THe Catch Up

Wow. Been a long time since anyone has been in here. Just before my birthday in fact, but don't read anything into that, I love birthdays, love the celebration. Even the three death metal bands playing at The River Stage across the Brisbane river at my birthday BBQ didn't hassle me, cause I was having a fantastic time. To be brutally honest it has more to with a gift from my neighbours a few days before Xmas. Goats. Two desexed males that he'd bought for his kids and they'd tired of them. He had no real fences and no inclination to build any but didn't want them to end up in the pot.



I was initially reluctant, The Wife more so and with good reason, we had no idea how much they would escape and rampage through neighbours gardens, trampling goodwill as they went. Free is still free, however and I have a lot of grass, more so after the summer rains.

Being a smallholder is a funny business. You can read and research and watch but until you have an animal you don't really start learning. For instance, the goats love the very green long grass i have in amazing abundance at the moment, I had read that they prefer more woody and fibrous material, but gees, they love that grass.

The electric fence works well right up to the point where the feed runs out and they can see that green, long grass on the other side and then they bash through to get to it. But I'm learning as i go along and as well as being amazing clearers of rough land, they are very personable, a byproduct of being raised as kids pets, I think.

Other than building fencing to keep ahead of their voracious appetite, there's been the usual Xmas rush around. The Wife had this fantastic sign made up by a mate of ours in our Loveslugs touch footy team so visitors will be able to find us at the top of the hill. I've been baking a lot of bread. Reading lots and lots of books. Went to the Bell races, a small country meet where they ran out of rum three hours before closing.



Oh and the goats can't do all the work so I've been mowing a fair bit of lawn. Lantanaland looks like a small patch of England at the moment, we've had over 300mm of rain in the last six weeks. So between lots of mowing, slashing and training for a touch tournament i've been pretty bone tired and too slack to write.

That will be amended. After all, once i have this goat thing down, i'm expecting to see a lot less of the whippersnipper.