Bunny boarder

My wish for a pet rabbit or three is yet to be fulfilled. Usually lagomorph visitors around here are treated to the hospitality of Mr .22 actually, if they haven't met Mr Fox, Mr Dog or Mr Fast-Moving-Vehicle first. It may seem rough sort of place for a bunny to take a holiday then, but this little chap settled right in, making straight for the cat dishes. Needless to say, not being our own, he was kept firmly inside and in sight.

His name is Charlie Bunny. He is the pet of our young nieces, themselves on holiday, and needing a safe house for their precious fluffy one. Safe houses not being available, he came here for a week instead. Whilst the cats pretty much ignored him with everything except the corner of one eye, Snowy was Most Interested and went on High Alert. While Georgie could neither see nor hear him she could certainly smell him and told the world so in a high pitched voice that drove us barking, er, well.. very mad. This meant Charlie Bunny was confined to the dog-free zone in the kitchen and his own private apartment in the bathroom, complete with picture window and hot and cold running water, none of which he used. Instead he explored. Incessantly. Usually the dirtiest, most mark-making places possible, like the sooty fire-irons.

While our place could most politely be described as "lived in" and a far cry from his former two-story architect designed outdoor residence and pristine suburban home where he is the sole animal occupant, he quickly adapted his cleaning regime and stopped us having to say "Here's your rabbit back, sorry about the dirt!".

Today's study revision: The secret microbial world of ruminants, their several secret chambers of grass processing and why they shouldn't eat too many lollies.

Thistle do

Yesterday dawned cool and clear and turned into a warm and sunny day. After a week of sunny days. This information is specifically for our northern readers facing the autumn approaching. We've got the sun, thanks very much, we'll lend it to you occasionally and send it back next year.

What this means, however is that the plant population, only transiently resident during the rest of the year, really excels itself with the combined rainfall and spring warmth to create swaths of bending grasses, waist-high weed infestations, very fat sheep and thistles. Lots and lots of thistles. Between the barbarous stinging nettles, welt-inducing cleavers (known around here by the delightful term "sticky Willy") and the thistles-with-razors-as-leaves the garden and paddocks become a bit less hospitable, never mind the poisonous stinging and biting creatures that come out this time of year too. Regarding the thistles we do have some help. The sheep do their best, last year denuding whole patches so they could be got through with newly-shorn and therefore more tender flanks.

Even so, they grow higher than a horse. Literally.

Princess likes to delicately nibble the flowers and get the sweet stuff out from inside the nasty nests of thorny spikes (prehensile lips come in handy, er, so to speak). This helps the future seed population, but not the current skin-flailing growth. To this end all the free-range sheep have been moved to the paddock formerly known as the Sheoak paddock, but due to another vegetation disaster now Sheoak-less, (more on this later) and SO has spent the best part of three sunny days eradicating thistles in the rest of the wilds. Which has made him a bit spiky and inhospitable too.

Today's study revision: The amazingness that is the digestive system when it comes to sorting out sugars, carbs and proteins and which bit to use first.

Cold competition

We usually get cold winters and this area is famous for its frosts making cherry and apple growing one of the region's specialties. Another friend who had just moved to the Hills (capital H. We treat our hills with Respect) Region was amazed and kept taking photos of the temperature at his place, single figures! 3, 1 and 2 degrees C! Like a challenge. One morning, when the garden resembled a room after a large group of children under the age of 4 had been playing with glitter, I looked at the thermometer trying to hide behind the verandah post, - 5C. That dash is a minus sign, hence the ice coating on the lawn, horse rugs, sheep backs and the gate. To which my hand stuck. Win, I thought, but by the time I got into the car the temperature had risen, as it does.

Curiously, we didn't see any more photos from newbie Hills dweller about temperature after that.

Snowy has her own solution for that time around 4:30am when the master of the house isn't up yet and the fire is burning low. She's scared us several times when, on emerging from the bedroom at a ridiculously long time before sunrise, there is no beagle to be seen. A moment of panic and a quick small-pet head count confirms no second dog. The check to find where said dog has escaped from, which window, door, air vent or skylight (don't ask) is forced open used to happen before she would reveal herself. Now we know just to check under our giant-sized cushions first.

Today's study revision: The way animals breathe. What happens when animals don't breathe. How to get animals to breathe again.

Eggstreme living

I am hoping today is actually the Queen's Birthday Holiday otherwise I'm missing the first day back to uni after the spring mid-term break, which zoomed by like an escaped beagle.

The impending return to the civilised world means today's jobs include making enough portable lunches to survive the week and finding clothes with no rips, tears, grass seeds or animal hair attached. Their extreme rarity means that at this point I usually just buy new clothes, but since it's a public holiday that option is limited. The lunches may be easier to achieve as we are inundated by eggs from the zealous feathered ones. I see a lot of quiches, pikelets and vegetable slices in our immediate future.

They're becoming quite fashionable, the chickens as well as the slices. Several of our former suburban customers have chickens of their own now. and we are often involved in conversations regarding their upkeep, housing arrangements, egg recipes and internal hen house politics. While on the whole I regard this chicken-keeping boom to be a Good Thing, it does mean we need to cook our egg glut, for which I must first clean the oven. Perhaps we'll have fried eggs instead.

In an effort to just get on with it as it's 5 weeks until exams (thunder roll, psycho music)
Today's study: the wonders of the mouth, dentition and differences between carnivores, ruminants and equines,  why horses need dentists but don't actually like them.

The things they teach you in vet school 2

"The ungulates, being those animals with hoofs on the menus of those animals with claws, have adapted in many specialist ways to get away really fast from said animals with claws. This is because they cannot take other measures, such as flying or climbing trees."

Although not for lack of trying:

Camo kangaroo

Spot the kangaroo in this picture. Find it, I mean, not that its name is Spot.

Hi honey!

The bees struggled through the summer with less sunlight this past year, but as it was their first summer with us we didn't mind their lack of production too much. We've also learned a lot about the types of trees, shrubs and flowers to plant to ensure a year-round supply for them. Pity we only learned about it. On the five-year plan is to collect said plants and get them in the ground. Its called the five-year plan because things on it take five years to get around to.

The other problem is our honey extractor although the first problem, acquiring one, is overcome. It needs a new belt, a good clean and a general overhaul but as the honey flow didn't, we haven't done these things. They seem hardly worth it with so many other pressing jobs, so the extractor is on the five year plan too. We did manage to get some honey from several filled frames without robbing the bees too much, and from draining cappings in a net. Honey held aloft to the light here in homage to the bounty of the flowers and the work of the bees in an attempt to show its glorious colour. Such a goldmine, an extravagant two whole jars!