Rob and I have given homes to many animals over the years, I was once accosted by a stranger at the local IGA, “ah you’re the Noahs Ark people, so many animals in pairs at your place!” It was true!😆
2 mini- Italian Grey hounds
2 sheep (fat)
2 geese
2 turkeys
Multiple bantam chooks
Oh and a friendly peacock
Our own petting zoo.
The peacock (long gone now) would often fly up on the deck, display its magnificent feathers then shit on the hand rails and was often seen strutting up the animal- hating neighbours driveway, presumably shitting on theirs too. It also had a distinctive raucous call which Rob found charming, me not so much.
Along with the petting zoo we managed everyday life, work, home, acreage, little kids and with no family nearby the chaos was all ours (both our parents spent many long holidays with us, always such a wrench when they left😩😔)
Quite often it felt like it was all teetering a bit out of control with nasty next door neighbours adding to the problem. Why the hell they’d moved next door to US I will never know.
Their house, at the end of an easement, driveway parallel to our place was sold to them at auction. Loads of people turned up on the day.
Our two big fat sheep, Derek and Clive looked unperturbed through the fence as people trooped past, the free-range chooks scratching between their legs, the two geese honking nearby. Surely it MUST have been obvious to any buyer what they’d be moving next door to?
Apparently not.
My theory, wife was absent from the auction, hubbie purchased the house (bargain price, owners divorcing) and she, thinking she was moving to a Bridgeman Downs McMansion found she’d moved next door to Steve and Terri Irwin!
They moved in, all seemed ok, but slowly a litany of complaints came our way ……
Smells
Noises
Seedlings nibbled (oops)
Peacock visits
And worst offender, the 2am rooster crowing
We initially felt bad, aware that living next door to our Noahs Ark might be annoying so overtures were made, attempts to muffle rooster crows, replacement seedlings purchased.
The gestures were unceremoniously rejected and the rot set in.
Won’t give them any more airspace, suffice to say they eventually sold up, and (too many) year’s later, moved out.
The replacements neighbours are perfect! “We LOVE the rooster crowing!”
“Your cows are SO cute!” ❤️❤️
Our other long-standing neighbours Steve and Sylv perfect too. Steve with his practical wisdom and patience has been roped in many times to help when Rob was away.
Onto the rescues … and those not needing rescued but enthusiastically plucked from the streets anyway😆 … where do I begin?
Water- dragon Lizzie the first, found on the front door path bleeding in a bad way, brought indoors, fed, coddled and remained with us for an eternity.
Many a concussed bird flying full pelt into windows, popped into shoe- boxes, fed fragments of baby bird food on the end of a match stick.
And dogs! So many dogs caught over the years, found wandering the middle of the road or gaily galloping past our gate on adventures, big slobbery happy specimens, a fluffball pomeranian at one point and repeat offender, Hilda, a neighbours elderly mutt.
“Hilda’s prancing round the yard again, come and get her!”
Somehow it always brings a frisson of excitement to our family this rescuing of animals then chatting to the owners when they collect.
Often we’ve had to catch and rescue our OWN beasts, bring them back to the fold.
Before the epic story of runaway Sally the cow https://midwifenursehobbyfarmer.com/the-runaway-cow/ were two geese, (still going strong living happily with a mate on her huge property) Rob brought them home, opened the big cardboard box and peered in. The geese jumped out, stretched their huge wings … and flew off …. awaaay off into the distance 😂
Rob noting the general direction of flight, bolted out the gate and somehow found them in the woods nearby, eventually trooping home a bedraggled, flapping goose under each arm.
Onto George’s near miss.
Barry, another bull (small in size but still about 180kgs) had escaped to neighbours across the road, running under the storm water drain.
Here we go again! 😩
Thank gawd it was a weekend, Rob and George trooped over to the neighbours and began the rescue operation, encouraging Baz to run back through the drain but he wasn’t keen, not at all.
The usual methods were tried, ineffectual hay waving, him eyeballing it and charging on by, Rob laugh/ cursing, “come on you little shit!”
Rob is ridiculously fearless when it comes to animals, especially helping when they’re in distress but he sometimes comes off the worse for wear!
His track record includes picking up a bat 🤦♀️🤦♀️ in France, (before I met him) being bitten and needing rabies injections.
An arm almost pulled out of it’s socket bringing another bull back from the cranky neighbours
Carpet Pythons tourniqueting themselves round his arm, which I had to TOUCH to start the unwinding process!! Given him the odd bite too😩
An injured possum on the road, lifted into the back of the Landrover for pouch checking. No pouch but an angry snarly male with large testicles who proceeded to scrape the crap out of his arms. Can’t say I enjoyed being confined in the front seat while that was happening.
My job and natural personality is in risk mitigation, I always say “what did you expect!”
He encouraged this level of bravery from our two lads growing up, and for the most part they’ve been totally up for it, joining in with the exploits of their Steve Irwin ( remember what happened to him?😳) like dad and if not joining in, enjoying the adrenaline rush of watching him
“you’ll be fine”
“it’s a TINY (180kg) cow, can’t hurt you”
“It’s not venomous, you’ll be ok”
“Pick it up, quick! Won’t bite you”
“Oooow!!!“ it did
Back to the bull rescue, I stayed in the garden, didn’t want to see my my child king-hit or Rob gored by big Barry’s substantial horns. Had the vision in my head already of Rob slumped, blood dripping, child lying on the ground, skull cracked.
Anyway catastrophic thoughts aside, unbeknownst to me after fruitless attempts and everyone getting fed up someone had come up with a plan. Speedy George was to be used as bull bait, make himself a target
Next I spotted him sprinting like a Spanish bull runner across the paddock heading for the stormwater drain entrance, hurtling through panicky laughing, Barry charging behind.
But we didn’t realise, the recent storm hadn’t washed away the whole barricade, didn’t realise a wire was still strung tightly across the entrance till it almost garroted George. He bolted through, “boing!” it caught him on the bridge of the nose, down he went, jumped up as quick and made it through in the nick of time😩
Rob sprang over the fence above, sprinted across the road, more gallopy chaos ensued, me shouting at Ben “STAY ON THE DECK!” till Baz was confined.
Coming up, the reptiles 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