Heartbreaking

Almost ten years in Tasmania and it doesn't get any easier to see the large number of dead native animals on our roads. But this morning's roadkill sighting as I jogged back down New Road in Franklin was particularly devastating. A dead pademelon, and less than a metre away, her dead joey. I shed a little tear as I moved them off the road.

In the nine years we lived at the very top of that road, I was lucky not to have hit any animals, but we saw hundreds dead on the road in that time. Mostly pademelons, wallabies and possums, a couple of our beloved wombats and some bandicoots. Many of them are killed thanks to people driving too fast for the conditions, especially at dusk. But sometimes they just hop out of the bush and straight under your car, and you've no hope of seeing them in time. Poor little guys.

Urban echidna

We came back from our drizzly dog walk this morning to find an echidna in our driveway! They were a regular sight at this time of year when we lived up in the hills, but not what we expected to see down here on the main road. We were worried that he (she?) might wander out across the highway so we set up a barricade across the side gate. David tried to pick him up to relocate the prickly fella to a better location, but he dug in firmly and stuck like a limpet - see picture below.

Later on, David spotted that he had moved to some gravel on the other side of our yard, where he was able to pick him up (with thick gloves) and deposit him in a recycling tub. We let him go in the paddock behind the neighbour's place where he's less likely to venture out on the busy road. Such amazing little creatures.

Highland Coos

This local business is onto an absolute Instagram winner. Highland Getaway in Tasmania's beautiful Huon Valley has a 40-strong herd of extremely photogenic and fluffy highland cattle. Guests come to stay, take gorgeous photos and post them to Instagram, which is where I first learned about this local business.

This week I joined a networking evening with our local business enterprise centre and had a tour. Julie, with help from her parents who have relocated from Queensland, has created peaceful luxury accommodation surrounded by the rolling green hills of Ranelagh and Glen Huon. You can stay in the cinema suite or the spa suite, both beautifully appointed. Julie also runs farm tours and you can even brush the cows. You can get close to many of them and they are seriously cute! This would be a wonderful place to relax for a few days or spend a week as a base to explore the local area. And their future plans for the property will be worth keeping an eye on.

Goodbye, ladies

It's a sad day as I farewell all 14 of my remaining chooks, including Vladimir the rooster. They are all safely packed in boxes, cat carriers and crates and on the way to their lovely new home as I type. This time next week we'll be moving into our new place "in town" with no room for chooks. This morning I threw their favourite leftover rice and curry out for them, gave them fresh water and felt a little sad watching them peck around in excitement.

I felt even sadder when I closed up the empty shed tonight. No-one left on the perches. But I am so happy that they going to such a nice new home in the Huon and all staying together as a flock. In other good news: the two friendly New Hampshire hens I gave back to the people I got them from as chicks have settled in well. They are now known as "The Suzies". That really makes me smile. Longer term, I will definitely miss eating an egg that was only laid yesterday for breakfast! It's the best.

The year of the echidna

Last week a neighbour gave me a lift down the road to the monthly movie night at the Palais (we saw The Merger, a terrific Aussie film, you must see it). He remarked that he's seen many more echidnas this year than in past years. You almost can't drive up or down our road without seeing one of them trundling along or digging into the clay bank on the side of the road. David and I had said the same thing only the day before. We've seen lots of them at our place too, making their way across our front paddock or across the road. One evening we saw our dog Gretchen sitting and staring at something in the corner of the yard. It turned out to be an echidna happily digging its way into an ants nest. This week, I managed to snap a few close ups of another one in almost the same place, pulling up tufts of grass and digging a hole. Echidnas in Tasmania have more fur and fewer spikes than their mainland Australian cousins. Aren't they just gorgeous?

The circle of life

In the land of poultry-keeping, you lose some, you gain some.

One of my hens recently lost use of her legs. She spent a lot of time sitting down, or making strange stamping motions with her feet. I first suspected bumblefoot, but on checking her feet there was no sign of swelling or infection. After separating her from the flock and checking her over thoroughly again, I couldn't find anything broken and started to suspect Marek's disease - not good at all. I could have dispatched her myself, but she was eating and drinking just fine, her eyes were OK... so I took her to the vet yesterday. He said it was some kind of neurological condition, with messages from her brain not getting to her legs, and unlikely to improve. We could try generic kinds of treatment - antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and the like - and then end up having to euthanase her anyway. She wasn't laying eggs and may have been in pain. So long story short, she didn't come back home with me from the vet today.

