Horse thieves!!

Well! What a rambunctious weekend THAT was!

Nova and her foal are kept separate from the other horses in one of the two top paddocks. On Saturday night just after the foal was born, the other horses lined the fence and stood snorting and stamping, eyes lit up with amazement at this new scrap of life that appeared out of nowhere (“Correction!” says Nova.”Not Quite out of nowhere!!”).

We’ve had trouble before with jealous mares stealing each other’s foals; and I have been warned that geldings can be violent towards foals.

Then, sometime around midnight on Saturday, perhaps beguiled by the eager eyes and smell of the other horses, the foal must have stumbled or fallen through the electric fence (probably  zapped in the process), whereupon she was promptly dragged away by the herd, to the anguish of her mum. I noticed Nova calling in distress and went out to see, and saw the foal had vanished, along with all the other horses who from the sounds of it were calling and snorting and carrying on down in the gully. It being very dark, the only thing we could do was set Nova free and hope she’d find her foal quickly.

Nova charged to the other horses in a white streak of righteous fury and tried to take her foal back but even her bravery had not much effect against five overexcited horses milling around in a frenzy. As things got wilder and a serious horse fight was about to erupt, we saw the foal thrown heavily onto the ground by the solid weight of the big bay gelding Emu, and though she got up she was thrown heavily again and lay still. My heart nearly stopped, but she moved a little, and I hoped she was only stunned. But it was very dangerous with the big horses throwing their weight around, kicking and biting and the foal down. John shouted that if we got Saturn the crazy lead mare away, things might calm down. I yelled to John that I’d get help and headcollars, and raced back to the house and called Briony and Nelson (who was having his body painted for Briony’s school art project). We set back at a run and found the horses charging around like beserkers and the foal being battered left and right. I threw myself into the fray, I couldn’t see John in the dark, and anyway I needed my eyes and focus to catch wild Saturn. She wheeled and spun away and charged at Nova, and so I launched myself at her in a rugby-style tackle and wrapped my arms around her neck and hauled her to a standstill, forced a rope headcollar onto her head and dragged her off to the stockyard. Elara followed, bless her, but got out immediately through the stockyard race. Briony came soon after dragging a recalcitrant Emu, so I tied him up firmly near Saturn, and fixed the race closed. Rascal came hesitantly into the stockyard of his own accord and soon John came leading tall Gandhi, his eyes white-rimmed in the darkness. After that it was quite easy to catch Elara and put her in with the others. We tied all gates shut and headed back down towards the gully to see what the damage was.

Nova was there guarding her very spent and bruised foal, who despite all that was still standing on four miraculously unbroken legs. The poor shattered thing couldn’t walk though so John picked her up in his arms and carried her as I led a very worried Nova back to her paddock. We left the two of them in the middle of the paddock well away from fences and stood and watched rather helplessly as the foal stood wobbling in an exhausted daze, too tired to try and drink.

By the time we got to bed it was very late. Having done so much running, my cough worsened and I spent much time coughing up choking phlegm. Every now and then I would go and check on the foal, but she was thankfully standing or lying close by her watchful mum. I gave up on sleep by about 5 am and instead hiked off to see how the other horses were doing in their penitentiary. I brought them water, but they didn’t seem particularly thirsty. They just stood there blinking, as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouth.

The next day John and I decided that the wisest thing would be to entirely separate the big horses from the foal (visually and physically) by creating a separate paddock at the rear of the property, which meant running a new fence right across the property.  It’s something we’ve been wanting to do for a while, as paddock rotation is far healthier for the pasture.  So we set to and gathered materials: we needed about 300 metres of wire; pickets, fenceposts, gates, and the strength of our legs and arms. We have a great posthole digger which brings earth up to the surface as you work: what a blessing that piece of engineering is. Another piece of clever engineering we couldn’t do without is the fence strainer, which I love using. But the ground is rocky and even despite the good tools it’s very hard work.

Recycling Peter Corones' old yard gate

As we worked on the fence we would occasionally throw sallies of rebuke at the big horses still imprisoned in the stockyard, calling them thieves and miscreants. John, watching Elara standing to one side as the three bay horses bullied Rascal along the fenceline, nipping his rump, suggested that Elara could convey to them not to be such arseholes in future!!

