Golden

Fionn's leg is on the mend!  Yay!  Stitches out today.  It still looks pretty nasty but the cut has joined up nicely, no infection, and his action is good so looks like his ligament has healed.  It's just to get th skin to grow back over now, and minimise proud flesh, which is a weird horsey phenomenon where too much extra flesh grows over the site of a wound.  A big shout out to Jill from Eastern Hills vets who has done such a good job!

  
Here he is having a nice hand graze after he had his bandage redone. It's a much smaller one now.

He can go back into his paddock now, and since he has been such a good boy under trying conditions, it is lovely for him that he no longer needs to be cooped up.  Such a great way to end the day!

We had a good day all around really.  We put in some work building a bonfire ready for tomorrow night. I got my daily words, and my full word count went over the 15 000 mark. I'm a week behind where i'd usually be at this point, but it's not bad going considering I have had some distractions.  I'm having a lot of fun writing scary things for Satan and Ghost to handle! 

After chores, we then went and had a lovely lunch with friends at a local pub.   We shared a few wedges with some cheeky 28's, also known as ring-necked parrots.

Some kangas came down too, waiting for real tourists to feed them.  One had a joey in her pouch, but she was a little more wary.  This mum and older bub were cheeky.

On the way home, we took the Jimny down a gravel shortcut to get home.  The Prickly Moses and Egg-and-Bacon plants were blazing gold in the bush.

It's hard to capture, but the forest was truly glowing in the almost-midday sun.

I'm feeling so happy that Fionn looks like he is going to recover.   A warm spring day, chores done, and time with friends were all the icing on the cake!

   



         

Pretty, Ugly, that's how life rolls.

Pretty flowers in the front yard.   This is a mix of two creepers growing over a stump, and the leaves are very different, but the flowers looks so similar. 

Glowing Hardenbergia growing up a Jarrah tree on our walk this morning.

The very very first spring leaf sprout on one of the oak trees here, with additional Tuppence! 

First leaves on the birch tree.  

I feel a bit like a new-leafing tree right now.  With the urging of my Shaman friend, Frances, I did a dismemberment journey the other weekend.  I have felt very light of spirit and free since then!  Beings like sand people from Star Wars danced around my body and took each of my limbs off, then my head, then took my body apart and they danced around and around with them, then put me back together. So funny!  Not what I had expected at all, but then journeys rarely are!  

On a more practical note, Saturday morning saw us being part of a big hazard reduction burn that was also run as a training exercise. I got to give my first red flag warning on the radio.  Let's just say we're lucky it was only an exercise!

What did I just do? 

 

 

It was a busy event, and all went well, with the usual confusion to keep everyone on their toes and make us glad that we do lots of training! 

So what's the ugly bit, I hear you ask?  It's Fionn's leg.  One week from his accident, it is actually looking pretty good compared to how it could have looked but it's not pretty.  Don't scroll down if you are squeamish!

In the meantime, have a good week and make sure you do a bit of the stuff that lights up your joy!

Scroll if you have a tough stomach...

    

 

 

Oh to be young again!

Not really, I wouldn't go back for quids, as they say, but I do love watching young Pippa enjoying life.

 
Spring has definitely sprung, although I noticed our deciduous trees have only just begun to liven up their bare twigs.

The Flame Peas on the reserve next door are flowering (and apparently interesting.)

And the Prickly Moses has gone nuts. This one was supposed to be a companion for the baby Jarrah but I think it might be being a bully instead.

Jen is doing well, and this arvo we get Fionn's bandage off and the vet will tell us how she thinks he's going. Fingers and toes crossed.  I've got really fond of him while helping out with him this week.  He's a big goober.

Jen took this after the vet visited on Monday.  I think he is a bit too big for me.  I can barely get his rugs back on him!

I've gone over the 10 000 word mark on my new novel and am really enjoying my characters and the story.  Being able to write anywhere really helps on such busy days.

Tomorrow we go to help with a big hazard reduction burn where they will be also doing training on it as if it was a bushfire.  I'll be in the incident control vehicle so am looking forward to learning a lot. Andrew is hoping to hotseat with a different brigade to learn more firefighting techniques form different mentors.
    
Have a lovely weekend, full of learning and fun and relaxation! It's always good to have the sort of mix of activities that makes you feel good on a Monday.



         

So Far So Good!

Fionn's leg looks ok so far.

The vet came today to re-bandage it and while we aren't out of the woods yet, at least it looks like all the stitches have held and his leg is moving correctly.

He was such a good boy for his rebandaging, and we gave him some hand-grazing and a bit of a groom too.  

Jen is ok, but looking a bit the worse for wear.  She broke four of the transverse thingies on her backbone!  Yikes!  Apparently it is quite a common injury for horse riders.

As you can see her smaller furbabys are making sure she stays warm and cosy.

 

We spent 'lazy' Thursday and Sunday mornings cutting back lucerne trees that were growing into the firebreak and down to the ground to make it hard for grass cutting.

Sorry, trees! 

Andrew's very much unapproved chainsawing technique!  Don't worry, he was using my littler chainsaw for this, but even so! 

