THIS IS MY FATHER
My father was a soldier in World War l. He and his younger brother joined up as Light Horsemen and went to Egypt in 1915 to finish their training. They did not wear emu feathers on their hats like most of the regiments. They were the 6th Light Horse Regiment and the only ones to wear a band of wallaby fur round their hats. A book was written about them and their exploits called “Under Furred Hats”.
We won’t talk about my earlier life. We’ll start when I was deposited on the farm like a parcel being delivered. I was not happy about this because I was a “lost” cat, an abandoned cat, an injured cat!
In my ‘lost’ and injured state I struggled to a stranger’s door. They fed me and took me to the vet as my tail was badly injured. By the way, that’s how I got my new name. “Bobbie” because I now had a bobtail. During my convalescence I overheard my saviours planning to ‘move me on’. I was distraught at the idea of again being ‘taken on sufferance’.
Delivery day arrived and I was transported many miles and introduced to my new owner who was asked to take me ‘on approval’. If I hadn’t been so upset I’d have had a lot to say about that.
There’s one thing about living on a farm. There is always something to do, either fixing up, setting up or clearing up. A four-letter word sums it all up – busy! Let me tell you about what happened here over a few days. The two flocks of sheep needed to be fed. It’s winter here and naturally-growing food is scarce in the paddocks (fields) so hand-feeding is the order of the day. We feed cut lucerne and sheep pellets/nuts at least twice a week. So, over the last few days I loaded the lucerne onto the truck with buckets of sheep nuts and headed out with two gates to open – and shut. Read more
This week I have been very busy. I drove about one hundred kilometres to the east coast to visit friends. We hadn’t seen one another for a very long time so the meeting was eagerly awaited as we had so much to talk about.Two years ago, one of the friends had saved my life while we were visiting Turkey. A run-away car hit me, throwing me 10 metres on my face. I re-gained consciousness a week later, with lots of injuries, hallucinating on pain killers and my friend at my bedside. She is very special. Read more
Today I inspected the orchard. I have planted 7 new fruit trees to fill in between the established trees. Soon the new growth will be shooting as the weather gets warmer. I added a peach, an apricot, a quince, a fig, a nectarine and a mulberry. The seventh tree was a walnut which I planted in another spot outside the orchard. Some trees already established are several apples, pears and plums and nashis.