Rampant and Alive

Today is the last day of winter. A time supposedly devoid of hope, like in Narnia where it is always winter and never Christmas. Not for me though – we’ve only been here for 18 months and I suspect that winter is the front-runner for my favourite time of the year. Nonetheless it’s very exciting to be on the verge of spring, everything ready to burst forth with life. Rampant and alive, starting anew again, a chance to be reborn.


I spent the day warmed by the sun chipping at bricks down at the tip, cleaning them up for re-use in my friend’s path, the next stretch of paving now in progress. The work was repetitive, physical and perhaps a little boring but I don’t mind days like that from time to time. A big wedgetail eagle circled high above the tip and reminded me of Tim Low’s book The New Nature, where he talks about the inextricable relationship between wildlife and urban spaces.


Noah’s friend has an amazing collection of costumes, mostly made by his very talented mother, feeding and encouraging his obsession with dinosaurs and other more contemporary wildlife. Noah often gets to borrow one or two when he goes to visit but we seem to have accumulated a few, and his favourite thing at the moment is to wear them all at once – wings, shell, comb, and about three different tails.


At home Em kept Noah entertained and treated the horses for ticks, unfortunately a bit overdue. We’ve been umming and ahhing for a week or two about how bad it is, then we bought some sulphur blocks to help boost their natural resistance, but the final straw came the other day when I went over to feed them some apples. The poor loves had bites all over them, big swollen ticks under their manes and Nugget’s muzzle had dozens of bush ticks crawling on it. Sue and Rob talked to the vet and got something we can spray on them, which Em and Sue did today while Noah took some photos. It is another reminder to us how vigilant we need to be in our stewardship of the animals in our care.

Tonight Em and I watched some of the River Cottage series with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. It is so good to feed our vision of the farm we want to create, the life we want to live. There were bits on beekeeping, butchering your own animals, brewing your own beer, keeping pigs, spring gardening and eating feral pest species. Yay. Em is always thinking of design and decor and it has started to spread to me, so much so that we have to pause the video and admire window seats, rock walls and kitchens big enough to hang a butchered lamb in - excited by what's in front of us.


“I’m grateful that I licked the bowl and I taked photos of the horses.”
(Confused? Look)