When I got back from the vet, I decided to go and check on the broody hen whose eggs were about due to hatch, and lo and behold - four healthy-looking tiny chicks were standing next to her cheeping! By the time David and I collected some chick feed and a water container to take down there, along with the camera of course, five little chicks were visible and mother hen was off her nest. I couldn't see signs of movement from any of the other eggs, but you never know. Either way, five new chicks is great news. A sad and happy day in chook land.

The small things

I have seen a lot of slugs in Tasmania, mostly tiny ones eating my vegetables in the garden, but hardly any snails. Every now and then, I see one crossing the road while out on my morning walk, like this one I saw this morning. Back in Sydney when I was little, I remember going out in the rain with my aunt Emily with an ice-cream container of salt in hand, to sprinkle on all the snails in the garden. I can't believe how cruel that was! We would stand under the car port out of the rain and watch them all froth up and die. Effective, but kind of mean... then again, I also remember once pulling a few legs off an ant to watch it walk around in circles. What a horrid little girl.

Bloody rabbits

I know, I know, it's Easter, but I'm not feeling very charitable towards those cute little bunnies at the moment. Everyone around here has been complaining about the growing plague of them over the past year or two. They are super cheeky. There are piles of droppings on the lawn right close to our house. You can see below their attempt at ringbarking one of my young plum trees, and below that my latest attempt to foil them - that's the trunk of an apricot tree painted with bitumen rubber to deter chewing beasties. I've painted all the exposed trunks of the fruit trees and the olive. In the bottom photo, you'll see the fine tunnel a rabbit has dug in one of my freshly dug over raised garden beds. I won't be planting carrots in it.

The feisty hen

This year, we've been invaded by rabbits. Many people I speak to say the same thing - they are everywhere. They used to come out at night, chewing our plants and leaving little piles of pellets around our yard for the dogs to eat. Now, we see them frolicking about in broad daylight, sitting in the driveway nibbling new grass shoots. We have a trap but haven't caught many.

The most effective bunny combat lately has come from one of my hens. I've seen her chase a bunny twice, squawking and flapping after it as it hops off into the bushes. Hilarious. She is super curious and likes to follow me around, pecking my gumboots and my hand as I deliver food to the girls. Feisty.

The cat who got the cream

Happy 20th birthday to Lilly the cat! Yes, you read that right. Twenty years old. Happy birthday, Lil.

This morning she enjoyed a special birthday treat of whipped cream. It sure seems a long time since we adopted her from the vet in Sydney as a scrawny tortoiseshell-and-white kitten with a few gut problems. Then she developed gut problems of a different kind, stealing food from all our neighbours and ending up at 8-plus kilos with a large swinging tummy. We had to do a letter box drop with her photo on saying "Do Not Feed This Cat".

Now, our poor old girl is very frail but she's still eating and drinking well. She needs regular combing and claw trimming but otherwise has simple requirements. Earlier this week, I spotted her trundling out from her home in the garage and across the driveway where she sat in the sun for a while. It mightn't be much, but it's not her time to go quite yet.

Munching on

While I did the annual chook shed clean out on the weekend, pulling out the past year's worth of bedding and general detritus and replacing it with (expensive) fresh straw, this pademelon sat nearby gobbling up the chooks' lettuce. He was so close I could hear the munching.

Baby snake

Awwww, cute. All baby animals are cute. Yes, even this tiny whip snake (white-lipped snake) spotted heading away from our garage over the weekend. Pretty little thing.

Box full of little chickies

For all you chicken fans out there (and I know there are a few), here are some baby photos. From 20 eggs in the incubator, nine eventually hatched. Unfortunately the last two chicks to emerge from the shell had something wrong with their legs and feet and just as I was considering whether I should dispatch them or try to correct the problem, both died. Of the remaining eggs, one chick partly hatched but didn't make it out of the egg, four died early on in their development and six eggs were infertile. But I'm happy with seven healthy chicks, now cheeping, scratching and pecking about in a box in the garage. They are super cute. Hopefully there will be a few hens among them, as our little flock is down to only a few hens plus Sebastian.

