Illness and goats

Goats are like sheep in many ways. The way their digestion works and the worms that attack them. Carla got sick overnight. The vet said he was positive it was worm related and prescribed a new wormer which covered more variety of worms. The problem was that this chemical was so strong it was to change the fact that the girls could be milked. He explained that it would be fine for the babies but not for human consumption. I was torn, if I didn’t use it, she would probably die, if I used it, there would be no milking. Even though I knew they were not milking goats, I had heard that Boer goats were dual purpose meat and milk. I wouldn’t get the chance to find out as I didn’t want to lose her. Over the next few days she recovered quickly and life went back to goat normal for her.

Fences, goats and flowers.

The fences on the farm are old, about as old as what they can get. Fencing is part and parcel of farming. It never ends and when you have livestock pushing and feeding through it, it’s bound to give up. Its wire and it rusts with age too. Our fences fitted right into this profile. The goats are very intelligent and the story of the three billy goats gruff should start to ring a bell about now. Goats truly think that the grass is greener on the other side. I have heard that they are determined and sometimes push through a line of electric wire. To totally contain goats you need very secure fences and more than one live wire. We had none of this and were blissfully unaware of the damage the goats could cause to neighbours gardens and trees. All went rather smoothly the first year and I had great pleasure watching the girls slowly diminish the vines of weeds and long grasses in the places that the cattle would not eat. They were a great asset to our garden landscaping plan. Each day more and more of the overgrown paddocks were revealed and it warmed my heart. They were landscaping the very unused and overgrown paddock and saving me tons of man-hours. It was a win, win situation. Romeo was purchased from Billy-Joe about 1 year later. Excitedly we brought him home and set him loose. He was a handsome looking male and instantly got the girls attention.

Meet Carla and lady

My goats are long gone and I honestly do not hesitate to say, I do not miss them. We bought goats with the intention of milking them but after a long time looking could find no available dairy goats. Caught up in the fever of the moment and being the fresh farm girl I was, I settled for the next option which were meat goats. They were Boer goats, in fact. Pedigree registered girls and they sure were beauties. I was relentless about getting the goats and breeding. Johnny on the other hand was rational and patient. This trait is one I’ve been grateful for many times. He brings balance to my passion which is usually full steam ahead with no thought to the hundred different consequences or responsibilities. After being surrounded by hundred goats or more, we picked two for us. Carla and Lady. Carla was easy going and friendly. She loved to interact with her humans but Lady was reserved and very skittish. We loaded up our girls and I settled on the fact that we would be back when we were ready to breed. We needed time to get used to the goats and they needed time to get used to us and their new home. We knew nothing about goats. Over the months that followed, we learnt much about their diet, their stomachs, what looked like illness by watching their poo. Treatment of worms, pest and hoofs. They taught us much and we loved them dearly. There was nothing more peaceful than watching the goats graze. Then the drama happened, but more about that next time.

