Eggs and a Fire

Last weekend the fire was installed after mum grouted the slate around the fire place. The warmth has been extremely welcome with the rainy cold days we've been having lately. The lounge room seems complete now the fire is in.

Diego laid her first little egg last week as well. She has laid 4 eggs in the past week - which is more than can be said for the other hens! The hens are happy and have laid a few eggs since coming over, but I am starting to wonder if they are laying them in the garden because there tends to be three eggs if the hens are locked up for the day.

Grace has well and truly found adolescence and has tested me out a few times. His wing flapping and charging earned him a swift upper-cut to the beak with the feed container lid. He has started to settle down - but if not then I think Tom would like to 'dispose' of him. Meanwhile I will try and keep Grace calm and his attacks to a minimum (or at least the ones that Tom hears about!)

Clearing the fence line

Today Tom was busy clearing part of the fence line. I went down to help (briefly) and discovered a full horse skeleton. I had heard from locals that the previous owner had been neglectful, and an visit from the RSPCA when we first took over the propery indicated that there had been some form of animal neglect, however I was hoping for the animals' sake that it wasn't as bad as people had made it seem.
However today's discovery linked into a story I had heard from some locals (who called the property "the horse murder's place").
I was so sad that someone could actually treat animals so badly, and I hope that as time goes on the locals will find Tom and I to be very different people from the previous owner.
I know that I will be doing everything within my power to make sure the history of the property does not continue on into the future, and our animals are happy and healthy.

Mr Fox

I was picking some apples for Holly's beautiful dressage horse Diva last week with Buck.
As per usual, Buck was bounding around the paddock looking for action and in the middle of picking apples I saw what I thought was Buck bouncing towards me and said 'Good Dog', but it turned out to be a fox. The fox stopped when he heard me, decided I was no threat then kept running past me only a couple of meters away.
Tom wished I had a rifle with me, but I wish the fox had have come back to me when I started calling after him!

Lana and Jarrod's Wedding

Over the weekend my big sister Lana got married to Jarrod in Sorrento. She looked absolutely stunning and the afternoon and night were amazing.
We went to four different locations for photos inlcuding scaling a fence to get some on a cliff, out on a pier, walking amongst lavender, and on a Couta boat on dusk. The photos are a little way off, but I will try and post a couple when Lana gets them so those of you that weren't at the wedding can see just how beautiful she looked.

Many people at the wedding commented that they're following the blog, which is great - but you need to leave comments so I can see that people are following!
I've been away from the farm for a week now with work and the wedding, so no farm related news to share.

The 3 C's

Although Buck looks lovely and innocent, he is currently in my bad books for the Three C's.
Last weekend he killed two chickens - one on each day.
Then to top it all off he decided to sleep on the white, freshly washed couch.

Guilty

For those of you wondering about Grace and Diego, they are fine and Grace now has a new hen to follow around. She was missing all her neck feathers after being picked on by another chicken.

Buck has learnt to leave the couch alone now - but we will have to keep him on a lead around the chickens.