Rudolph and Dasher

have arrived on the scene...and no, not reindeer. The first poddies have the dry season have arrived in quick succession. Rudolph on Sunday evening, the product of a teenage pregnancy that wasn't meant to happen and removed from his mother so they both don't die.
A deep red bull calf that looks suspiciously like an old Droughtmaster bull we call Monty (guess where his bloodlines hail from, cattle people?!) Rudolph has sulked and refused to partake of anything but water and grass until this morning. I tried him again this morning with the bottle and suddenly a switch went off - he remembered! And of course, will now become a menace.

Dasher arrived on Monday night, a bit of a strange calf in that his reproductive organs seem a bit messed up (happens sometimes) but otherwise healthy and with no issues about a lack of appetite at all. Sadly, he is an orphan as his mother decided to try and drink out of a muddy dam instead of the trough. She had to be dragged out of the mud and was in such a bad state, was put down. Life/death, all part of living in the bush and dealing with livestock. As some one said, if you've got live stock, you've got dead stock. Guinea pigs, cows, chooks, the same applies to all of them.

Rudolph and Dasher have a little mate. He's sat with them whether they want him to or not. I'm thinking he's waiting to catch the excess milk, but no, he sits with them ALL DAY.  When he was a wee puppy he would disappear and one would find him just poking about the paddock with the poddies we had then. Strange little dog.

At least I haven't had to chase him out of the house for the past couple of days!

And now I am extra keen for it to rain so I can eject the poddies from my house yard. I was going to mow the lawn but with the calves needing a bit of grass to chew on, well that put paid to that idea. Fingers crossed or else my garden is going to look very munched upon very soon. Not to mention well fertilised. Keep your shoes on kids ;-)

In other news, we have fairy lights operational. And I have to say, seeing them twinkle at night? making me feel all festive!

in need of a bex and a good lie down

the kids, now old enough to read the calendar and realise the date, were well aware that the 1st December had come upon us. Yesterday morning, as soon as they got out of bed, began pestering me to put up the Christmas decorations.

Finally, after giving them jobs to do every time they asked about the wretched (oh yes, feeling the cheer) tree, I gave up.

And then, as you do, instagrammed it all. Clearly not embracing less is more this year, the slightly wonky tree is quite loaded, but the kids are happy. Anyone coming to the front gate will be blinded by the sun reflecting off the tinsel wound there, and then soothed by the gentle glow of the lanterns draped along the louvers on the front veranda

That's before we even drape the long strand of coloured fairy lights along the front fence - the bit I love the best. Sadly now, as the garden has grown so thick (as was intended) we hardly even get to see these in their full glory unless standing on the road, so to counteract I hang some icicle ones from the gutter of the back patio. Which I can see from the kitchen sink.

But I'll save the fairy light extravaganza for another afternoon, for now just the finding of the tree and its trimmings and the creation of this little random Christmas vignette was more than enough Christmas Fun.

Please admire my new china reindeer, picked up for the princely sum of $3.

Hope you're finding the HO in your own ho ho ho...I will say this: it was a rather good excuse to be in the air-conditioning today! Its more like Hot Hot Hot in these parts!

jury's out

Inspired by this:
and this
Today I did this...AND ordered some prints.

And now I don't know if I like it. Lesson learnt. One should always sleep on ones design choices before ordering.
 
Oh well. Too late now. Look for one coming into your letterbox sometime between now and new year. I'm becoming a fan of the letter arriving in the new year, just cause I am so slack that is how long it takes me to get posted!