Garden Produce

Yesterday I had a visitor to Pine Haven. A very savvy, fruit tree and plant expert. Jack and I share and swop stories of bugs eating our fruit and vegetables and what to do about it. He offers me advice and solutions and I do the same. We are both organically minded and do not want to use chemicals to ward off the bugs. Recently in the mail, I received a notification that our property is to undergo an audit sometime during April and July. Due to fact that we are breeders, all precautionary measures must be taken to ensure the livestock we keep and reproduce is of the highest standard. I’ve never had this before, but going through the checklist they provide, I’m confident I meet the criteria as I ticked all the boxes. It seems that first and foremost the concern is about pesticides used on vegetable patches and chemicals used to treat termites long ago, which have since been banned. Jack and I took a walk around the garden as we usually do each time he visits and I showed him what is growing and what’s not. We picked beans and chomped on them as we discussed the type of passion fruit I was growing. At long last the passionfruit vine is thriving. I’m excited to see the fruit and enjoy lots of yummy things with it. The snow peas are doing well but the baby marrows are struggling. It looks like they are being attacked by lady bugs. The capsicum’s are edible but very small and appear stunted. This doesn’t bother me as they will get used irrespective. Finally the tomato plant is reproducing some fruit and I picked a small bunch off the vine to ripen indoors. The chilli tree is just the star of the show. Each time we go to pick, I pick at least two dozen chillies. The nectarine tree worried me for a bit as I think I made a mistake planting it where I did, but it’s doing okay. I commented to Jack how proud I was of my fruit trees. The orange tree has scale on it and caterpillar’s and grasshoppers think it’s their grocery cupboard. I’ll have to keep an eye on that one. I have two oranges on the tree now. The trunk of the tree is solid and strong and I think in years to come, we will enjoy much fruit from this tree. The pickings from the garden are growing at a wonderful rate. As I filled a basket this time, I smiled and thought how rewarding this is. Patience is a virtue, virtue is a grace and Grace was a little girl who never washed her face. My mother taught me this proverb long ago and I know now that gardens, be they vegetable, fruit or flowers are labours of love. They take time and patience to develop but if you stick it out, you will never be sorry.

Found you!

I have been searching far and wide for the perfect Dad for the next lot of calves that will be born here on Pine Haven. It has been close on a year actually and I had almost given up on finding one available close by, that would be reasonably priced, and most importantly from a reputable breeder. At last I found him. Black Sabbath as he has been named, is a monstrosity weighing in at 655kg. His genes originate from South Africa and he is available for natural service at the moment. Summer Creek Farm, is his home and is just a short 20 minute drive away - what a bonus that is. We chatted to the owners of Sabbath who are the most ribboned, show breeders this side of sunny Queensland. No jokes, they have a whole wall full of ribbons. Not just any ribbons but Champion ribbons. Ribbons won across different breeds. I’m beginning to understand why breeders show their cattle and why Jimmy from ‘It’s a farmers life for me” says it adds value to your meat. It was pretty impressive. We discussed price and duration of stay. Two of the girls are probably going to go for the first round and then Crystal and Zulu the second round, as Zulu really still needs milk and they will be boarding with Sabbath for 4 weeks. I don't know if we can send Zulu, so I may have to wait until he's weaned but I'm not worried about that. We booked them in for next month, and in the mean time, I will be recording the dates I see they are coming into season. That way we should hit the nail on the head. I’m so excited to see the calves born from Sabbath – I can hardly wait. Meagan, the owner , offered to show us the ropes if we decided to ever do a local show. She was ever so kind and even offered to loan me a prodder or two. What lovely people and animals

Chicken kitchen menu

Okay so now I have all this chicken. I’m dubious about what it will taste like – will it be the same as the supermarket or not? I started hunting down chicken recipes with a passion. In South Africa, there is a typical meal called Chicken a la King. It’s yummy and after much thought, I settled on this one. This would be our first meal made from 100% our own birds. I started by chopping up the garlic, onions and herbs and frying them. After pre- boiling the chicken and removing the meat from the bone, I added the mushrooms, capsicums and white sauce to the onion and chicken mix. Finally ready, I served the meal with rice and a salad. I remember that night clearly. It was a defining moment for me. We all sat around the table staring at our plates. There is an old saying in South Africa which comes from the Afrikaans language. “ek eet met lang tande” It means to eat very unenthusiastically, hesitantly or without enjoyment. This saying describes how that meal went to . What would it taste like? Would we survive? Would we enjoy it? I’d noticed the colour of the meat while cooking was different and that bugged me. It was much darker meat and had less fat on it. I was to learn later that it had everything to do with the birds free ranging. After the first mouth fill, I relaxed a bit. It tasted good. A little stringy though, which I didn’t like but overall a decent meal. On other occasions, I tried fried chicken and chicken stew and came to the conclusion that the age these birds were slaughtered at, was too old. The fried chicken and roast chicken were not good and the meat was tough. It was undisputed that Spot would get any future roosters that landed up in the kitchen and they would not end up on the dining room table. I have future plans to raise meat birds and compare the difference to this experience. But that’s another story for another time.

