Bedded down

We've finally had time to pick up Snowy's magnificent new bed, made for her by her Grandpaw from polished wood and foam rubber from old sofa cushions cut to size. It was too large to fit into his car so it came home on the tray of the ute.
She wasn't sure about it to start with. SO had to show her it really was for her and not another piece of human furniture that she's not allowed to jump onto.
Then she had to check it all out. I had put her old bedding on it to make it smell like home, but even so, it was strange...

and required a thorough investigation and a good sniff around...

and underneath.
A couple of unwelcome visitors had to be evicted. They were trying out the facilities for warmth.

Finally, when the soft furnishings had been dug up and rearranged to her satisfaction, Snowy settled down for the night.

Black spots

This morning, most unusually, Jeremy the cat x Gloucester Old Spot pig made a nuisance of himself around the sheep shed. He's never done this before, never shown an interest at all in the lambs and shied away from our rather forward sheep.

Most strangely of all, he tried several times to gain admittance to the fox-proof area undercover. He's never done that before either, despite the abundance of rats in there at times. They know it's fox proof too. Jeremy was really, really interested - not in rats - but in what was going on inside.The only difference between this and any other morning was that Belinda had been confined to quarters because she'd gone into labour. Jeremy seemed pretty anxious about this and paced up and down outside, craning his neck to see what was happening. We had enormous hopes for a black lamb from Belinda and the odds were pretty good given that she is black herself. The highlight of the lambing season so far has been Annaliese's black lamb and Belinda had witnessed our delight over her. Belinda's had a single lamb, so big she had to be helped out with a lot of straining and effort aided by us. At first sight of it's pink feet and white legs I thought we had a white lamb again and couldn't quite fathom it. Then Belinda produced this:
The background music to the birth was slightly different too. There were the usual birds singing in the spring morning, the other lambs bleating and their mothers answering and the far away lowing of cows on the hill. Throughout the whole process there was also a cat meowing and crying to come in.
The ewe lamb is a stunner, as big as the two week old lambs already and standing almost immediately. Out of a totally black ewe by a totally black ram she should have been... well, different. She has a lot of white patches and two round black spots on her white hip. Just like Jeremy...
We're sure Belinda and Wilberforce spent some quality time together, and we don't want to doubt her, but... Wilber's thrown a lot of small lambs this year, and this girl is quite large. As far as cats go, so is Jeremy. We haven't had a chance to bring up the question of her lamb's parentage to Belinda and she herself has been too busy to comment. It's a delicate subject. She may never tell.

How much wood can a woodcat chuck?

The black and white brothers are self appointed load inspectors, particularly when it comes to a consignment of potential warmth. Unfortunately the long rains of early spring, the impassible quagmire that was the raceway access to the hill and the fact that all the suitably cured deadwood left is high on slippery slopes added up to the inevitable. We had to just buy firewood instead, like some sort of normal person. It's the first time in 3 years, but it's still very annoying. Had we had 36 hours in a day we might have got a few loads with the wheelbarrow but with sheep inconveniently lambing all over the place we ran out of time. And steam. So we compromised with just one ute load of ready cut wood.

What a luxury it was to just heave it in from the verandah. SO did split some larger logs with the mallet by way of anger management therapy, but for the rest there was no real work. Just dry redgum ready to burn. Everything brought home on the ute or in the trailer is subject to sniffing for quarantine and quality by a representative of the furry house pets. Jamie was concerned we hadn't quite filled the tray completely,

but after making sure there was no-one in the cab and the vehicle wouldn't suddenly move off,

he ascertained that the load was of the best wood available and had no mice, rats or random wildlife among it.

.

Training for cats

Jeremy likes to practice catching rats and mice in the hay shed. He'll sniff around and wait for hours. It's not bad waiting, it's out of the wind and the hay is warm.


He also knows you have to go like this:

but need to have a mouse to pounce on to make it work. The chances are best when someone has just shifted a bale. He knows they're in there somewhere.

Spring snow

Sometimes it gets very cold here, but it doesn't snow. (Except for the winter of 1996 but that was a rare exception) The closest we usually get is the result of a gust of wind in the blossoming pear trees. It's very pretty as the petals flutter down.

The falling blossoms are also irresistible to our cats who play like kittens amongst it. They are 10 years old but spring brings out the youngster in all of us.

Chair for two

Snowy isn't actually allowed in her favourite armchair, which is why it has a makeshift cover in the form of a towel to deflect all her white hair. There's no keeping her out of it when we're not looking. Tonight she even tried to hide behind a cat.

Paws for a moment

Jeremy's been flat out gardening all morning. Here he is just being flat out.

Having helped me weed the smallest rose bed, it's understory of bulbs now finishing flowering, he's seconded my woolly cardigan because it's warmer than the damp grass. It's also positioned beautifully to gaze dreamily at the last of the grape hyacinths.

The lawn needs mowing next, or the paving sweeping. Just now however Jezza's appreciating nature. Or waiting for mice to show up in the foliage. He's so laid back it's difficult to tell.

FBI cats

I don't know what these cats are up to, but they posted on either side of the driveway and as soon as Snowy the unruly beagle had gone obliviously past, they exchanged a meaningful glance...

...and turned to follow her. The Feline Bureau of Investigation.

They're either monitoring her movements closely or they are now her bodyguards.

