Wednesday 24 July 2013

'Maggie! Not me, the goats you dumb @&*$'

So that little goat I saved yesterday? Yup. Dead as a door nail this morning. Alongside him another weedy white one was bent double and fitting so she was given the same treatment as my pal yesterday whilst I fed all the others. On my way to the burning pile I came across a lost little one screeching in a way I haven't come across yet. I have called her Celine.

Today was Charlie's last day and passed much the same as the other two but with Alex in residence Chris and Ayrlie didn't come round. 
Alex is the most outback aussie I've met since being here. he has an off roading ute, is a jackaroo on a sheep and cattle station that is 300km from its nearest village, arrived with a swag and 3 dogs, wears an aussie hat and has various useful knives and stuff in various leather sheaths...and a very broad Scottish accent.  One of the dogs came from here and he's trying to train her as a 'stock dog' (that's sheep dog for not just sheep to those of us not in the know) and hearing an angry scot swearing loudly at his disobedient pooch was pretty funny.   When we got back to the house around 4 - surprise! - the power was out. Apparently there has been a dispute with the electric company for a while and a  'miscommunication' meant we had been cut off!  Alex, being a man of the outback, had a trangia so I channeled my inner Duke of Edinburgh awardee and heated up the kids milk so they wouldn't go to bed hungry - losing a goat a day is not something I want to continue and it has become something of a personal mission to keep them alive!

Darkness fell so we sat around the fire and a couple of candles when Shannon arrived. Now Shannon was mildly terrifying. He had turned up to go spotlighting and shoot foxes with fake Aussie Alex but the lack of power meant he couldn't charge the spotlight battery and Shannon joined us. He is a big, gruff Aussie who, prior to working in the sewers, worked in an abattoir. We were entertained with stories of both as he swigged beer and talked about his children like they were puppies. I am sure he is perfectly nice and he was quite funny but he's the type of guy who you can imagine saying 'call that a knife??' and in my current surroundings I am a little less brave than perhaps I usually am. 

The power man came about 8pm to fix the electricity and we once again had light and a tap that worked. And my electric blanket. Oh hooray 

Today's nugget of joy: apparently Murrabit and surrounds is where they rehome crims and paedos because it is far away from civilisation....

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