D Day for the Roosters

The roosters were not so little anymore and were spending a lot of time crowing. I was going through feed like no other and something definitely had to change. At one time I counted nine males. It was time. Johnny being much more experienced at this than I, as he had raised chickens along with him Mum as a little boy. He had watched and learnt much from these days which I was counting on and very grateful for. There was a series on the telly at the time and I was eagerly watching and learning as much as I possibly could. It was vitally important to me that the birds did not stress or suffer in any way. It was so great that I came across this series as it helped a lot. They lady who did a demonstration had used a metal funnel. I called it the death funnel. The purpose of the funnel was to secure the wings and to keep the bird still. The bird would go in head first and the head would come out at the bottom. A bucket was placed under the funnel to catch the liquid. After hearing stories from various people over the years about how the chicken run around without a head and also understanding where that saying came from I had no desire to see this happen. I said my goodbyes to the boys and thank them for teaching me so much and bringing such delight into our lives and handed them over to Johnny who patiently waited for me by the funnel. The first bird to be processed was a very emotional time and I hid behind the wall. I could not bring myself to watch. With the second bird I found the courage to creep a little closer. The third bird was do or die. I was determined that if I was to be living on a farm then I should be able to do what a farmer does. Slaughtering your own birds is part and parcel of that. I stood with my eyes closed and finally peeped out of one. I was surprised. The funnel worked amazingly and apart from a few stray drops of blood the bucket caught most of it. The birds were not stressed and it was quick and as painless as possible. I made a breakthrough that day. I felt like my world had enlarged yet again. As Johnny and I sat and de-feathered those birds and prepped them for the kitchen it became a new stage in our farming lives. To de-feather a bird there are many expensive and homemade versions too of machines made for this job. It would have been wonderful to use one and they looks grand but I didn’t have the time or the money to get one right when I needed one so we used the old fashion way. A bucket of scolding hot water. Later on we were to realize that by adding a teaspoon of dishwashing liquid to the water, the feathers on the bird were much easy to get out. We worked as a team that day and I learnt much more than any book could instil in me. There is nothing like on the job training. Johnny was a trooper; he knew exactly what to do which was probably a good thing as I knew nothing. After a number of hours we had nine prepared birds for the kitchen. I was covered in feathers and there was a fair amount of mess to tidy up but I had a smile on my face like no other. I was a farmer. I had seen the full cycle of life right here on my very own piece of dirt. Next time I share about the kitchen and the meals I made with the birds.