Eastern view

At about 3.30 pm Emily our young friend came and gave a hand with the fence building, bless her.
And by 6pm, we had finished a beautiful new fence right across the property. We let the prisoners out (So There you Idiots). By then we were well more than two hours late for our social appointment but our good friends David and Libby were most understanding.

Butter wouldn't melt ...

We had a lovely dinner there even though my hands were so incredibly sore and tired I had great difficulty holding the knife and fork. David told me wonderfully engaging stories about his time working sheep in New Zealand with his team of beautifully trained dogs. He has photos on his wall of bright-eyed Border collies, kelpies and mixed breeds, happy faces with tongues lolling. Libby gave us two whole buckets of avocadoes from her tree. They are kind and generous people and we had a lovely time.

We headed to bed exhausted at about 11 pm  … but not before checking on our little foal, of course, who was nursing from her good brave gentle mum Nova.

Sunday morning still tired ...

Fridge poetry

While I was in Parramatta doing the hospitals research, I bought the family a new set of magnetic poetry. Briony especially has been having fun concocting some creative language events :-). Some of them, Briony being Briony, are NSFW (he he) but here is a lovely poetic message ...

Bringing Peter's bull back

I wrote this piece in the Winter of 2005...


I’m down at the sheds, feeding the hens. It’s a cold morning, the lowest parts of the valley white with six a.m. frost; and I see that already my neighbour Peter is working his cattle, on foot - and barefoot at that - with only his kelpie for assistance. The hens fed, I stroll into the bottom paddock to watch, and soon feel sorry for him as one cow after another breaks free and lumbers out of range, cattle leaking through the inexperience of the young dog and slipping through the gaps. As my mare is lying down – an easy target - with sudden resolve I slip a head-collar over her ears and slide onto her back; and she gets up with a sudden lurch. We trot amiably over to Peter and help shepherd his cattle into the stockyards. He’s hopping from one foot to the other to warm his toes. “Thanks. They kept getting away from me.”
“No worries, Pete. Happy to help, I was up anyway.”
“Hey, Mieke, seeing as you’re on your good mare …”
“Um. Yes. With no saddle, bridle and no helmet though ….” I know where he’s heading. He pauses and looks up at me beadily.
“My good bull. The new Brangus. He’s crossed the river and joined Rosie’s mob…”
I sigh. I know what he’s asking. I hadn’t seen the bull for a while and had been wondering where he’d gotten to. But the river is treacherous and hard to cross. I am mindful of my mare’s legs, easily caught and cut on unseen underwater branches and forgotten bits of fence as the current rips coldly. And I know that the bull, after his joyful frolics with his new harem, may not want to come back. And it’s hell, trying to get cattle to cross water.
“He’s my good bull. I’ll take your girls on the tractor, they can help; they’ll enjoy the ride. Together we’ve got a chance”. He knows me well enough to know I won’t leave the girls alone on the farm while I go mustering. “It’s not that I mind him donating a few calves to old Rosie, it’s just that he ain’t here, he ain’t here doing his job with his own…”
His concern for my girls sways me and I relent. The bull means a lot to him.
“Alright. Let me get the girls dressed warmly, and I’ll saddle the mare and I’ll see you in twenty minutes”.

At the river, the mare balks. She’s been hurt, there, before: the blood at the time flowed red down her leg; but at the time I was heedless and did not notice. I still feel bad about that. I cajole her, bully her into the swift dark current, and against her will she launches herself into the winter waters. A brief period of surging current, and at the other side we are hindered by deep swamp and bog. The mare flounders, up to her belly in peaty bog, and after an eternity of wild snorting plunges, with a mammoth effort she heaves herself up the embankment onto dry ground. I find I am trembling. A huge long snort and the mare shakes herself from nose to tail, and then tosses her head as if to say “I’m here”.

In time, Peter and Tess arrive on foot; having left the tractor, not wishing to bog it, on the river flats further downstream and on the other side of the river with Yarrow for safekeeping.

We commence the muster. As usual, as I am swift on the stockhorse, I am given the role of outrigger, or ‘dogger’, ranging far around the mob to bring them together – circling the mob in a flat gallop I gather them, weaving an unseen net of whistles and calls of ‘move on lass’ and ‘hey up there’, a net of bluster and push. Never handled, never tamed, Rosie’s mob are wild and mad, scrawny, unruly; so unlike the doe-eyed Murray Greys of our river flats. Most of Rosie’s mob have horns.