Trouble looming

We are often asked, with all those sheep, what do we do with all the wool? Our flock is too small to sell the wool clip commercially, and having coloured sheep and all sorts of breeds in the mix doesn't help. I actually spin a lot of it into yarn. Then it's either sold or knitted into things or both. Lately I have taken possession of a small table loom. This came at a negligible cost (fixing someone's spinning wheel, a quick lesson and a couple of batts of wool roving ready to spin) and it was probably free because it's ancient and hasn't been used in 30 years. I know this because of the dates of the newspapers used as loom papers for the old project still on it. Still, I was willing to give it a crack, although the small furry bodies circling like sharks really should have warned me it wouldn't be that easy.

Warping a loom is the most difficult aspect of the whole process, requiring lots of long, even, straight, untangled lengths of yarn ready to be put on as the basis for the weaving. Not tested as a possible musical instrument by the cat.

Those yellow threads are ment to be neat and straight, looped around the chair, not played like a harp.
It didn't work as a guitar either, or even a hammock. It was useless as a bed to lie on, and although Jeremy did try to straighten out the mess, having three out of four paws caught in it made this impossible.

With the rain bucketing down outside I thought it would be a good afternoon's project but made a mental note to move anything like this to a CEZ (Cat Exclusion Zone) first.

Battening down

It's rained pretty solidly for the last 24 hours, which is wonderful really. Our tanks are overflowing, the springs are full and the pumps are working overtime. I will remember this come January and wish for it again. Right now it means dashing out when the showers lighten to do jobs outside whilst trying not to get stuck in the mud. Our little valley is a natural waterway but even without interpreting the lay of the land in a geographical fashion the layman could tell by the water flowing over his ankles. The dogs are largely confined to quarters and are largely over it.

They'll get a long walk as soon as we have more than 15 minutes of clear weather at a time. The cats handle confinement much better. They just settle down and wait. Minor disputes over prime sleeping spots notwithstanding.

"I can see my house from here..."

"It's underneath me!" Jamie and Jeremy are a bit puzzled about how to get down off the roof. It was all a bit of fun to begin with but they don't remember how they climbed up the shadehouse wall to get there and now they're in trouble. Jamie peers over the edge hopefully but the bull nose veranda is a bit steep and slippery and only leads to the gutter.

Jeremy is investigating alternative routes, but the veranda ends in an abrupt drop.


The two cats swap notes on their investigations. They change places and continue to look for a way back.

They'll discover how to get down eventually. Or Jamie will just start to yell for help until I get out the ladder. Again.

Under cover

It's abundantly obvious on frosty mornings that simple shelters do wonders for keeping the ice off things like seedlings, tender plants, citrus trees, the ground and paws.


We use this principle in the fledgling citrus grove to protect the young trees. Frosts only occur here for about 3 months of the year so in our typical slapdash fashion we haven't bothered to construct anything permanent. Hopefully in a few years the trees will be big and tough and grown up enough to face their own frost demons so they won't need our help. It all looks a bit Steptoe and Son, with various lengths of old canvas, random lengths of unused fabric, damaged horse rugs, assorted tarpaulins and off-cuts of shadecloth propped haphazardly over any plant that needs it. Still, it works.


The trees don't need to be kept warm, not by human standards anyway. 2 - 3 degrees above freezing is enough to deter damage and the makeshift covers ensure the ice crystals don't touch the trees. The cats prefer ice crystals not to touch them either.

Hanging around

Today the rain continued a little bit then drizzled off elsewhere in a sulky manner. It's cold. It's grey. It's the middle of winter and hunting mice in the horse shed is shivery work, all that waiting, sitting still on the concrete floor. There's no fire in the horse shed so Jeremy found himself a post instead as Chief Headrest and Purring Warm Cushion.


With his physique he is ideally suited to the job.

Cat on a stick.

This is Jelly looking for mice, other small creatures or something we can't fathom, from her vantage point on the compost heap post.


She'll sit there for ages, looking intently. Sometimes a tiny twitch of her tail gives away the fact that she's thinking, but the rest of her remains completely still with the patience of a martial arts master.


This kind of self discipline is too much for the boys, whose idea of gardening is to look after the tools. From a sunny position.

Bedtime in the morning

Early mornings mean leaving a warm bed for the cold winter dawn to feed the animals and check all is well after the stormy nights.


Jeremy hates to see a warm bed wasted, so he sneaks in when we get up. Here he is breaking at least three CEZ's (Cat Exclusion Zones) being a) in the bedroom, b) on the bed and c) under the covers.


He claims he is not technically c) under the covers, because he is not actually c) covered. Still guilty of the other charges though. Snowy is sitting there quietly hoping I won't notice her in a Dog Exclusion Zone as well. She has the space behind Jeremy earmarked for a nap of her own.

Mouse in the house

Jeremy is convinced there is a mouse in the potato sack. For someone who meows the house down when he's hungry and actually bangs at the door if he wants to come in, he displays remarkable patience waiting for the potato mouse to come out.

Eventually, with Jamie egging him on and Jelly's complete indifference even he can't wait any longer and, tired of waiting, with a "tsk!" of annoyance, he goes in after it.

I should point out that there were no rodents in our potato bag at all. Jeremy just gets these ideas in his head sometimes. I doubt if anything small and furry would dare poke a whiskery nose in our kitchen, filled as it often is with cats. Whilst we've heard something very like mice occassionally behind the skirting boards we've never seen any evidence of them actually in the room, so mouse lovers rest assured: no mice were harmed in the making of this post.

Boxed from the box!

Jeremy the Gloucester Old Spot Cat loves boxes. He also loves to get into bags, sacks, rugs, discarded pullovers and washing on the floor, but he loves boxes best. He's reserved rights to every new one that enters the house,

...and he maintains that if another cat should challenge him to this...

...he'll box it's ear!