My first batch of baby chooks

A few months after we bought our initial breeding stock of 10 – I was browsing the net and found an incubator for sale. What an amazing thing this was. Not only did I discover a range of different ones but they were quite affordable too. Knowing pretty much zero about how to use an incubator or which one to choose, I decided on one that cost a little more but offered to automatically turn the eggs within the incubator. I learnt later that it really just shifts them from side to side. The day arrived for the coveted machine to be delivered. I couldn’t wait to rip open the box. It took some time becoming familiar with the machine but it was not too difficult to fathom it out. It was plugged in and I collected eggs each day for the next few days. 48 eggs in total were incubated that week. What was I thinking! Every day I watched with bated breath for those first few signs of life. I still didn’t believe you could put a plain old egg in this box and voila, a few weeks later you had fluffy yellow or black chicks in my case. The day arrived eventually and we watched the baby chicks fight their way through the shell. That batch of eggs was 100% successful. Not one chick died and it did well for my soul. I had successful hatched a batch of chooks. The days that followed taught me heaps about the maintenance of newly hatched chooks. There is a fair amount of work attached to it. The first week was easy and then they started to grow. The water had to be changed at least twice to three times a day as many day old chicks die from dirty water. Bearing in mind they do tend to get some poo in the water which contaminate the drinking supply. The globes kept blowing and had to be changed. I had to be vigilant all the time and checked up on them a number of times a day in case the globe had gone out and they were getting cold. A lot of chooks are lost because of loss of heat so it’s important to make sure you have the right light globe and that it’s working well. The bedding was messy within a few minutes of changing as baby chicks are just messy. By the end of the fourth week I was ready to move them and their cheeping outside. They have by far outgrown the fish tank I had been using for their quarter. They had begun to peck each other, which I believe is a clear indication that the needed more space to move in. Being winter I worried over the chooks getting cold as any new mother worries over her precious baby. What would happen if the light went out in the middle of the night and I wasn’t there to see it??? Well, guess what - they all survived and grew up rather fast mind you. After about the twelve or thirteen week I started recognising the differences between male and female. I was amazed at how many roosters I had. Oh brother, that meant a whole lot of crowing in the morning. Shortly after I noticed the feather around the neck of the rooster’s aswell as their tail feathers, they started crowing in all their glory! I would be woken up every morning for about two weeks until I was forced to cull some of the flock. Around sixteen or seventeen weeks I could stand it no longer as my neighbours could neither I guess. Making this choice meant fronting the fact that we had to slaughter many birds - ourselves. I had never seen a bird being killed not to mention the preparation before it became edible. I would be lying if I told you I was comfortable with this practice. Over the many different times later on that we prepared the birds the process became easier and easier. We learnt techniques and found different products to help with the de-feathering that made the whole process streamline and much quicker. Next time I’ll go into a little bit more detail regarding the process the birds go through from live bird to plate. I by no means think I’m an expert in this field and am only relaying my experience which has been insightful and very successful so far. I am learning and continue to learn daily from my girls. They have been a welcome addition to Pine Haven.

Chickens and incubators

At the moment there are 13 Australorp hens which lay eggs and two, possibly, three roosters. I find this number sufficient to supply three to four dozen eggs a week to sell and still to keep us in good supply too. These big black birds are meant to be a combination bird meaning both suitable for egg and meat. The have a beautiful green tint to the black feather and the male bird is very attractive as well. They are good breeders and are shown extensively for their beauty. Apart from the manual labour of keeping the hen hut clean chickens are pretty low maintenance. A sprinkle of powder every six months or so for mites and a de-worming too, they take care of themselves. They love to take dust baths which I have been told aids in keeping the mites at bay. This custom seems to calm them down as well. Often during the course of the day you will see them rolling in the dirt, flicking it up onto their backs and then resting in the hole they’ve made. Chickens are good for the garden as not only do they fertilise the ground but eat the unwanted bug’s as well. I never seem to have anything that goes to waste from the kitchen because the chickens eat most of it. Between the rest of the animals there are always some willing recipients available for that which the chooks won’t eat. I find that with the farm stay students I have, the chickens are a soft approach to interacting with a live animal. Generally speaking they will eat from your hand and the children love to throw small chunks of bread over the fence to them. We have experimented little with the meat side and the only time we have prepared the birds for meat was when we knew we had too many males. Unfortunately they were too old already for the freezer and resulted in more tough stringy meat and were very unpalatable. Spot became the recipient of those birds. He did not seem to mind that they were on the tough side neither – why would he? In time I plan to try raising pure meat birds and will be able to report back on that then. Until then I buy my chicken from a supermarket. The 13 birds have three young ones amongst them who are not laying eggs at the moment. I get up to seven eggs daily or as little as three. The biggest concern I have at the moment is my client base. I have a senior ladies group who I supply every Friday but sometimes like now, I skip a Friday for a holiday or some other reason and then I'm backed up with eggs. I do have one other customer who takes two dozen at a time but really need another two or three that I can have as back up. It seems to be the age old problem with egg production. Where do I take my eggs too? In my next entry I will expand on what it was like bringing 42 incubated eggs into the world.