And so we come closer to the river. The big bull is there in the middle of the wheeling mob: his unlikely, well bred form stark in contrast to the rough bush cattle. They don’t want to get near the river, never mind cross it. Peter has placed himself at the right side of the crossing and Tess at the left. My job is to push the cattle though.

They don’t want to go. At one stage despite my mare’s chest hard against a recalcitrant cow, it breaks free, whirls and with lowered head charges straight towards Tess. Time slows as Tess stands, a horrified expression on her face as the cow thunders towards her yet it all seems slow motion. I dig my heels in the mare’s sides – an unmistakable signal to the sensitive mare who bounds forward with her ears flat and we place her body and mine between the charging cow and my child. At the last moment the cow brakes hard, swerves and heads for freedom.

“Let the old bitch go!” Peter yells.

Tess looks at me. She is still standing where she was, rooted to the spot. “Christ, Mum. That cow went for me”. I lean down from the saddle and hug her to me. She is shaking, and so am I.
“She did indeed, love. I saw. And you stood your ground. Well done. That was very brave.”
“You got inbetween. That cow could have hurt you really badly”.
“Yes, but I couldn’t let her get you now, could I?” She hugs me, briefly, passionately, her young arms hard and tight around my middle.

By now the cattle are crossing the river in wild plunges, churning the water to mud. The idea is to bring them all to the yards, and then separate the bull and let Rosie’s mob go to find their own way back to the hills. The next part should be easy, now that the bull and the majority of the mob are across the river. Soon we reach the disused railway embankment and I think with relief that it will form a natural barrier along which I can herd them.

But no; one cow starts and the rest follow and they surge up the steep slope, a river of brindle and brown, black and white and grey; with the sleek black bull in there with them. They reach the top and disappear over the edge on the other side; their tails giving disdainful flicks as they leap down the embankment.

Peter swears and thumps the tractor. “Christ almighty, I can’t follow them there on the tractor; the other side of that is a sheer drop and the rest is bog and there’s the trees. See if you can bring them back Mieke; meet you at the stockyards end of the railway.” I wheel the mare towards the embankment and in a few leaps we’re at the top where we teeter for a moment, and then she leaps into space and we land with a jar on the steep downwards slope and slide down, the mare on her hocks and me with my heart in my mouth but my trust in the surefootedness of the mare.

Once down we hunt the mob together again as they scatter in the trees and mud. Time and time again one cow after another breaks out, and I race to head her off, and turn her back, leaning at forty-five degrees as the horse and cow wrestle shoulder to shoulder until the cow wheels and slows and heads back to the safety of the mob. All this time, the bull stands separate, aloof, watching, noncommittal. One particular cow seems to be the leader, and she’s intent on heading back to the river. But where the hell is everyone else? Why am I doing this alone? I can’t do this on my own; it’s madness. My mare is dripping sweat, my shins are a mass of bruises from clouts with various cattle, the ground underneath is treacherous, the small wood disorienting; trees and branches snatching at my hair and my arms.

The lead cow breaks away again and we head her off; shoulder to shoulder; until my thigh is hard against the cow’s shoulder as the mare turns on her hocks and pushes the cow back. The cow balks, shoves; her horn catching me on my inner thigh, nearly upending me out of the saddle. I swear under my breath but don’t give up; give the mare her head, she knows the game, knows what she’s doing. We push the cow back to the mob.

All of a sudden the mob gives up. I don’t know why, but all of a sudden they have had enough. Or maybe they see that I have had enough. I don’t know. Meekly they turn; they join the bull; and they amble towards the low part of the railway and over the embankment, down to the stockyards. The bull knows where he is, now, can see where he’s going. He walks calmly into the yards and Tess slams the gate shut with a cry of relief. I rein in my exhausted mare; run my hand along her neck; let my hand run briefly over the bruises on my thighs. They’ll take a while to heal, but the bull is back.

The wild mob head back for the hills but the bull doesn’t even watch. He’s looking at his own herd possessively, rumbling greetings in this throat.

