Delinquency Amongst the Livestock

I lost my goats! Two weeks ago we had a terrific storm which caused the dining room windows to leak, lifted up Toby's old goat house from its position in the paddock and threw it through the fence into the backyard (no mean feat as it's really heavy) as well as lifting off the rubbish bin lid and smashing it into a sculpture I'm working on (it improved it). Branches crashed down, the rain fell sideways and sheep were nearly blown up into the hills. So then Xena Warrior Goat decided to go walkabout.

At first she would march across the lawn, hop over the front fence with the others trotting behind. They would frequently graze up on the road and Airini and Andrew would shoo them back. However every day they would return for their pellets and a pat. Until nearly two weeks ago when I tried to tie Xena up in the small paddock to stop her wandering. She managed to get off her rope and took the others away.

For nearly a week I had no news. I asked Airini to keep an eye out, the mailman (who thought it a huge joke), I even rang a next door neighbour I hadn't yet met in case they'd wandered into their garden. It wasn't until a week ago while I was looking for them near the farm shed that I got some news when I came upon Andrew tinkering with a tractor.
"Lost yer goats?" he laughed. Yes well I had sort of mislaid them. Turned out they were grazing in a gully filled with blackberry on the farm next door. He assured me they would come home, wagging their tails behind them. More likely with an irate farmer on their trail threatening to shoot them I thought.

By this week I was really worried so I rang Andrew's wife Charlotte who suggested I ring the neighbours again. This time I was lucky as they had definitely been seen on their farm and the owner offered to round them up and shut them in a small paddock where I could collect them. However this morning I heard Andrew swearing at his dogs out the front and sure enough he had brought my delinquent kids home.

Soon as he left they jumped the fence and began heading up the drive until I rattled their pellet pot which brought them running. I tied Xena back near the woodshed with three knots this time and gave them food as they seemed to be very thin, wet and shivery. Late this afternoon I sat with them for half an hour, petting Gretel and trying to stop Hoggle headbutting very relieved they were home at last.

Progress is a word that strikes me with fear. It usually means noise, trouble plus the cutting down of large trees. Centerlines have been working along the road for a couple of weeks cutting trees in the way of power lines. This week several ancient macrocarpa trees to the right of the house were chopped down. To enable this Andrew pulled down the fence which meant Briar got out so I have had her grazing in here all week (the garden has had a nervous breakdown. Now a series of stark grey powerlines are marching across her paddock to where I assume the cowshed will be built. I guess I am more the greenie treehugger than I thought I was as a tree is much more valuable to me than the sight of a concrete pole. It reminds me of the poem which I think goes
"I guess that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree
In fact unless the billboards fall
I'll never see a tree at all!"