Milking matters

Learning how to milk our three Dexter cows has been a labour of love. Their teats are so much smaller than a dairy cow and it can be quite frustrating for someone with big hands. A few weeks into milking the girls, we bought a second-hand milking machine. Apart from being very noisy, it hasn’t been very useful with the Dexter’s. A fact, had we known we may not have bought the machine. You see the suction cups weren’t made for the parts of a Dexter. Be that as it may we put it down to part of the learning. Johnny assures me it will come in use some day in the future. Now that Daisy, our Jersey heifer is here I can see that we will use it again. In the old barn Johnny set about building a milking ramp. Watching him from distance I smiled as I saw the feeding trough go in, the bars to contain the cow and then the last piece to go in was the removable bar across the back to hold any such cow. It was nothing fancy but it would do the job. It was another hot sweaty day but it was sweet success in the end and I found myself eager to put our newly constructed milking unit to use. I could hardly sleep that night for excitement. I finally drifted off into a deep sleep dreaming of the adventures of tomorrow. The following day we had warm fresh milk in the fridge however little it was. Being extra vigilant about hygiene, and rather uncertain about all the bad press on drinking raw milk, I was pleasantly surprised at how the whole process went rather effortlessly. In the months to come, I would have to deal with buckets being kicked over; sand papery licks to the side of my head when I was to slow at replenishing the grain I was feeding Crystal. My fingers began deft as holding onto Crystal’s teats and I would complete a milking session in less than half an hour from start to finish. Milking time was early in the morning and late at night and so the routine began. Johnny would do the morning and I would do the evening milking. We fell into a smooth pattern and our confidence grew. Every day I faced a new three to four litre of fresh farm milk. I also discovered that the whole milk wasn’t too good for my tummy. It was far too rich for me and the cream needed to be separated. I started getting tummy aches every time I used it. Apart from me everybody else was okay and managed to make the transition easily to whole milk. I started baking furiously to use up the milk and everybody including Spot our dog enjoyed the abundance of milk being supplied each day. The milking sessions became times of reflection and planning. As my finger got to work, my mind would wander to all my dreams and plans I had. It was so rewarding this lifestyle. It’s what I dreamed and what we’ve wanted for so long. Teaching the children to milk was such an opportunity, watching the expressions as they tasted the warm squirt of milk in their mouths for the first time was priceless. When I think back on that period of learning, it brings a warm fuzzy feeling to my heart. Back then that milking learning curve was just about the best thing since sliced cheese. Today we are gearing up to having a cheese making outbuilding and planning to turn our raw product into a marketable food item. When we started milking, all I could think off was how fun it was. Somewhere along the line the fantasy faded and the reality set it. I still enjoy the experience immensely but my focus has changed somewhat. As Jimmy would say if your farm doesn’t make money then it’s just a hobby. My passion has altered a fair bit. I realise that I don’t want just a hobby but a marketable product. It’s going to take a lot more learning I guess and probably many mistakes along the way but that’s what makes the experience worth it.

