rats both friends and foes

April 24 2017

The days are really short now. It is really dark by 6pm. We are getting some rain but also sunny quite hot days.  The pumpkins are only just starting to get mildew and are still enlarging young fruit so I have left them in place.  The same thing goes for the tomatoes; this year’s crop is going on forever.  The first round of wintergreens is in the ground but we need more space before we plant any more.

We are slowly getting the goats mated as they come into season and we have sold two of the young buck kids.  We have put the seven girls in a pen together and will wean them any day now. I am working on the milking herd to dry off as many off as possible. It is working and we will soon be able to switch to hand milking.  All this is part of the usual autumn program.

Now that Stevo has done the shed wall Edd no longer has to be chippies mate and he has been able to get back to fencing. The professional fencers have done a great job, but we still have some left to do. The next objective is to complete the hill boundaries and then the goats and horses can use the high ground during the wet season. There is not a lot to do but it is complicated work and takes time

I have just returned from Queensland where I went to spend a few days with our youngest son.  It was his birthday and his partner was away visiting her family so I thought it would be nice to keep him company. He has to stay at home because he has a geriatric rat that needs medicating twice a day.   There is not room in their town house for much in the way of a garden or pets but Josh has an amazing under water garden in his fish tank and Bobby has a luxury apartment for her very well cared for rats.

Indi has also had dealings with rats.  She is busy trying to sort out her stuff in the donga and has discovered that she shares her home with rats that have used anything available to build nests.  Last week we moved the units that she and her friends have been building so she is getting closer to having her own place for her stuff.  This involved a crane truck and was fairly scary, but with a combined effort we moved everything without any drama. 

Josh has been a great help and managed to use a devise I brought to get an old tape onto a computer format.  Edd and I had totally failed. I have only a very few tapes left that I found in a box of treasures that I saved from the fires. One is an old one of Beth singing before she even trained and the first one Josh worked on was some songs from the musicians at Yuendumu.  They recorded this tape when we worked up there in the early 90’s.  It brought back so many memories when I heard it again. I am really so lucky to have anything from the past.