Tag Archives: Horses

Two scared horses come home at last

by . Posted on
26 Nov

Baby has been a quaking, shaking wreck for a week!  I brought her home on Tuesday morning once my foot had returned to approximately normal size and I had spent several hours trying to find them on ‘the other side’.  I brought them back to the house side and as soon as Ged’s horses saw my two they started cantering up towards them, so I thought I’d just let them run together and let my two go.  Big mistake!  They were last seen by George heading up the old ‘road’ up into the hilly ridge and then they were gone all day.  Ged came home to help me look for them and after much driving around, we found them looking sheepish and heading back down the self same road they had last been seen haring up with the hounds of hell apparently at their heels.  By  this time I had locked Ged’s horses in the yards after counselling from my Horse Herbalist.  And I brought my two home, washed them down, soothed them with words and ‘Settle Petal herbal remedy, fed them their favourite tasty morsels and then, once they seemed normal and calm, let them go again.  Big, big mistake!

Baby galloped up a vertical hill and just kept going.  I didn’t see where.  They were AWOL for two days and nights despite us both putting in countless miles on foot and in the car trying to track them down.  George tried ‘thinking like a horse’ and poking round in the dust looking for tracks – ‘don’t be surprised if I turn black’ he said but to no avail.  You can imagine how stressed I was!  Finally George dragged me out of bed at 7am after their second night out in the wilderness and insisted on going out looking for them with me in the car because he was determined we would find them out feeding in the cool of the day.  Sure enough, we crested a ridge and George said ‘turn around, that’s it, you can stop looking now’.  ‘Where?’ I said, peering left and right.  ‘Straight ahead’ and there they were.  Naughty children!  I got out and caught them and sent George home driving the Pajero (hilarious!)  and both Ged and George could finally relax again because I had a smile on my face.  Ged had taken his horses over to the other side so I shut my two in the yards to feed them, de-tick them and so they could see for themselves that the scary ghosts were all gone.  More ‘Settle Petal’, more sweet words of wisdom and love and more tasty titbits and I left them there for an hour or so to calm down and re-establish their territory.  Then I let them go.  BIG MISTAKE!  Off they galloped.  At least this time I knew where they were going so I tracked them and watched their meandering but determined trail up into the far corner of the property so they could hide behind the trees and keep a sharp eye on about 50 acres all at once.  Crazy horses!  They stayed away all day and night again so I got up with the birds again to catch them and bring them home again.  This time Ged came with me and we closed some gates behind us so they were confined to the long skinny river paddock (which they love) and then we had to go down to Newcastle for the day.
We had a four hour drive and just managed to fit in a wee and some sort of salad roll before my 12 noon meeting with the Bridal Consultant at David Jones.  Ged had to deliver his dirt bike and accessories to one brother (meanie Sophie made him sell it!)  and acres of camping gear to the other brother as well as a number of other chores to complete on the Central Coast so I was left to my own devices.  Not such a great plan as it turned out!  I didn’t realise that making a wedding list was not a simple matter of waltzing around the store with a mincing minion behind me, pointing out delectable items of homeware and saying ‘I’ll have one of those, two of those . . . ‘ etc.  No, no, no.  Five and a half hours trapped in an airless, fluorescent, two floor store, examining every item for sale, picking the ones I liked and then having to write down each one’s barcode, serial number, department number, price etc ., etc.,  I was on the phone saying ‘Honey, where are you?’ before the second hour was up . . . .!!
But once my pulse had returned to normal, my eyes had adjusted once again to daylight, and I had been picked up by the errant husband to be, I was able to report that I had chosen some really lovely things to make our house a home.  And as you all know how impossible I am to buy for, I am sure you will be glad I have taken the stress out of second guessing me in the matter of gift giving!  Ged was happy because I also spotted a beautiful handbag I fancied for Christmas so I’ve done his Christmas shopping too!
When we got off the highway and onto the dirt roads heading home we realised that while I had been in my artificial environment, and Ged clocking up the miles in the sun, it had obviously been pouring at home.  So we thought we’d better not use our normal through the river short cut, but go over the bridge.  I don’t think so!  We had only been gone for just over 12 hours and the river was up 4 foot!  So we flew home!  In the dark, no torch, and in our city finery on the flying fox over the raging river.  Phee was waiting on the verandah like the good boy that he is, somewhat surprised to see us suddenly appear in the yard with no prior warning!  (His nose is fully recovered, thank you, but he is currently waging war on all flying insects – he has got a bee in his bonnet about being stung again!)


George and I dropped a match in the big gully by the house . . . (is that the dragon Baby is so scared of??!!)

