new puppy

17.9.2010

Edd is home , plus the new puppy. It is not the same puppy as the photos that were sent down to me , but he is a nice brindle boy who has a relaxed attitude and fits in with every request made. I missed our dogs enormously but until now I have not felt ready to emotionally commit to a replacement. Then when I discovered it was possible to adopt a desert dog I felt differently. Somehow it seems that we already share experiences with this puppy.

Edd was able to relax once he got away from the work here and has come back feeling better. Even his bad leg felt better but the cold dampness here made sure that improvement did not last. He stayed with our friend Margaret ( who once again was so hospitable) in Alice Springs and got a lift out to Yuendumu where he stayed at the dog rescue house. The lady who is caring for the dogs works for the art centre and uses her wages to support her animal work.

It is such a wonderful thing for someone to do. Camp dogs are a motley crew of canines who have lived around people for generations and bred more or less when they felt like it. Some get mange and lose most of their fur and sometimes ears but they are always part of someone’s family. They did spread some diseases especially as they slept with people for the warmth of all concerned. When we lived in the desert there were occaisions when the council workers were sent out to shoot dogs .
This upset everyone , so I am thrilled now that a more humane approach is being taken.

Margaret gave Edd a book written by our friend Andrew , who worked for many years with the local people in Yuendumu to tackle the petrol sniffing problem. I am reading the book now and am struck with the honesty with which he describes his experiences. One reads so much rot about Aboriginal communities and we despair over the ignorance demonstrated by most Government policies that it is a great relief to find that someone has written down the issues , joys and sorrows as they really are.

Back on the farm I was allocated grandchildren who stayed and helped with the baby goats. India and Arden are at an age when they are really helpful. We gradually trained all the kids to take their milk from a feeder. That meant we could feed several at a time. By the end of the week the goats had all remembered how to jump up on the bale for milking and the kids were settled down into a feeding routine. By starting fairly early all the routine morning work can be over before 10 am.

There is more good news because the latest set of building raters we employed managed to get our house beyond the required five stars and we can now apply for a building permit. We do need a certificate from Doug but mostly we can gather everything up and hand it in. Once we pass this stage we can actually start building!

All mod cons

11.9.2010
My ! Have I really not written anything for this long! It must be a symptom of kidding time. I now have 14 hungry babies in the shed in various stages of adaptation to bottle-feeding. Only 5 goats have kidded and we still have two to go! It was only meant to be one but Erin tricked us by getting the buck to jump over the fence to her.

Edd did an amazing job of welding up a new base for the milking bale. He even cleaned off the burnt old one and started to repaint it so that it is now in use with a new shiny aluminium floor. This is all set up in the proper place in the new milking parlour with new gates and yards to the sleeping shed. All this makes twice daily milking so easy.

Better still the plumber came and connected the water to the milk room. I have my washing machine in there and a disk washer for the milking jugs and buckets. It is pretty easy to carry over the plates from the house too. I hardly know myself with all these luxuries. If I wasn’t so busy caring for the kids I might even have spare time!

I am especially busy this week because Edd is on holiday in Alice Springs. He is staying with friends for a break before building starts on the house. (If it ever does). I just hope it works as rest for him. I have friends coming over from the UK in October so by then I should have settled all my animals new and old into a routine and may be able to have a break then. At least I have the animals to think about.

The house situation is taking forever. The problem is trying to get a five star rating for our design, which is the standard now. Our house should be much more energy efficient but the computer program designed to work the rating out was not made able to cope with earth covered houses. This seems an extraordinary situation to cause weeks hold up but that’s what it does!

Mean while we now have a huge solar system on the shed roof that generates our own power. We now need an input/export meter so we can get credit for electricity we donate to the grid. The young men who installed the system did a great job but had difficulty with the boggy conditions. A big truck arrived at 7am with a large four-wheel drive scaffold machine. When the driver tried to turn he got off the road and got his truck bogged. We had to get Dave out of bed with flu to pull him out with his digger because the tractor was not strong enough.

By the time this was done and Dave had gone home the blokes had bogged the scaffold machine by trying to drive across my new lawn rather than go round the shed on the road. Once again the tractor was not enough so Edd fetched Craig’s big machine (they all look like Tonka toys to me), and we rescued them that way. The blokes were all young and probably this is their first experience of wet conditions. After that things went much better and the job looks very neat.