The old farmhouse

It was a stinking hot day when I brought my family to this small country suburb. We knew not what awaited us apart from a lot of work. The garden was so overgrown one could not see the house from the bush. Products of suburbia, my children took one look at the house and said, I like the city better! There were no functioning toilets, no council water and no insulation. We had our work cut out for us. At least Eagle boys, Woolworths and a number of other recognisable places were only about ten minutes away. I tried to convince them that living here we had the best of both worlds. The looks I got told me they didn’t believe me. When I was a little girl, my brother worked on a farm. It was a massive farm situated in a small remote village in Zululand, South Africa – the village was called “Babanango”. My Dad would take us to see him regularly and I loved it. I loved the peacefulness and sparseness of the countryside. It had a small well-known pub in the tiny town; apart from this I can’t remember much else. You could blink and probably miss the town if you weren’t careful. I think that is where my love of the country was birthed.
On that first night at our run down, old farmhouse, I looked up at the sky littered with stars, took a deep breath and sighed. What ever happened in the future I knew that this is where I was supposed to be. It took a while but I got here as fast as my dream could go. This crossroads I found myself in was the start of living our dream. It could only get better from here.
Now three years down the line, the openness of the sky and country life is the norm. We have a fully restored septic system which does not cost an extra cent, a garden we are gloriously proud of and a partially renovated but liveable clean home. No longer do the children pine for the city. We have everything we need just a short way away. If there is something we need to get from the city we do a day trip and make it fun. Over the years, the children have filled their days with things that one could not possibly do in the city. Fun has changed its direction 180 degrees. Collecting tad poles in the crisp early mornings, walking the bush trails, imagining hideouts in the forest, taking rides in the small tinny on the dams, building tree houses and enjoying campouts and bonfires. These are the things my children have done. Grass skiing and hay rides not to mention the animals that have filled our every day. We have grown and learnt so much from them. We came to the country to live life as it’s meant too for us and we sure have done that. To know the soil and the pains it takes to grow your own food. To enjoy the rewards of that hard labour and to learn that patience is a virtue. We were all pampered city slickers before we took this path. My; how we have changed.
Today the children are grown and have bloomed like sunflowers. The old farmhouse has had a face lift somewhat but the work is never done. I know that without a shadow of a doubt, we did the right thing. we couldn’t have given them a better experience.

28th March 2012

The 28th March was a significant day for our family. It was the culmination of five years of journey. It meant the end of a season. It meant the end of a title. It meant that Australia is our home now. We became citizens of Australia on the 28th March 2012. No longer do we regard ourselves as immigrants. No longer do we watch the voting days from a distant. Now and forever more we are Australians by choice. What a walk it’s been. It’s not something that’s easy to explain this immigration journey. It’s been exceptionally hard and challengingly. Numerous times it’s been easy to toss in the towel but pure determination and dreams of a future to come have securely held me back. The emotions that a person faces – the desolation, the fears, the euphoria of passing so many tests that are required, the doubting and anxiety that’s constantly present for the first few weeks. The paper work, the cost, the information needed is challenging to say the least. The excitement of the trip, the first car and rental, new schools for the children, exploring the surrounding countryside. New jobs, new words, new friends. Everything takes time to develop all the while you are struggling with the new. Time has a way of healing oodles of things and coping is part of the daily routine for a while but then it passes. Knowing that because today is not a good day it doesn’t mean tomorrow won’t be. One learns to carry on despite disappointments, despite hurting and feeling lost. Someone told me it takes two years to settle in a new country. I think that it takes some two years and some more. We have tumbled into the more category I think. Standing in the middle of the 103 new citizens’, I looked around me. I wondered what their passage was like. What did they face and how long has it taken to get to this point for them. 35 nations were represented that night. An amazing amount of skill and diversity stood under that roof.

An interesting conversation

Yesterday while I was trying to find a good bull for my girls, I spoke to a lady who has quality stock. Most of her herd are descendants from SA genes or UK genes. She is very knowledgeable and has years of experience in the Dexter game. I shared with her the dilemma I had recently faced with the chrono gene. She felt that the test was not necessary and there was no problem in Queensland with this issue. Apparently NSW is a different story. As long as a short legged female is not mated with a short legged bull, you will have no problems but if you do that is when the so called bull dog calves will result. The more I search the internet the more I find about this test being done though. I still have mixed emotions about it and am still in doubt. When we bought the girls we had no intention of showing them. Our aim was to breed and that was it. Today I realise why a lot of people show there cattle. It adds so much value to your breeding stock. If you win first, second prize and have ribbons to prove it, well it just adds a bit more credibility to your stock I guess. Not to mention you are surrounded with Dexter owners who know all the in’s and outs of what is required for showing and breeding too. I still am not that eager to do the shows as it involves a lot of work. Halter trained cows, washing the animals and not to mention shaving and oiling and who knows what else then there is to do. The transporting and travelling all over the countryside to the various shows most weekends does not appeal to me although I imagine once the bug bites its addictive. Interestingly on the series Farmers life for me, Jimmy says the same about resulting medals adding value to the breeding stock. I guess at the close of the day if you are paying your bills from the sale of your calves then maximum dollars is the aim.

