much as Carnarvon or Queensland (thank God!), but enough to fill the dams, soak the garden and grow some weeds.

An inch in a few hours

The artichokes flowered. 

 

The first corn was delicious (and now we're well sick of it). 

The grapes on the back verandah ripened, attracting bees, birds, and unfortunately for the birds, Robin.

The Ginger Biscuit turned ONE! And grew teeth, learned to walk, and climb, and boss the boys around. There's a lot I have to say about the end of my baby days, but I keep getting snot and tears all over the keyboard, so that may have to wait...

Secret visited:

And Bill was just so happy about that!

We played a bit of soccer.

  We played a bit of cricket, and taught the pups to field.

Farmboy, nearly run out by Wilson, lunges valiantly for his crease... or something like that.

 On the farm, we've been feeding sheep. 

Then feeding them again. 

The rams went out, then the rams came back in, a bit scraggier but much, much happier.

Bill, being recalled after holding sheep off the feeder bin

Some of us been driving around in tractors.

We've been running dogs, and checking dams. 

Tom, Charlie with ever-present nose slobber, Fred

 

We've been up to the city, then back home, then back to the city, then home, then to the city again. At various points in our travels, we've explored the underwater world, 

we've watched Australia Day fireworks in the city, 

we've helped Grouch in the garden, 

Less Ginger, more Shirley Temple these days

we've acquired a swimming pool.

And then we came home.

Kevin

The Fred-Queani pups turned from quiet, sweet little cuddlebunnies into long-legged Attack Rabbits of Death. Their names are Kevin and Mabel. 

Jeff (formerly Wilson), Kevin and Mabel

We made our Pony Club debut.

I went back to work. The Farmboy started kindergarten.

The WAWSDA trialling season began with a bang.

And now, finally, we've sat down and blogged. Phew.

It won't be so long between drinks next time.

Rex gives you his word!

The (real-life) Saddle Club

When I was a kid, I wanted a pony so badly it hurt. I begged and begged, but my heartless parents refused, and I had to settle for my collection of Pullein-Thompson novels and Dallas, Prancer and Dixie, my Barbie horses.


Hours I spent grooming manes and tails with teeny little (plastic) brushes and curry combs, polishing (plastic) tack and adjusting teeny weeny little blankets to keep their (plastic) backs warm at night, all the while imagining every other girl in the world dressed in jodhpurs and Fair Isle jerseys, hacking out on their cobby little greys and duns, popping over tricky little oxers with practised ease before trotting home for tea and crumpets, while I sat in my room brooding on the unfairness of life and parents so evil that they wouldn't buy me a Cabbage Patch doll, either.

As it turned out, my parents were right. Horses, even small horses, are much more hassle than the plastic variety. Even though the real-life brushes are much bigger, it takes so much longer to groom a real-life horse- your arms are aching before you've done a quarter of the job. They get real-life tangles with twigs and mud and their real-life coats get absolutely chockablock with dust. It's even harder to get out than that biro mark my little brother left on Dallas' rump- and you can't use Spray'nWipe on a real-life horse. As I've previously mentioned, they can be a bit delicate and prone to expensive vet bills. No Superglue for real-life horses. Plus they have teeth, and don't stand still when you're trying to brush them or do their real-life feet, which keep growing and hurt a lot more than the plastic variety if they step on you. They buck and pigroot when they're excited, and wave teeth and hooves at each other... and in real-life, I'm a bit scared of horses.

So Farmboy's debut at our local Pony Club is both a vicarious dream-come-true for me, and a first step into a terrifying new world. Luckily R has been there and done that all his life, so he's not the one having kittens over the state of Farmboy's riding boots or the appropriateness of our gear or how to load the pony or any one of a hundred things that had me sleepless for a week. He's also happy to be the one who jogs laps of the yard, trying to encourage Dancer (a pathologically "steady" Welsh pony) into a trot. That was a relief, because our first day at Pony Club was about 35 degrees and I would have died.



But Farmboy loved every minute of it, Dancer took it all in her very experienced stride, and R enjoyed the flashback to his own youth. The Ginger Biscuit is already clamouring for her turn.

They're out practicing whenever we have a free afternoon, and it probably won't be long before they move from Pony Club to polocrosse, like R did.


I'm trying hard to learn as much as I can, because it looks like we'll be spending a lot more of our time doing real-life horsey stuff. So far, despite my lack of real-life skills, it's even more fun than the plastic.