On The Road Again

It's been quite a week. Firstly losing Pip last Saturday, then his son Frodo had some sort of stroke the same day. He became extremely weak on his left side but I treated him with some fresh grass to tempt his appetite and by Monday he was sitting up again and eating on his pellets . Tuesday he seemed a bit weak and when I came home from my art class on Wednesday afternoon he was dead. Obviously he had had another fit as his water bottle was knocked off the cage. He and his Dad are buried side by side now in the garden.

Thursday 25th September was destined to be a life changing day. Just before lunchtime my landlord knocked on my front door and told me he had bad news. Although he had told me this rental was long term he had decided to convert the farm to dairy and would need my house for his new staff. He had known he would ask me to leave for five weeks as did nearly every one else here on the farm although they were told not to say anything. He has given me until the end of January 2009 to find somewhere else to live, mid March at the latest.

Shocked and slightly devastated I rang my brother, then my friend John and then finally my friend Glenys who drove here and sat with me for a couple of hours. She has already put the word out for another place for me with her brother and neighbours. All last night I kept waking up and wondering if this was just a nightmare. The third move in two years and this time with absolutely no cash. I guess I can never say life is boring!

Toodle Pip

Pip the angora bunny came to me about eight years ago through a friend who heard that he and his mother were looking for a new home. I got quite a shock when I first saw him as he had a hairy "bobble" hanging off his nose which apparently was the result of a fight with a mini lop when he was younger. Knowing Pip as I do now he would have started it.

Pip was a very quiet calm rabbit who took life as it came without any fuss. He sired two litters of which I still have three sons, plus his three grandsons and granddaughter. A few years ago he had one testicle removed as it was enlarged and the vet thought it could be cancer. I perhaps cruelly nicknamed him "One Hung Lo" after his operation. A year later the same thing had to be done so that he was fully castrated.

Over the past few months Pip has had times when he didn't want to eat his pellets but I always enticed him again. However when I recently took his coat off I discovered he'd developed many small cancerous lumps so assumed that he was near the end of his days. A friend promised that when it was needed he would put Pip down. In the end though I didn't need to make that decision because when I went out to see him yesterday morning he was lying on his side in a coma and passed away shortly afterwards. He must have been well over ten years old.

I wish I had a better photo of him but he always scrunched himself down when I went to take a picture as if he already knew he was not the most photogenic bunny in the shed. However what he didn't have in looks he made up for with personality.

Briar's PDS Moment

In the past few weeks since I posted lambs have been born, the days are lighter and Gretel has become a jumper. During the Olympics I convinced myself that she was practising as a gymnast when she jumped up onto the top of the wooden fence by her paddock and pirouetted and tripped along the one inch of wood as if she was performing a routine on the beam. Then there was the time she decided to become a marathon runner and I found her way out on the side of the road. When I called her she galloped back, jumping the cattle stop in one single bound and boinged her way across the grass. She also discovered where the pellets were kept on the veranda so I had to move them into the wash house except it only took her one day to discover their whereabouts and I would find her trying to open the top of the bag before exploding out of the door when she realised she'd been sprung.

Then Hoggle discovered he could squeeze between the gate and the gatepost and he would join Gretel on her adventures leaving his mother to call out to him in frustration along with Heidi whose legs are too short to make the jump over the fence. But now Gretel has shown Xena Warrior Goat how to jump and every morning I look out to find they're in the big paddock with Briar or in the back yard or worse, in my garden. Poor Heidi runs up and down the fence crying until she loses her voice and the little goat becomes a little hoarse.

I am having a bad day that no amount of chocolate could put right even if I hadn't just run out. The goats were grazing the backyard as per usual when Briar realised that she knew how to push her gate open. She made a break for the paddock in front of my place chasing the ewes in order to steal their lambs before heading up the winding drive towards the road. Putting on the brakes by the cattle stop when she worked out she was too fat to jump over it and hearing my call she trotted back down the track to me. However seeing that I had left the front gate open she seizied her big opportunity and rushed onto my lawn sending chickens flying in all directions.

Hearing all the commotion the goats arrived on the lawn only to be chased by Briar who was becoming more and more wound up. She chased the cats, she chased the dog, she raced around the back of the house out to the hen house and chased the chooks. Round and round she galloped tearing up the grass, braying, sending frightened animals scampering to safety.

Finally Briar ended up in the orchard field so I shut the gate before she could escape again. When she walked towards me I slipped her halter on and attempted to lead her out of the gate. She pushed me impatiently in the chest and snorted so I let her calm down for ten minutes before leading her back into her field.

I was at a loss to know what had caused her behaviour until I remembered it was three weeks since she previously chased the ewes and tried to take their babies away. Obviously she is in season again and this afternoon was just another PDS (Premenstrual Donkey Syndrome) moment. Unfortunately donkeys can't be placated by chocolate like human females can and it's difficult to find a handsome jack in her immediate vicinity so it looks like she's just going to have to take up a hobby and watch Johnny Depp DVDs like the rest of us...