Its supposed to be the quiet time of year for us. But its been months since I added to this site....too much to do!

Its been relentlessly wet. Its just the last few weeks we have a few days break from the rain and finally a bit of sunshine

And now, with the start of Spring there's been a lot of behavioral changes in the animals. Geese have paired up and are nesting. I've found seven nests that are being properly looked after. Two more that I've seen with eggs but never seen a goose on them, and there is a pair of geese defending the goose compound against all comers. No doubt there's a nest in there. So, maybe ten nests. Notionally that could be as many as, say, 60 goslings. Based on the previous history of the appalling attrition rate geese inflict on their offspring 10-20 is more likely.

Turtles are on the move. They come up from the river, work their way through the paddocks aiming for the goose pond. They end up hitting the foxproof fence. In the early days I was oblivious to this and found turtle shells in the paddock. Now I know to look out for them. There is almost always a telltale path of crushed grass along the fence which is from the turtle wandering back and forth trying to find a way in. I move them past the fence and set them up in the pond. (I carry a long-handled flat hoe in the buggy. I can lean over the fence and pick up a turtle without getting electrocuted or needing to go the long way round into the paddock where the turtle is.)

Later in the year they will migrate back, and the process is reversed. Except, its a long way to the river and I give them a lift!

Rabbits are going off this year. I see, every day, more and more rabbits in my neighbour's, along the river. We have three warrens that I know off at our place. One rabbit, ridiculously, has taken up residence in the shed. It is driving the dogs mad. I expect they will catch is sooner or later, but I first saw it two weeks ago, and have seen it again yesterday. The dogs get into a frenzy and don't listen to me when I see the rabbit run out from the stack they are looking at. I call them, but they ignore me.

In the time we've been here we often see wallabies in the hop farm next door. They move through the extensive bush corridor along the river. There's quite a few of them and sometimes I will see a group of six or more. Kangaroos are much less common. I expect they are simply too big, get noticed, and someone gets rid of them. The kangaroo in our place yesterday was very big. I'm not great with identifying kangaroo species, but I think this was a young male Eastern Grey. I was walking the dogs, early in the morning. Fry the Kelpie saw the kangaroo and would have chased it but I called him down. The others missed it all and I steered them off into another direction, and I haven't seen him again.

The wombats get wound up in Spring. They are on the move every night, busy renovating burrows. When we walk after dark at my place we often see at least three wombats shuffling around. Unfortunately they don't just roam here....they wander onto the road, even though it is a good kilometre from the river where they spend most of their time, and there are a few corpses scattered along the Great Alpine Road.

We've had one break-in into the goose paddock so far. Its a regular event each year, but now I expect it. I saw the hole and filled it immediately with a 20 litre bucket full of stones prepared for exactly this occurrence. But only one hole? Oh no, of course not! The wombat digs in somewhere else, so there is always a second hole to find and fill before a fox finds it.

Foxes were mad a few weeks back. They were mating, and seem to lose all fear and common sense. They would come close to the house and bark, and like the wombats they roam across the roads with at least a dozen dead between Myrtleford and Bright. Now its a bit quieter, as they are tending their burrows and imminent cubs.

We had three calves a few months back. Everyone has calves at the moment! One neighbour buys steers which he runs for a year of so. Usually they are whatever is cheap...odd looking chaps with terrible horns, or gangly cross-bred milking cow offspring. But with the drop in livestock prices good quality cattle are affordable, and his paddock has suddenly sprouted eight or so very handsome Hereford steers. The other neighbour has a young son who has bought some poddy calves with his own money, bottle-fed them until they were big enough, and now they are free-ranging with the adult cattle. He's done a good job and they look impressive. Good for him!

The odd one for us was some unexpected lambs. Our lambs we not expected until really late this year....November. I had been holding off letting the ram in with them, as I was hoping to find a better one locally. I missed my chance and gave up, and belatedly let our horned, hairy bogun ram join the flock, But then, a few weeks later, we unexpectedly had four deliveries over two days of five lambs. Working backwards I think one of last year's whethers had somehow not been neutered properly, and he came into adulthood two days before I removed the whethers to a separate paddock. Who knows? I'm embarrassed I didn't notice. Lucky the births were trouble free.

And speaking of trouble-free births.....my brother lives interstate, also in a farm. This year he has sheep, and last week they were birthing. He rang me, worried about a non-progressing birth. I am pleased, and actually astonished, that I was able to ask the right questions and diagnose the problem, and then talk him through the process of delivering the lamb. It was a tough one - the lamb was stuck and not presenting correctly - but we both were calm, kept at it, and the lamb and mum made it. They would not have had he not intervened.

Its exhilarating, a massive emotional adrenaline blast to solve something like this that is real life and death for the participants. After he put the lamb in front of the stunned mother to allow her to clean it up when she recovered, and then stepped back to leave them to it, I said to him, " I'll give you a call in half an hour to check in. It's ok if you need to stand aside and have a cry!"

I know I have.