A farmer’s life for me

Recently I’ve been thoroughly enjoying a series on the telly called “A farmers life for me”. Nine couples are given the opportunity to win a 25 acre farm in England. All of them are as green as the grass about farming but all have the passion and gusto to win a farm. Jimmy, a well-known friend of Jamie Oliver and who is a pig farmer himself is the judge and the jury on who to send home each week. The couples are to turn their farming experience through a series of challenges into a business to pay the bill at the end of the month. The thing he stressed the most was that farming was not so much about farming but about running a business. One of the things I took out of it was a simple statement Jimmy made at the beginning. If your farm does not pay your bills then you are only a hobby farmer. Making your farm earn money is a hard full time job and it’s been the aged old question to us here at pine haven. I can supplement our income which I am doing through the Farmstays, calve sales and eggs sales but could I survive on it? Definitely not, which brings me to thinking about how I could change that? Turning the raw products you produce into a marketable item in an unsaturated area is the goal. Sounds much more easily said than done. That is my challenge to try. Someday in the future I will be making cheese. We will have a cheese making outbuilding. Maybe then I will be able to change the title I have as a hobby farmer. Until then I plan to continue learning and growing.
This series is good viewing and I whole heartily recommend the BBC production.

Well blow me down!

Sunday afternoon we had some visitors to Pine Haven and we all took a stroll down after some lunch to see the cattle and guess what I saw? There Zulu was, suckling on Crystal. After all the effort I went through to get him extra drinks not to mention the rejection time and again and then the run to the stores for the replacement milk. Just goes to show you, nature knows best. I sighed with relief and smiled as I watched the two of them. Crystal seems content as ever and Zulu was latching on as tight as can be. So I guess the fact that we are here is actually because of the use of the weaning ring on Daisy and for no other reason. My concerns for her being upset about the thing on the end of her nose were unfounded. She still has no problem eating and has quickly adapted to having it on her face. Once again I’m reminded about how less assistance and interfering by humans, the better outcome you get. Observation and then if necessary intervention.

Snake alert – thanks spot.

Okay this season has truly been popular with snakes. The most we have seen since moving into Pine Haven. Wednesday evening while we were sitting down to eat dinner, Spot started barking hysterically. I have gotten to know that pitch and that pitch means – snake. As it was dark already I switched on the spot lights and I expected another one of the tree snakes we have seen earlier on this month but instead Spot had found a different one this time. I was almost positive it’s was a brown but I turned out to be wrong. It has a white belly and was real brown. It looks nothing like the other one. It was slow and it looked quite an old snake. According to the snake catcher it was either a keel snake (fresh water snake – harmless, or a rough scaled snake – very venomous but shy. Both been seen in Queensland. I’m leaning on the first option after I looked up both on the net for pictures. The keel back does a lot of good in fact. They seem to eat the pesky toads and seem to survive. They like moist areas and feed on rat, mice, frogs etc. With all the wet weather we have been having latterly it makes sense he would be around. When all was settled and the snake was long gone, I patted my dog and gave him the reward he so duly deserved. He was our protector more than we knew. I went to bed that night knowing we were safe from any potential harm caused by snakes as long as Spotty was around. He would alert us time and time again. I even think he would take a bite for us too. I really hope that doesn’t ever happen but it makes me feel better knowing someone is watching out for snakes for us. I’m going to have my annual pest spray next Thursday; I’m very overdue and am hoping the smell will keep the rest of the snakes at bay not to mention the toads, spiders and rest of the creepy crawlies. This summer season has been full of snake sighting.