Friday My Town Shoot Out - Domestic Animals

Welcome to my Friday "My Family Domestic Animals" shoot out. Thank you, Sandy for the theme!

Two out of the three cats in our family have been gifts from me to other family members. About five years ago my daughter suggested I might like to give her daughter, Jami, a kitten for Christmas. I traipsed around the SPCA places and at one of them a little grey kitten chose me to go home with. Lucy stayed with me for a couple of weeks until Christmas, so when the time came for her to go home with Jami I was a little sad.

Say hello to Lucy:

Lola was found abondoned in a quarry by a girl I worked with, just before Christmas. She was very tiny, about 6 weeks old, and had no tail. Around that time my younger daughter had been saying how they were going to get a kitten and I knew she would adore this little thing that had been thrown on the scrap heap. Lola has become the most indulged pet I've ever had contact with. She comes to visit and goes on holidays!

Making sure she's not left behind

Lola and my grand-daughters old kitten, Mimsy, size each other up in my garden.

Lulu is the latest addition to my son's family here on the farm. She often comes to visit with the grand-daughters, stuck down the front of a shirt or carried in a school bag.

She's still at the kitten stage and is very playful

Now meet this family of chooks. Mother and chicks - doesn't she look so proud?

Proud father struts his stuff!

Ruffled feathers still look lovely, I think:

Dogs are my favourite domestic animal. Here's my Lewey, my best mate, an Australian Blue Heeler, and a something unknown cross. He was found in Auckland, living out of garbage cans and after a few false starts, eventually found his way to me. He used to be absolutely terrified of men but is pretty much over that fear now although he will still slink away looking totally dejected if i growl at him at all. He's getting old now and whereas he was quite red when he was young, he's now faded to an orange-ish/pinky colour, a bit weird to be honest. But if I catch him at the right angle and in good light, he still looks like a fine cattle dog.

Lewey's best mate is not one of the other catttle dogs on the farm but Sam, who is Georgia's litle pet.

My other favourite dogs, Brose and Lass, belong to my friend, Chris.
This is Brose..... Heaven is the touch of Chris' hand..

Lass rests in the shade of a tree after a hard day at work.

I know a lamb is a bit of a stretch as a domestic animal but pet lambs usually think they are part of their adoptive family. Des (don't ask me to explain the name choosing process) follows Georgia when she comes to visit and protests loudly when he is made to stay outside on the deck.

My last photo is of Mene, a lovely little cat who died a few weeks ago and who I miss a lot.

I'm proud of myself for managing a one-armed shoot out. I've been using my left hand to move the mouse and you'd be surprised how stupid my left hand is. It has great difficulty working out the difference between left and right, is always right clicking when my brain has clearly sent it the message to left click. But I think we are making progress, so I'm hoping to get around to visit everyone else's blogs over the weekend.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Voices in the Night

A recent post by GB reminded me of a night several years ago, when I was living at Tapora. My house was set quite a distance back from the road and had a beach access track that ran through the farm passing close to it. The access track was only meant to be for walking but my son didn't mind people taking vehicles through the farm as long as they left the gates as they found them. The nearest neighbour's house was several hundred metres away, behind a shelter belt of trees.

One night, around 2 am my dog woke me with his barking. It wasn't a bark that alarmed me, not a 'hello stranger' or 'hello person I don't like' bark. Closer to his 'get off my patch' bark that he kept for any bird that landed on a fence close to him or any rabbit that crossed his line of sight.

His kennel was about 20 metres from the house, beside a farm equipment shed. So I yelled at him to be quiet. But he didn't, he just kept at it. Another yell, louder and more impatient, same result. I gave up trying to get back to sleep, got up, turned on the light and went to the back door where he would be able to see me by the light within. I spoke to him but could not quieten him. Finally I went out to him, asking him nicely what was the matter.

When I touched him he quietened for a fraction of a second before starting up again. He was pulling at the end of the chain and trying to go in the direction of the beach. I was getting quite annoyed with him by this time so spoke harshly to him and he stopped and sat at my feet whimpering unhappily.

But he was quiet enough for me to pick up the sound of mens' voices. I turned to look through the dark in the direction they were coming from and could see the lights of a vehicle shining up out of a dip in the access road. Then I heard, "Shhhh. Shhhh", mumbled mens' voices then the most amazing mens' giggles. Yes giggles. A bit more Shhhh-ing, hushed voices, I thought I heard my name mentioned, more giggles, then the vehicle started up and continued on its way out to the beach.

The access track to the beach

I really wanted to know what had happened down the track that night. I imagined a few mates going out fishing, something funny happening just down the track past my house, they stopped and were having a laugh about it when they heard Lewey barking and saw my light come on. I could imagine them saying, "Shhhh, we've woken Pauline up." but I couldn't imagine what that something might have been.

Tapora was a very small community and I asked around but there was no gossip circulating about that night.

It remains a mystery. And I'm fine with that. Except I know there is one funny story out there that I've missed out on. And I'm not fine with that.