The dichotomy of shampoo

Two recurring questions / requests have recently been posed by a number of friends. They are 1) do I miss Amsterdam; and 2) could I please post some more of my own writing on the blog. This post covers both requests, I hope. I wrote the following snippet in late 2006 when I visited Amsterdam for the first time since leaving Europe in 2001.

The Dichotomy of Shampoo

In my friend Denise’s shower I lather my hair with shampoo, “Sebastian collection”, which exhorts itself as “a shampoo that uses expanding texturizers to make the hair's fiber feel bigger: fluff it up!”. I follow that with “Xtah raw sensuality” a “hydration conditioner” designed to “tame the frizz and generate those sleek locks”.

Do they cancel each other out, I wonder; like some mathematical formulae of negatives and positives, leaving my external demeanour one of mild confusion; a marketed smoothie of contrasting objectives; a feminine concoction of illogical mood swings.
I turn to the back of the conditioner bottle for some deeper insights. “Raw hydration, daily sensual conditioner for hair. Penetrating amino acids derived from botanical sources plus body-enhancing proteins to help promote optimal condition. The slippery feel creates a unique experience while vanilla spice & orange blossom entice and calm the senses. Color safe. For all hair types.”

For all that the text itself would be rated M-for-mature-audiences if showed on the wide screen, I am none the wiser. Indeed, if I go by the label my senses are both enticed and calmed at the same time. I run my hands over my body: is it a unique experience? My body feels quite ordinary in its own contrasts: soft from childbearing in some places, lean and taut from the rough and tumble of farm life in others; a scar here, a blemish there, the oft-charted shores of familiarity. As I later stand by the window, wrapped in a towel, my wet hair dripping trickles down my back, I consider whether I am separately enticed and calmed or whether these colours, safely or unsafely, mix to a plasticine grey. I don’t know.

Outside, the sky is heavy with dark grey clouds. The Amsterdam harbour stretches its windscuffed water to the far bank where the neon, freon and halogen lights of the factories, shipyards and refineries proclaim the industriousness of the Dutch nation. Seven stories down below on the grey quayside a man cycles past with his dog trotting alongside. Under the streetlamps the rainslicked wet concrete reflects them so precisely, so clearly, that the dog, mirrored on its paws, seems to be trotting on an echo of itself; while the man, seemingly precariously; cycles on the narrow reflection of his own tyres.

Maybe that’s what it’s like. Perhaps in all of us there is this dichotomy of emotion, the contradiction of desires, as we trot on the shadowy mirror image of our own paws through life; as we teeter precariously on the narrow tyres of our choices. For me, right now, it’s the ambivalence of my feelings towards the Netherlands – there is the joy of seeing my much loved friends, my adored brother; the delight in skirling bicycle wheels over cobbled canals; the thrill of the band’s live music weaving through my body and striking gentle chords of regret that I no longer am part of this scene. These feelings are counterbalanced by the gusts of cold wind ruffling the equivocal harbour of my heart as I look over the water: and I yearn for the rolling green hills of my farm; the subtropical trees silhouetted on the high ridge; the susurrating chuckles of the kookaburras heralding a new blue-skied day easing over the red earth of my great south land. Against the reminiscence of these vibrant hues my feelings for the Netherlands are not “color safe” as they blend and merge to a muddled grey, and I feel disloyal to this city so genuine in its valiant attempt at liveability, throwing its defiant architecture at the winter dark.

Those were the days

This photo shows Tess riding her pony to school on her last day of primary school, last year (she now goes to the local high school). We often used the horses as transport to and from school. Here below is a snippet from my writings, jotted in 2005 (Cooper, alas, is no more as his soul crossed the rainbow bridge in 2007 and his body rests deep underground in the bottom paddock)

Rain

I decided to pick the girls up from school this afternoon, on the horse.
Rain bucketing down, the horse and I canter along the track to school.
Slick with sweat and water
we clop through the school gates, turn left at the girls’ toilets, and pull up under the covered play area, hooves loud on the concrete, the canopy redirecting the rain to fall in rivulets from the roof. The girls tumble out of the library, yelling “Cooooooper!!!!!!”.
With practiced ease, Tess tucks her bare foot on mine in the stirrup, grabs my hand and swings onto the horse’s rump in one fluid movement. I lift Yarrow onto the saddle in front of me.
“Let’s go home, Mum”
I turn the horse and we clop out of the school gates, together on the horse in the teeming rain.