 

 A bonfire up at the block.  Yep, living on acreage is lovely but it's not always easy. 

    

On Saturday I had a truck lesson with our very own Brigade Norse god, Thor.  Thor, you rock!  I learned so much and had fun too!     

Things are still a bit weird here.  Our routine is all messed up.  Hopefully we'll all get back to a bit of routine soon.  Routine isn't everything, but for creative people, there needs to be a certain amount to make space for the creativity.  Having said that, I'd give up every bit of my future creativity to have my darling sis still with me, which she very easily might not have been.  Hug your dear ones, and make sure you say everything you need to say.

      

Best Wishes Please

Jen and her big boy Fionn lost a battle with a wire fence today.  Fionn is bandaged up and Jen is in hospital with injuries as well.  Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers as they recover.   I'll show you a pic of Fionn's bandaged leg but I won't show you the gory photos of the process of stitching him up that I took for Jen so she'd know how it all looked under there when it was done!  

Heavily sedated Fionn, snoozing away as he is stitched up.

 Poor Fionn!  Poor Jen!

(Edited here to add that Jen is home from hospital today and just has to be very careful of her back for four weeks or so.  She broke four of the bony bits that stick out the side of her backbone! The human body is a very resilient thing, and am so very glad my darling sis is ok!) 

I'm not feeling very bloggy after the day we've all had, so I'll just show you the pics I've taken for you this week.

Adorable local alpacas. 

Heavily flowered Lucerne tree at sunset.
 

Sunset in the east

Evening in the west.

 
Large insistent kitty disrupting Thursday afternoon lyre practice.

Have a good weekend, keep my sis and Fionn in your thoughts, and keep safe.  xxx

  

I Had a Pony Ride

My first ride in five years!  It was lovely too.  Mahlee has always reminded me of my own Sherry.  She is small, pretty, part Arabian, very opinionated and a little hot.

She's a little over 14hh.  A year ago I wouldn't have even considered riding her, but all the stomach trouble has shrunk me down to where Jen and I felt it would be ok for her, though I wouldn't want to ride her every day.

Mahlee's pretty carrot face!

Sis and I went straight out for a bush ride.  Golly I look like a sack of potatoes there in my baggy jumper (everything i own is currently baggy, and my old jodphurs fell right off so I wore jeans.)  Actually I felt pretty good, like I'd never been away from riding, and Mahlee was happy so that's what matters. We enjoyed each other, I think.  I certainly knew how she was thinking, and for a first ride together we were pretty sympatico.   

Jenny says this next pic makes her happy. It certainly made me happy to have that priceless view through a good pair of horse ears once more!  Jen's boy, Fionn, is a lot taller than Mahlee, as you can tell from the photos!  

Jen says she's very used to seeing this view of me riding in front of her on a hot pony, so it was like old times.

We were out for a couple of hours, and although my butt bones are a bit sore, I pulled up pretty well.  It was definitely worth it!

  
Not sure how much riding is in my future, but I won't be saying goodbye to it forever just yet, that's for sure!

Sunshine at Last!

Woohoo and likewise yay!  Sun!

Plenty of time for this:

Plenty of warm spots for the chooks to do this:

Nothing looks much more contented than a bunch of chooks having a sunbake.  I love how they all cluster up to the first one who flops down, and throw themselves down as well.  A mass sunbake event doesn't last long, as they tend to be up and moving about pretty quickly, but they do love them.

I've started writing again in earnest now, and thanks to Andrew's technical help, I am now mobile with my writing.  Yesterday and today I took an ipad and keyboard down the block and wrote outside.  Lovely!   Got my word count in no time, and with good company too!

 
See the chooks in that second one?  They like it if I go down there, because they feel safer being out in the big paddock with me around. Not sure what I could do to thwart an eagle or hawk attack but anyway, if they feel happy that is all that matters.

A lot of our natives are flowering well now.  The Wavy-Leafed Hakeas:

The net bush.  To me their flowers look like tiny constellations:

  And the Bastard Bush (also known as Variegated-Leafed Hakea):

I've finished my chicken tea cosy for a good friend who also loves chooks.

And I've had two truck lessons in the 2.4 firetruck.  They were fun in a challenging kind of way.  Now if only I can remember to get a photo!

I did remember to get a photo of Rosie with her one broken bottom canine. I took these pics yesterday.  

The vet says the broken tooth is ok to stay in, luckily.  No need for an operation to remove it.  

  
But then, this morning, she was grinning up at me again, waiting to go for our walk, and bugger me if she hasn't broken off the other canine bottom tooth almost exactly the same way!  What the hell is she doing?  It can only be bones, or from messing around mousing in the chook pen.  She hasn't had her own bone in a while, but she did pinch one of Tess and Angus's yesterday.  Poor old snaggle-tooth dog!  She's only nine.  She won't have any teeth left at all if she keeps this up!

This pic gave me a giggle.  Phone used slow shutter speed because it was dark, she turned her head, and I ended up with a spooky eye!

Yikes!  :D

Still not great pics, but so cute. "Can we please have our walk now?"

"Please please please?"

I wonder how much I would walk if I didn't have dogs to get me out there?