In the goose paddock is a 20 litre barrel with a tight lid. It gets filled up with wheat, and they get a few handfuls in the morning and at night. It’s a good bribe to call them in and lock them into their safe compound.

At the moment we aren't doing that though. Its nesting season, and they fight if they get locked in together, and the nesting spots are scatted all over the paddock. Previously we've been obsessed with locking them up at night, but I am optimistic that this year we really do have the paddock fox-proofed. We still keep up the feeding routine. They amble in at dinner time and we can do a head count, even if we aren't locking them up.

Apart from the geese there's a squadron of roosters living there, too. The unwanted, the surplus. And the sheep, who get walked in every night with their lambs. So far this season we haven't lost a lamb to foxes, although the terrible cold and rain has taken a heavier toll than last year.

But yesterday I arrived at the paddock, and thought someone had been in there. The wheat from the barrel had been poured, in a long running line, and the empty barrel chucked in a gully. We've had strong winds, but this was something different.

There was enough wheat in the barrel for a few more feeds, but I made mental note to bring another bag of wheat over.

The goose paddock is a confronting remnant of the dry-dredge mining done to the river flats last century. In a small 2 acre paddock there's a football-oval sized hole in the ground. On one side is a 10 metre drop into the water that collects in the bottom. On the other side its more graduated, but little grows there as its mostly discarded stone. On a nice day its almost pretty, but from the wrong angle it’s a horrible scar.

Running from that hole is a gully. When we have a lot of water it initially collects in the waterhole, then finds its way out via the gully. Again, there's a flat deck above it, but it drops sharply away, more like three metres. There's a point to all this, which became clear when I came back with the wheat that evening.

As usual, we walked the sheep into the goose paddock for their overnight safe sleep. They don't mind….there's dry feed put out, and I cut a trailer load of fresh olive tree prunings and dump that in there. They love it.

Having seen to the sheep, I unscrewed the barrel lid, then turned and got out a knife to slash open the wheat bag. I turned back with the bag ready to pour….no barrel. What the…?

To my left, the barrel was moving off at a high speed, stuck around the head of a particularly enterprising, but ultimately too greedy, sheep. With her head in the barrel she couldn't see where she was going, and the last of the wheat in the barrel poured out as she ran.

It all made sense…she ran with the barrel yesterday in a straight line until she hit the fence. The trail of wheat yesterday told me that. From there she again ran in a straight line…over the edge of the gully. I guess the barrel came off as she catapulted into the void.