The heartache of animal ownership

Our beautiful dog Baerli turned nine on Friday. The downside to owning a large breed is that their lifespan is short. In the case of Bernese Mountain Dogs, 8-12 years is considered good. And poor B has been in the wars lately. She's torn her cruicate ligament in one leg. There's a nasty tumour (thankfully benign) in her mouth. Then she hurt one of her front legs too and was hobbling very badly. On Friday night she wouldn't eat her dinner (for the first time ever), nor breakfast on Saturday morning. Happily she's eating again now. Then on Sunday after a very short walk and swim she was finding it so difficult to get up that she peed on her bed and dripped all the way to the door rather than go outside to the toilet. Yesterday I spotted that her urine was very dark brown. Straight to the vet. A raft of tests ruled some things out thankfully, but we don't know what's wrong yet. It's so hard to see her miserable. We only want to do the best for this lovely old lady.

Then last week while I was away for work, five-year-old Gretchen hurt one of her legs too and was limping. The way she hurtles across the paddock after the frisbee, it's no great surprise, but it's hard to keep her quiet to allow it to heal. She's so desperate to play.

Meanwhile, every time I look at our frail 19+ year old cat Lilly, I wonder if I'm doing the right thing. She's eating, drinking and sleeping fine, but can't groom herself properly, or hear, or see much either. Is she in too much pain? When is too much? I just don't know.

One of the hens has had mites on one leg, which I've been dunking in oil and rubbing gently to (hopefully) help remove them. Yesterday she disappeared. Another hen has some kind of wound on her breast but seems otherwise fine... I don't know what to do.

I wouldn't part with them for the world, but they sure can be a worry. There's so much more than cute and fluffy when caring for our animal family. Every now and then we consider getting some goats or sheep, but I don't think I'm ready for livestock. Especially not after reading a series of Facebook posts by a friend about the birth of calves (to some very obstreperous cows) at their place last month. Now THAT sounded stressful.

Easter bunny

Along with the hordes of pademelons and wallabies in our front paddock every night, recently we've had more intruders of the feral and fluffy-tailed variety - rabbits. We see them bolting across the driveway as we turn in at night and they leave tell-tale little piles of evidence on patches of bare ground. They are also venturing into the yard, so we decided to try to reduce the population of non-native animal visitors.

He was a day late, but this little guy was in the trap when we got up this Easter Monday morning. I feel half-inspired by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on River Cottage last week to try cooking them (don't mind a bit of rabbit stew) but in the end we did not eat this one. Maybe the next unfortunate bunny who walks into the trap will make it to the pot.

Huon Show 2014

Show Day

This year I did not work on the Hobart Show Day public holiday. It's always a tough one, as the rest of Australia is still working and it's a busy time of year at work. But we took the day off and David and I went to the show. As I have mentioned before, I love a good agricultural show - seeing the cattle, sheep, goats, poultry, the farmyard nursery with the cute yellow ducklings, the horses and even the rabbits and cavies. We patted one of the rabbits and I think it was the softest thing I've ever touched. You can keep the dagwood dogs, the fairy floss and the showbags, but it was still an entertaining day out - although an expensive one for families. It must be said that the Woolworths fruit and vegetables display is not a patch on the one at the Sydney Royal Show and I was disappointed that the old chairlift is no longer there as that part of the showgrounds is now a big construction site. But it was a good thing to do once anyway. Some churros, hot chips and an ice cream later and it was time to go home.

Field of lambs

There is a paddock on the road between Huonville and Ranelagh (we drive past it regularly on our way out to the Summer Kitchen Bakery) that we call the 'field of lambs'. Each spring, it is dotted with ewes and their tiny lambs. So adorable.

Springtime has hit the Huon Valley and there are now 'fields of lambs' everywhere. This one in a former orchard on the banks of the Huon River contains beautiful black-faced sheep and their tiny offspring in amongst the old and dead apple trees. The sight just makes me say "awww" every time I drive past.