George Jewels

by . Posted on
GEORGE MUSTERING
29 Oct

After telling George I wanted all the cows moved (we were up to 110!)

from ‘the other side’ to this, he turned up on Monday with his trusty
steed and set to work mustering them out of the scrub, she oaks and
river.  When I came back from my run and swim on a steamy Monday
morning, George had them all yarded bar 7 or 8 who had eluded his
round-up and I was pleased to see the back of the dry and pregnant
heifers who had significantly swelled the stock.  George has been
nagging me for months about riding my two and asked me ‘can I ride’
on numerous occasions – his look and demeanour always telling me
(when I say ‘a bit’) that he, and he alone, will be the judge of
that.  So on that day he just handed me the stringy reins of his
stock horse and grunted ‘go on, get on’.  So, despite the fact that I
was wringing wet and in my running shorts I hoisted myself into the
stock saddle and found out just how light and easy and impeccably
trained that horse is.  When I got off, he criticised my mounting
technique (apparently it is different for a stock saddle) but with a
sly smile gave me my first farming gold medal – ‘very good’!!

Having seen that I was happy to go swimming now that the weather is
warmer, George sent me across to find the wire so he could re-string
the block that got washed away in the big flood.  Very refreshing!
Much easier than in mid-winter – I definitely need a boat!  Even
George rolled up his trousers and I was treated to the sight of his
skinny, lily-white ankles – I don’t think they’ve seen the sun since
God was a boy!

We were standing on the ridge of the road one day, talking aout the
harrowing options he faces with Marcia who is getting worse with
every day that passes when he spotted an eagle soaring above us.
‘What’s he doing?’ he asked.  Ever the romantic, I replied that he
was just riding the thermals, revelling in his freedom and glorying
in the day.  Ever the pragmatist, George said ‘no he’s not, he’s got
his eye on something . . .. . . could be you, you’re small enough.’
‘Could be you’ I retorted ‘you’re not much bigger than me! . . . .
Mind you, he might like something with a bit more meat on its bones!’
Ged finally began the long trek home on Wednesday and such was his
desire to get home, they did 3,500kms in 48 hours and all my plans
were thrown out of the window when he announced he would be home on
Friday night, rather than Saturday as planned.  So I took the day off
and got the house scrubbed, polished and sparkling and even put a
fresh head on the razor for a thorough de-fuzzing.  And then I headed
out to re-stock the pantry in Wauchope when the wheels fell off my
world – literally! . . . .

I had worked til 2am on Thursday night/Friday morning and then, when
I was making the steep climb down Tom’s Creek Road into the valley
noticed with alarm that every time I braked, the wheels wrenched in
the opposite direction to the way I was steering.  I took it really
slowly and promised myself a wheel alignment at the earliest
opportunity.  By the time I got home it was pretty bad but when I got
in the car on Friday I realised that this was very serious.  I drove
the 2kms from the house to the main gate and then when I got out to
open it, took a close look at my wheels and find the driver’s side
front at a perilous 45 degree angle to the ground and car.  I wasn’t
going anywhere!  One call to the NRMA to come and pick up the car,
one to Ged to ring George to come and take me home (I was wearing
heels for once in my life and I was not walking! – anyway, I had done
my daily run, thank you very much!)  And so George lumbered to the
rescue in his huge cattle truck and in the end took me to Long Flat
to pick up the mail, sitting sandwiched between him and Marcia on the
bench seat, laughing all the way.  Bless him!

Ged did the shopping and came home to me and we took the weekend off
the yard and house work to revel in each other’s company . . .
aaahhhh, young love . . . .

Happy Horse Homecoming

by . Posted on
30 Jul
The horses came home!  Very sleek and slim and still in the head.  As if they’ve been off on a yoga and detox retreat for six weeks!  They couldn’t believe there was grass at the end of their stint of starvation so they were snatching every tuft as I walked them in from the Angle so as not to risk them or the truck on the rough road on the property.

My rushed endeavours to fence a paddock for them had backfired.  I had hired someone I didn’t like or trust to do a day’s fencing for me and he had done the most appalling job.  A blind, cack handed city slicker could have created something with more finesse.  So I tried diplomacy but he was an aggro little bush pig so in the end I had to give him the straight talking he could understand!  And I learned a good country lesson.  it’s better to wait for the experts however long it takes than to rush in and create a mess that has to be fixed later.

The horses didn’t like that paddock anyway so they have migrated up onto the House Ground and despite the complete lack of fences and the cattle wandering on, off and round, have made no attempt to stray further.

As I was walking the horses in and showing them their new home another truck with the roof insulation was trying to find us so I had to wade through the river and walk up the hill to try and track him down as I had left the car up on the ridge where I had met the horse truck.  Despite the driver’s insistence that he didn’t want to risk getting bogged on the property I thought I knew better . . . and sure enough he got stuck with no way forward and no way back on the damp red dirt on the other side of Hoppy’s Bridge (as we all call the cement causeway that John & Sally Hopkins put in ten years or so ago).  We were going nowhere fast until I remembered all the carpet we had ripped out of the house and drove round and retrieved it piece by piece (Lord, I really need a ute for the farm!).  Still, it took almost three hours to get him free, unload the insulation into the trailer and deliver it down to the house and into the garage and get him off again. Another big lesson – can’t bring a six wheeler with a lazy axle onto Avalon again!
Whoever thought that living in the country meant a quiet life??

The end to that extraordinary day was when I literally ran out of petrol halfway down the long thin river paddock!  Thank God for Ged (Mr Solar and a neighbour) who brought me fuel and is determined to be a knight in shining armour to this damsel in stress!